Conquest of the Heart

by R. J. Dillon

  He cleared his throat. “Who pissed you off this morning?”

  She whipped around and glared at him. If looks could kill, he would surely have been dead at that moment. “No, let me ask that again. Who are you going to kill this morning?”

  “I need coffee,” she angrily said. “I can’t go to our meeting like this.”

  “Who’ve you been talking to? Did something happen at home? Did someone cut you off this morning on your way in? I mean, I don’t even get this kind of rise out of you. What happened?”

  Faith just looked at him with fire in her eyes. “If she talks to me again, she’s fired.”

  That was all she had to say. Gavin knew that Chandler had been there. ‘Damn it!’ he thought.

  Faith grabbed her purse and started walking towards her door before pausing, “You comin’?”

  Gavin didn’t know if it was safe. If he didn’t go, she would kill him. If he went with her, she would kill him. “Um, if I go with you, do you promise not to kill me?”

  She chuckled. “I’m sorry. I promise. The fresh air will calm me down.”

  They walked out together, heading towards the nearest Starbucks. Agnes watched as they left the office. ‘This is something positive,’ she thought.

  When they returned, Gavin thought it would be a good idea for the two of them to discuss their schedule for the week.

  “We will be in meetings all day, every day this week, which means we’ll have to work evenings to prepare for next week. You were anticipating that, correct?”

  “Yes I was. Three nights, right? Will Carter be joining us?”

  “Again, Carter will cover the promotions side of things on his own.”

  “Would you like to tell me what’s going on with the two of you? It can’t be me.”

  “Honestly, it is you. But I’m not prepared to discuss why.”

  “A fight would be worth more your while if you were actually going to get something out of it. Neither of you will get anything from me.”

  “Maybe he won’t, but I will,” Gavin smiled with confidence.

  “Just because you have a little bit of information about me that no one else does, doesn’t mean it’s going to work to your advantage.”

  “I beg to differ. You’re strong, but you’re not that strong. I don’t care who you are, there is no way that you’ll be able to resist me for too much longer. You’ll give in.”

  Faith rolled her eyes. “Who brought this up anyway?”

  “You did,” Gavin chuckled. He noticed she was becoming uncomfortable, which was good for him. Perhaps she was beginning to break.

  “On a different note, can we talk about what happened this morning, that is, if you’ve calmed down enough to talk about it?”

  “No,” Faith said flatly.

  “Okay, how about, I’m your boss, and I want you to talk to me about it?” Gavin needed to know how this would impact her work.

  “What can I say Gavin? The woman is over the top in love with you, and she seems to think I’m standing in the way.”

  “She’s not in love with me, she’s in love with my money,” Gavin said sternly. “What happened?”

  Faith sighed, “Her first mistake was knocking on the door. When she came in……” Faith explained the morning’s event. Gavin grew angrier with every detail.

  “That’s it. You found me cussing her out shortly after that.” Faith looked at the clock on her phone and said, “We need to get going to the meeting.” She stood and gathered everything she would need. Gavin went to his office to get his portfolio.

  Along with Carter, they continued their work on the expansion project. As expected, Carter came prepared to add his information regarding the promotional prospects and potential activities of the cities. Today, they would be discussing Boston and Phoenix. Their morning meeting was very productive and didn’t take all morning as they had originally anticipated. Gavin decided to cover both cities in one meeting. Neither Faith nor Carter disagreed with this.

  Carter was noticing that Faith looked exceptionally beautiful today. ‘Gavin thinks he can keep her all to himself. Well, he’s sadly mistaken,’ he thought. He had come up with a way to get her out to lunch without Gavin finding out.

  Once they concluded their reviews, Gavin stood back for a minute, looking over the notes he had written on the white board. He turned to face them before speaking. He had a proud look on his face.

  “Great job you two. I can see you’ve both worked really hard.” He already knew Faith had been working hard because he had been with her the entire time. He was more impressed with Carter. Carter had completed his tasks and some. “Carter, you did a fantastic job with your data research. I’m impressed with how much you were able to find.”

  Faith looked at Carter and said jokingly, “Now who’s the pretty one?” They all laughed, thinking back to the first meeting that they had. ‘She’s flirting with me. She might just like me better than Gavin,’ he thought, completely twisting the situation.

  Gavin looked at Faith, not caring about Carter, “That doesn’t change how I feel about you. I haven’t lost focus.”

  Without skipping a beat, Faith chimed, “But now I have competition,” looking at Carter playfully. They all chuckled again, and Gavin calmed them down.

  “Alright, alright,” he smiled. “Well, our afternoon for today is free. This will give us all a chance to get a jump on next week, which is our final week before we turn our list of twenty cities into six. As you both know, we’ll be planning two week trips to each city. We’ll be meeting with potential clients, visiting potential building sites for the company, and basically taking in the atmosphere. These trips will not be a time of play,” he said, this time looking at Carter. Carter shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘What?’ “Our days will be packed with activities, but at night, there will be a little more free time. Just like a normal weekday. Weekends will be free as well. I’m looking forward to getting away from New York for a little bit. How about you?”

  “I haven’t been in New York that long,” said Faith. “But it will be good to get away from the office.” Gavin knew exactly what she was referring to after her adventurous morning.

  “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go on any of the trips with you guys. My schedule was already booked before this project started. I guess we’ll see,” said Carter.

  Gavin knew Carter’s schedule was tight, which meant that most of the trips would just involve himself and Faith. That didn’t bother him one bit. Gavin grinned and said, “You’ll join us when you can.”

  Carter could see behind that smile. There was nothing he could do about his schedule. Carter smiled back, thinking, ‘That’s okay. You just keep on smiling. You won’t be smiling when you find out that Faith wants me and not you.’

  “Okay, well, I guess that wraps us up for today. We’ll plan to meet all day tomorrow unless something changes.”

  They all nodded and began to collect their things on that note. Gavin had two things to do. One, he needed to get the notes to Agnes to add to the previous week’s. Two, he needed to speak with Chandler. Carter, on the other hand, was going to lunch with Faith, only she didn’t know it yet.

  As they left, Gavin asked Faith, “Shall we meet this afternoon? You know, to work on the outlines for next week.”

  “Um hum. I was planning on it. I’ll see you later,” as she proceeded to her office.

  Carter walked to Lauren’s office. She had just gotten off of the phone.

  “Hey there. I thought I’d stop by and see if you wanted to go to lunch. You don’t get out enough.”

  “You know, our HR activities just increased about fifty percent. We’ve been swamped. We’re going to be even busier once the expansion project goes through.”

  “All the more reason to get out for an hour,” he said. He waited patiently for her to think about it.

  “Okay, sure. Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know. You pick.” He paused as if to be deep in thought. “
Hey, why don’t you call Faith and see if she wants to go? Didn’t you say you wanted to get together again with her?”

  “Just us girls, Carter.”

  “Oh, well, this will be the exception.”

  “No worries. I’ll call her. What time?”

  “Let’s try to beat the lunch crowd. Eleven thirty?”

  “Okay. We’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  Lauren picked up the phone to call Faith as Carter left. Carter had a devious smile on his face, knowing that he had just gone behind Gavin’s back, and against his warnings.

  About a half an hour later, they all met in the lobby and left for lunch. Carter tried several times to hint at taking Faith out for a date. Both ladies ignored it, and spent most of the hour getting to know more about each other. With that, Carter became a tagalong, which was okay with him. For now, he enjoyed listening to, and staring at, Faith. It was nice to be around her, even if it meant that Lauren had to be there.

  As they were walking back to the office after eating, Carter again tried to bring up going on a date.

  “Faith, I would really like to take you to a movie or something when things with the project settle down a little bit. What do you think?”

  Faith glanced at Lauren for a second, before answering. “Why don’t we revisit that when the project is over, okay?” Like she had told Gavin, she wasn’t looking to date or sleep with anyone.

  Lauren said, “Carter, give her a break. She’s only been here for a few weeks. Since when did you start asking colleagues out? This is not like you.”

  “Well,” he said, first looking at Lauren, “Faith is different.” He then looked and smiled at Faith.

  “Down boy,” snapped Lauren. “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know her. For now, give her some space.”

  Faith looked over at Lauren and mouthed the words ‘thank you’. Faith was looking forward to spending more time getting to know her. She hadn’t had a chance to get to know anyone else since she had started except for Gavin. All he wanted to do was tell her how she would soon give in to his advances, so really she didn’t know much about him either.

  “Okay, okay.” He looked at Faith again and said, “Think about it, alright?”

  “Carter!” Lauren yelled.

  “I’m going to take a short cut so you ladies can talk. Thanks for lunch. I’ll see you later.” He turned down another block to take a different route back.

  Faith and Lauren were finally left in peace. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Is Gavin giving you just as hard a time?” Lauren asked as they weaved in and around the people traffic.

  “He’s been okay. We’ve mostly been working.” Faith didn’t like to discuss personal matters right away with people. She wasn’t a gossip. It didn’t matter that she didn’t like Gavin’s attempts to get her to sleep with him. She wasn’t going to talk about him behind his back.

  “Well that’s good. I’m surprised he hasn’t approached you yet. Give him time. He’ll make a move, I’m sure. Don’t think that you have to do anything. He’s a gentleman. If you say no, he’ll leave you alone.”

  That hadn’t worked yet with her. “What are you talking about?” Even though she knew, she wanted to know if Lauren would give her more than what she could get out of Gavin.

  “Obviously you’ve been too busy to have learned about what he likes to do,” Lauren said. “Gavin hasn’t been in a serious relationship since I’ve known him. Instead, he likes to approach certain women, take them out for dinner, lunch, etcetera, and get to know them for a little bit. Then, based on whether he likes what he sees, and they like him, which, who wouldn’t like Gavin, right?” she said looking at Faith. “Anyway, if they agree, they have sex, and that’s it. Sometimes they enjoy each other more than once, sometimes it’s just the one time. If they don’t agree, or if she says no, then he moves on to his next target – that’s what I like to call them.”

  “Oh. Exactly how many people know about this?”

  “It’s not really a secret. It doesn’t really bother anyone. Most of the women in our office would kill to be with him, even if it is just for a night. What people do outside of work is strictly their business I say. He’s never forced himself on anyone that I know of.”

  “Has he ever approached you?” asked Faith.

  “Nope. I’m not his type and I’m married. Although, there have been several married women who have vied for him. He likes an extremely classy woman. That’s why I was sure he had approached you. I’m still trying to figure out how Chandler fits into that category. She actually approached Gavin, which supposedly he hates. Apparently she had something to offer I guess.”

  Faith didn’t feel like hearing about Chandler. However, she was surprised to have it confirmed that Gavin didn’t make a point to sleep with everyone.

  The ladies finally made it back to the office. As they went up to their floor in the elevator, they both let out a deep sigh.

  “I had a lot of fun. We should plan to do this at least once a week. Without Carter,” Faith said, both of them laughing.

  “I had fun, too. I’ll take a look at our calendars and set something up.”

  “Good.” They got off of the elevator. “I’ll see you later. Have a good afternoon.” They went in opposite directions, returning to their offices.

  Gavin took time to talk to Chandler during the lunch hour. He knew she normally ate lunch at her desk.

  “I need to see you in my office,” he said, calling her from his desk.

  A few minutes later, Chandler arrived at his door. She peeked in, “You wanted to see me?”

  “Come in. Close the door.”

  “Ooh, you must want a quickie,” she joked. She closed the door and walked to his desk. Before she could come around to where he was sitting, he instructed her to sit down.

  “Sit. This is business, for the most part.”

  “At least you have more manners than Faith. She didn’t even let me sit down,” she said, sitting down. Her skirt rose up about two inches. It was shorter than normal.

  “I’m glad you brought it up, because that’s exactly what I want to talk to you about.” He was now looking at her with a very serious face.

  “Is something wrong?” smiled Chandler. It wasn’t what she expected.

  “I don’t want to fire you, but Faith is not playing any games when she gives you a warning.”

  “She can’t do anything to me. She’s not my boss.” Chandler rolled her eyes.

  “But I can. I can override any decision that your boss makes. You’re crossing a line that you shouldn’t be.”

  “She’s in my way. Your mood has changed since she’s been here. I don’t like that.”

  “Look at me.” Chandler looked at Gavin, as he kept his straight face. “I know that you don’t want to hear this, because you seem to get selective hearing when I say it. I want nothing from you except for sex. You will get nothing from me except for sex. Get it through that thick blonde head of yours.”

  “That’s just you blowing smoke. You don’t mean that.” Chandler waved her hand at him.

  “I do. It won’t be hard for me to find someone else to meet my needs. I will tell you one last time. Leave Faith alone. If you bother her again, you’re fired.”

  “What is it about her anyway? Why do you want her so bad?”

  “That’s none of your business. Do your job, like I know you can, and leave her alone. She is not someone you want to tangle with. Trust me, you won’t win.”

  “Are you done? I’ve got to get back to work.” Chandler was pissed. She had to get Faith out of the picture, she just didn’t know how. All she knew was that she was going to do whatever it took. Gavin could not choose to be with anyone else.

  “I mean it, Chandler. I see that look in your eyes. Leave her alone, or you’re gone.”

  Chandler just stood up to leave. “I heard you,” she snapped.

  “You need to hear everything that I said. Not just what you wanted or needed to hear. The
re’s nothing between me and you. Nothing!” he said sternly.

  “I heard.”

  “Oh, and Chandler, please read our dress code thoroughly. You might want to do some shopping to get more work appropriate clothing.”

  “You’ve never complained before.”

  “No, I just never said anything to you directly. I’m sure your manager has spoken to you several times, because I asked her to. Adjust what you wear to work. I’m not asking. I’m telling you.”

  She turned and walked out of the office. As she got around the corner, she was so upset, tears began to well up in her eyes. Faith would not take her man. She was not going to let it happen. Gavin didn’t say he wouldn’t call her anymore, so that was a good sign. She just had to keep him happy. For now, that meant she had to stay away from Faith.

  When Gavin finished scolding Chandler, he prepared for his meeting with Faith. He called to see if she had returned from lunch. Faith answered her phone.

  “I was just checking to see if you were back. Are you ready or do you need more time? … I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Gavin sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. It had been a busy morning. He stood, picked up his portfolio, and went to Faith’s office.

  She was doing what she usually does - working diligently. It was Monday, she’d had a rough start to her morning, and she didn’t know what to expect from Gavin.

  “Hey, how was lunch?” he said, sitting his portfolio down on the meeting table in her office.

  “It was interesting.”

  “Did you go somewhere strange or something? Who’d you go with?”

  “Lauren and Carter. I had a great time with Lauren. We’re going to try and go at least once a week together.”

  “And Carter?” he asked. He could feel his blood pressure rising. He’d had just about enough of everyone interfering with his plans.

  “Carter is different. He kind of just tagged along. It was strange.”

  “Did he ask you out again?”