“Forget Faith,” Tristan said when he caught Ricky looking at him. “We need to focus on taking down Van Doren.”
Their limo drove down Main Street, passing Floyd’s bar where he played guitar and worked as a bartender. Ricky took a picture of it with his iPhone. Tristan pulled out his own phone and opened a new note in an app.
“Ricky, we need a plan. Ricky. Hey! Are you listening, man?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Look, you’ve got to take this seriously.”
Ricky snapped another picture. “What’s the big deal? We won’t make as much as Eastman Foods, so it’s not worth it to fight it out. This one is personal to you, is what it is. Don’t ever let it be personal. This is about business, not your ex.”
“Like I said, forget her. Van Doren is a company just like every other. We’ve taken down stubborn ones in the past.” Tristan took his sunglasses off. “Here, I’ve already started coming up with a plan.”
“Classic Tristan. Didn’t let that hot girl get you down.”
Tristan scoffed. “Of course not. Pay attention, will you?”
“All right.” Ricky clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Let’s get a sandwich and go back to try to convince them again.”
“That wouldn’t work. No, we need to go about this another way.” Tristan tapped the sunglasses against his temple. “Hmmm. I say we convince both the owner and Faith that, instead of taking over Van Doren, we want to . . . upgrade it.”
“What? I don’t get it.”
“Oh Ricky, this’ll be good. I’ll just put a whole bunch of money into upgrading all that old-fashioned Van Doren equipment. Spruce up the place.”
“It sure as hell needs it.” Ricky wiped dust off his shoes. “So dirty.”
“Then, step two? Convince that old farmer Cubby to retire. Send him off to the Caribbean with a sweet bonus.” Tristan grinned gleefully. “With him out of the way, I’ll just buy Faith off. That will give us the company.”
“I don’t know, Tris. She’s a spitfire.”
“It’s a challenge,” Tristan said airily. “But I’m ready for it. Bring it on.”
“Alright. When that works and Van Doren is ours, then we’ll just sell it off,” Ricky concluded. “Since we already upgraded it, we’ll get a bigger profit. Genius, man. Really.”
“This plan is foolproof. In less than two weeks my friend, we’ll be walking away with a tidy chunk of change to show for our efforts.”
“Yep. We’ve just gotta make more money than we put into upgrading it.”
“No problem.”
No problem at all. None that Tristan could see. All he had to do now was gain Faith’s trust. How much money would it take? Didn’t matter. At some point, she’d take his offer.
He’d never met anyone who didn’t.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Faith still hadn’t come up with any plan to confront Tristan. She hadn’t slept well. Her morning checks on the factory floor brought more than one chagrined look from Cubby. She tripped on an electrical cord. She dropped her clipboard, twice. On top of all that, Lucy woke up from under the office desk and kept pacing and whining. Ugh! Okay, where was the normal Faith Gilchrist, with her strong work ethic and natural leadership ability?
This was the Tristan effect. That’s what this was.
After listening to her little canine pal whine for several minutes, Faith took the dog out. There was a patchy spot of grass next to the parking lot where she liked to answer nature’s call.
“Come on, girl,” Faith said.
She reached for her smartphone. Maybe Lucy needed to see the vet? She was never this antsy. But at last, the bulldog squatted. Faith exhaled loudly. She needed to pull herself together and quick. She was freaking out over stupid stuff.
Suddenly, a sleek black limousine drove into the parking lot. Faith held her breath. Here we go. The limo parked and out came Tristan Booker like he was stepping onto a red carpet. He looked even more stunning than yesterday, and this time he was alone. Faith was instantly on her guard. Tristan carried a large bottle of red wine and walked right over to her. Lucy got all excited and barked for a bit.
“Good morning,” he greeted. “What a fine day it is. I’ve brought a peace offering to settle over any hard feelings from yesterday.”
He held out the bottle of wine. Faith gripped Lucy’s leash and didn’t take it. He grinned.
“Also, I have a second offer. I’d like to take you out for a nice dinner.”
“Out of the question.”
“I’ll pay, of course. When was the last time you had a very nice meal?”
“Last night,” she smirked. “I’m a hell of a cook.”
“Indeed. I’ve no doubt. That offer for dinner will be open until you take it.”
He paused, looking her up and down. Instead of her regular work outfit, she’d decided to spiff herself up to look more professional. Her hair was curled, she wore her nicest suit, and she’d traded her boots for a pair of heels. She was sure he found her attractive, because she’d seen that look in his eyes plenty of times before. That was many, many years ago when they were dating.
Now those same eyes were right there, looking at her again.
“Why did you come back?” she asked. “You know I’m just going to turn you down again.”
“You turned down my offer to buy Van Doren. But you haven’t heard my second offer.” He gestured towards the building. “Picture how nice Van Doren could look. New siding, new windows, new floor, new machines. And what about new equipment? No more squeaky parts or things that break down.”
She folded her arms. “What are you getting at?”
“I’ve become very successful, Faith. And, I want to put that success toward Van Doren. Not to buy it, but to upgrade it.”
She stiffened. He sounded insincere. She didn’t trust this side of him, and she had plenty of reason not to.
“Tristan, I don’t believe you at all. You told me back in high school I was the love of your life and you’d never leave. But you did. You left me and you left Chelsea. Just go back to New York and forget about Van Doren. There’s nothing for you here in this town that’s worth remembering.”
“We don’t have a good history,” he admitted. “That’s true. I moved on and you stayed. If you want to talk about that, I would love to do so over dinner.”
“No way.” She shook her head. “I’m not going back to the past. I don’t know why you want to.”
“Because maybe it was better than you remember.”
“But not so good that you’d decide to keep in touch. Right. Don’t you have your firm to go back to? You need to leave me and leave Van Doren alone.”
Suddenly, the Van Doren company door burst open and a young man rushed out to the parking lot. It was Charlie, one of the factory floor workers.
“Faith? Faith!” he called. “You need to get in here. One of the stitchers is locking up, again.”
Good, Faith thought. This gave her a perfect reason to end this thing with Tristan once and for all.
“Well,” she said, “I don’t suppose we’ll see each other again. Have a nice trip back to New York.”
Before she gave him the satisfaction of replying, she turned on her heel and headed right back inside Van Doren with Lucy to do what she did best:
Her job.
She sure wasn’t making this easy.
Tristan didn’t expect her to be bought off with wine or dinner. She was more stubborn than he remembered. She’d had no problem shoving their sour history right in his face.
But God, he couldn’t stop looking at her. Dressed in a better outfit, she was way hotter than yesterday, especially with the morning sunlight in her hair. Beautiful woman. Smart, too. His normal bag of tricks wouldn’t work on her.
“Stick to the plan,” he muttered under his breath.
Step one was to upgrade Van Doren so he could get a bigger profit when he sold it. And with an equipment failure, here was a perfect oppo
rtunity. Leaving the wine in the limo, he stuck his hands in his pockets and casually strolled inside the company.
It was unusually silent. All the sewing machines, cutting machines, and mechanical equipment had come to a screeching halt. The workers gathered around one of the sewing machines, which had been pulled out to the center of the factory floor. From where Tristan stood, he could clearly see the machine was totally broken. A large crack ran right through its metal body. And no wonder. The thing looked at least fifty years old.
Off to the side, Cubby was on the phone with the manufacturer, trying to buy spare parts. Disgusted, he hung up.
“They don’t sell these anymore,” he grumbled.
The workers groaned. Faith had her clipboard out, her brow furrowed and her pencil twitching as she wrote.
“If we can’t meet our production costs, we’ll go into a deficit for the month of October,” she said to Cubby. “It’s not a loss I previously calculated. We need that machine repaired.”
Tristan cleared his throat. All eyes turned towards him.
“What about replaced?”
Cubby frowned. “Sonny, we’re busy right now.”
Tristan took a second to look around the factory floor. He counted twenty sewing machines, each an old dinosaur of a metal contraption. The workers were each looking back at him with confused expressions.
“Mr. Brennan, I want to buy you a complete set of brand-new industrial sewing machines. Today.”
The workers gasped. Cubby was surprised, too. Faith wasn’t impressed at all. Tristan knew she wouldn’t like that offer.
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Cubby said. “It’s over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Not a big expense to me.” Tristan pulled out his iPad. Within seconds, he’d researched on Google and found an industrial sewing machine dealer. “Watch this.”
Three taps on the screen, and it was done. Tristan Booker had just plunked a hundred thousand dollars down on new machines. The effect this had on the workers was extraordinary. All of their faces lit up with astonishment.
“Mr. Booker — ”
“Now, Cubby,” Tristan said, “it’s all done and paid for. The internet is a beautiful thing. Looks like you’ll meet your numbers for September after all. Consider it a gift.”
A few workers clapped and some cheered. In less than ten minutes, what had been a major catastrophe was completely solved. Tristan grinned, flashing that movie star smile. See, this is what made being a billionaire so awesome. He could fix any problem just by throwing a little cash around. Now these workers were practically eating out of his hand, they were so grateful for what he’d done to help their jobs. This upgrading project would be easier than he thought.
It also seemed he’d won over Cubby. The old farmer told Faith to stay on the factory floor and supervise production in his absence, while he beckoned for Tristan.
“You said you want that meeting, sonny?”
Tristan noticed Faith glaring at him, but he couldn’t be happier. Score a victory.
“Absolutely, sir. I’ll follow you.”
Once inside the main office with the door closed, Tristan pulled out all the stops. He’d spent last night rehearsing exactly what he’d say to Cubby, and he was prepared with charts and plans on his iPad. He laid out clearly what he planned to do for Van Doren, from not just upgrading equipment, but giving the entire vintage warehouse building a complete makeover. It was expensive, at least from Cubby’s standpoint. But Tristan had a different financial perspective. He could well afford to spend a few million to gain hundreds of millions.
“And that’s that,” Tristan concluded. “Oh, and I’m setting a two-week deadline. This will all be completed by Friday, the fifth of October.”
Cubby scratched the back of his neck. “You New Yorkers sure do move quick.”
“Time is money, sir. A cliché, but true. So, what do you say? You saw how quickly I bought those new sewing machines. The rest of this upgrade project will be just as quick. No investment on your part, either.”
Once Cubby saw the actual sales receipts for the new sewing machines, that convinced him. Tristan had already produced a paper contract, which he took out of his suit jacket and presented to the Van Doren CEO. When he saw that signature, Tristan felt like belting out into song. He hadn’t felt this good since coming back to Chelsea.
Step one of his master plan was in the bag.
The two men came out of the office, Tristan puffed up like a satisfied rooster. Cubby called a meeting of everyone, including Faith. Tristan winked at her from across the room. But she just folded her arms and sneered back at him. She had no idea what was in store for her stupid little company.
Tristan took great pride in being there while Cubby announced the entire factory would be getting a complete upgrade. The workers were really pleased. They applauded and shook Tristan’s hand like they’d just elected a beloved official. Tristan soaked up all the attention and basked in their praise.
“I want those new sewing machines here as fast as possible,” Cubby said. “Faith, give them a call.”
She got on the phone with the sewing machine dealer, but the news she had after she got off the phone wasn’t good.
“They’re down a few guys,” she explained. “They won’t be able to deliver them here until Monday the first.”
“Hmm. Guess we won’t meet those September numbers after all,” Cubby sighed.
Tristan saw another opportunity for his assistance and jumped on it. He pulled up the sewing machine dealer on his iPad. It was only a ninety-minute drive away in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
“Say, Cubby? My schedule is free. I’ll rent a U-Haul or something, drive to this sewing machine dealer, load up the machines, and bring them back here. It’s ten in the morning right now, so there’s enough time to get back here before five. You’ll get all twenty new machines delivered today.”
He smiled. Cubby was pleased that their production costs would only suffer a loss of hours, rather than days.
“Alright, Mr. Booker. Nice having a billionaire do things around here for a change.”
Which just made Faith even madder. She’d kept her mouth shut about Tristan upgrading and interfering with her company. But Tristan knew how angry she was. His ultimate goal was to buy this place from her, so he had to stay in her good graces. Which was no doubt why he then suggested to Cubby that she join him on this little road trip.
“Cubby,” Faith protested, “my help isn’t needed. Why don’t you send Jack or one of the other workers? I’m needed a lot more right here to help keep production going.”
“That’s my job, Faith.” Cubby nodded firmly. “No one better than you to represent Van Doren when you pick up the stitchers. We’ll do just fine for the day. I’ll even watch your dog.”
Score another for Tristan. This morning, he felt like a star quarterback, calling plays and making perfect throws. It was all falling into place. Faith had received a direct order from her boss, so she had no other excuses.
Now he’d get to spend the day with her. Alone.
Chapter 7
Tristan had little idea his plan would work so well so quickly, but that was the beauty of small town living. Just a bit of a shake-up in the status quo, and everybody was onboard, simply because they’d been doing the same boring thing over and over for too many years. Tristan couldn’t stand same-old, same-old, and he thrived on change.
He also thrived on competition. He’d certainly found it in the woman sitting next to him in the limo. On their way to the truck rental place, he kept his eyes right on her, refusing to look away. She rose to the challenge of looking back at him square in the eye, with a strength that definitely turned him on. He liked dating the best women, and this woman could definitely fit the bill.
“I see now why you came back to Chelsea,” she said. “It’s to brag, isn’t it? About all of your accomplishments. To rub them in my face and everybody else who stayed here.”
Tristan leaned back
in his limo seat. “Don’t assume you know anything about me, Faith. You might have years ago, but not now. My intentions are genuine for Van Doren.”
“Hardly.” She broke eye contact and looked out the window. “You won’t make that much of a profit off Van Doren after you buy it. You came back for personal reasons, not business ones.”
“You think you’re so smart to have figured me all out? I don’t think so.”
“I do.” She glared at him again. “I see right through this game you’re playing. You say you’re upgrading, but I think you’re doing that just so you can sell it for a higher price.”
Tristan kept his smile, but she’d shocked him. Damn, she was quite the opponent to see through what he was doing immediately. He couldn’t let her know she was right.
“I remember when we dated, how you loved being right all the time,” he said as the limo pulled into the truck rental parking lot. “Faith hates being wrong or making mistakes. Everything has to be just so perfect.” “At least my standards are higher than yours.”
“You think you’re such a big shot as a COO of that tiny company? Come to New York some time.”
“I have no intention of going to New York. I’m happy at Van Doren.” She leaned forward. “And I will fight you for this every step of the way.”
Tristan liked this. A lot. He saw her blush a bit as she argued with him. Keep trying your best Faith, he thought. I will always win.
At the truck rental place, Tristan picked out a brand new 2019 sapphire blue Sprinter van with plenty of bed space for a ton of machines. He paid for the rental, then scooped up the keys and headed over to the vehicle. But he was stopped short when Faith stood in front of the driver’s side door.
“I’m driving,” she said. “Give me the keys.”
“No way. This baby’s mine.”
“I’ll bet you haven’t driven a van in years. Do you even drive in New York? Remember that I’m the country girl here.”
He thought about it for a second, then handed the keys over. These small steps would lead to her trusting him.
Rekindled: A Billionaire Second Chance Romance (Lost Love Book 3) Page 6