Conquest of the Heart (6 page)

“Yes,” nodded Faith.

“Good. Change of plans. Since you’ve done
most of our homework for us, I’d like you to present each city each
day as you did just now. Afterward, we’ll only have the pros and
cons to discuss. Carter, you have some homework. You’ll need to
find out what celebrities or high profile groups live in or around
these cities. We’ll need connections to get in contact with them.
Do what you do.”

“Will do.”

“We’ll need this information only for the
cities we’re talking about this week. I don’t want us to get ahead
of ourselves. I will look into the types of businesses based in the
areas to build a potential client list.” He looked at the clock on
the wall and it had only been an hour. He was under the impression
that it would take them all day to discuss one city. Faith was more
prepared than he was, and appeared to be ready to continue.

“Let’s take a short break to get some water,
go to the restroom, or whatever. I’ll meet you back here in twenty
minutes.” He looked at the outline that Faith had prepared once
again.

‘This is
odd
,’
thought
Carter.

Faith stood up and left the room. Gavin and
Carter watched her leave.

“Are you okay? You don’t take breaks.” Carter
was curious.

“She wasn’t supposed to be this good,” he
smiled. “I expected her to come in here, take notes as we went
through the slides, and work through this with us. Half of our work
is already done. I don’t think I’ve had a more productive
meeting.”

“You said that Adrian only
found the best. It
is
his specialty. When was the last time he brought in someone
bad? Like, never?”

“I think he’s outdone himself. I’m going to
talk to him when we’re finished. He needs to know this.” Gavin
found himself not knowing what more could surprise him about this
woman.

Gavin looked at Carter, puzzled. He couldn’t
say anything else. Carter wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Are you sure that’s all? You look a little
confused.”

Carter was right. Gavin stood at the window
with his hand cupping his chin. He answered, “I just have to get
back on track. This changes our timeline. Depending on what happens
the rest of this morning, and possibly this afternoon, I may have
to have new schedules drawn up.”

“That’s a good thing. I’m going to get some
coffee. Do you want any?” Carter stood up to leave the conference
room.

“Yeah, sure.” Gavin didn’t turn around. He
couldn’t wait to speak to Adrian about how well Faith was
adjusting. He wanted to know more about her background. Faith
quietly came back as he still had his back turned.

“Are you okay? Just deep in thought?” she
asked.

“I’m just thinking about how you took over
this meeting,” he smiled, turning around to face her.

“I’m sorry. I do that sometimes. I didn’t
mean to step over you.”

“It’s perfectly fine. You’ve done an
incredible job. I still can’t believe the amount of information you
pulled together in such a short amount of time. I know you’re
working from home during the evenings this week, but please tell me
you didn’t stay up all night.”

“I didn’t. I know how to pull skin off of
teeth if I have to. I have a lot of resources.” She opened her
notebook, writing the date and subject down.

“I should say so.” Gavin
just stared at her.
‘Damn, I wish I could
just take you right here,’
he thought.
“Well, again, great job. Our work is going to be a lot easier
now.”

“That was my goal,” she said, smiling as she
looked up at him. It was nice to talk like civilized people. There
was a moment of silence, and then Carter came back with coffee in
his hands.

“Here you go,” he said handing the cup to
Gavin. “Faith, I apologize. I would have gotten you some coffee,
but I don’t know what you like.”

“That’s okay. Water is fine for me right
now.”

“Thanks, Carter.” Gavin looked down at the
outline again. He just shook his head, smiling to himself. Faith
and Carter looked at each other, shrugging their shoulders, not
knowing what was going on.

“I’m sorry.” Gavin cleared his throat. “We’ll
have to complete our session on Nashville tomorrow after Carter and
I present our findings on celebrities and potential clients in the
area. But for now, we can talk about what might be the pros and
cons of opening an office there with the information that Faith has
provided. So what are some of your thoughts?” he asked, walking
around the table as he spoke. He went to a white board, picked up a
dry erase marker and wrote the header ‘Nashville’ and underneath
‘Pros’ and ‘Cons’ with a line dividing the two sections.

“Well, it is a very high profile city. Just
with music alone, there’s a lot of opportunity there. It doesn’t
need to happen overnight, because we’re already a sports marketer.
With the Titans and the Predators, we could work with the agents
and players for those teams,” Carter said.

“Good,” Gavin said as he wrote on the ‘pro’
side.

“From what I’ve seen in the country music
world, they’re one big family. Working with the musicians would
more than likely open up several opportunities for community
involvement, giving the company great exposure among the residents
there. We’d be helping the economy by adding job opportunities,
which would be a plus in all of the cities we’re exploring,” Faith
added.

“Excellent,” Gavin said, adding another item
to the ‘pro’ side.

“How come she got excellent
and I just got a ‘
good
’?” Carter asked kiddingly. They all laughed.

“Well Carter, I don’t have any favorites -
”

“Oh, that’s not true, you do
have a favorite.” Carter put him on the spot.
‘How are you going to get out of this one,’
he thought.

“If I had to choose one or the other, I think
you know which one I’d choose. Sorry Carter, nothing against you.
Faith is just prettier,” he smiled as he looked back at them,
winking at Faith. They all laughed again, but this time Faith
started to turn a little rosy underneath her light brown skin.
Gavin noticed and thought she might be coming around, which would
be sooner than he’d expected.

“Anything else?” Gavin said, continuing with
their discussion.

“If our goal is to break into all areas of
entertainment, Nashville may not be the place for us. Their film
industry is very small. The music industry is limited to country
and Christian music, with a little jazz. We may want to consider a
location that will offer us access to all facets of the industry.
Nashville is not centrally located for us to do that. We’d probably
be travelling more often than not to get to our film industry
clients, and our clients connected to other genres of music,” said
Faith.

“I’ll break this up then in the ‘con’
section. Not centrally located, small film industry, limited music
genres,” Gavin said as he wrote. “Okay, anymore?”

They shook their heads no. Gavin looked back
at the white board, and said, “Alright. I’ll have Agnes type these
up and we’ll add them to our files. Good job you two. Since we’ve
managed to complete our discussions early, we won’t have to meet
this afternoon. Carter, that should give you a chance to get
started on your assignment.” He looked at Carter, who nodded in
agreement.

“Great. Have a good afternoon.” He walked
over to his seat and began to unplug his laptop. Faith reached over
and turned off the monitor, unplugged it and returned the remote to
its storing place.

Carter looked at Faith and said, “Hey, since
we’re done early, would you like to go grab some lunch?”

“I brought my lunch today, but could use some
fresh air, so sure. I’ll eat what I brought tomorrow,” she said as
she continued to pack up.

“Okay. I’ll swing by and pick you up in about
ten minutes.” Carter glanced at Gavin and smiled as he walked out
of the room. Gavin didn’t smile back, and wasn’t happy. He didn’t
know what Carter was up to, but he was going to get to the bottom
of it. First, he had to talk to Adrian.

Gavin walked down the hall and into Adrian’s
office. As he passed and looked at Agnes, he pointed towards the
door. Agnes nodded her head, as if to say that Adrian is in. He
knocked and walked in at the same time.

“Adrian.”

Adrian turned and said, “Gavin. How did the
meeting go this morning?”

“Faith is more than capable to do this job.
Like I told Carter, you’ve outdone yourself.”

Adrian smiled and looked down in his lap, “I
was hoping that would happen.”

“What do you mean? Tell me about her
background,” Gavin said as he sat down.

Adrian was glad he was asking. Their plan
might be working. “Faith is so good at what she does because she
was in charge of public relations for her father’s company, Spring
Entertainment.” He paused and waited for this to register with
Gavin.

“Your friend in France,” he thought some
more. “Morgan Scott. Faith is his daughter?” Gavin was shocked.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know that Morgan and Vivian had a
daughter.”

“So you remember them?” Adrian asked, curious
to know how much he was going to have to explain.

“Vaguely. I remember meeting them before I
went to college. I can’t recall meeting them before that.” He sat
back in his seat and waited for Adrian to tell him more.

“You were just a little boy
when we first took you with us to see them. I wouldn’t expect you
to remember that. Faith wasn’t born then.” He looked at Gavin, who
was waiting for him to continue. “I knew that we needed to make
some changes around here, so I went to see Morgan a couple of
months ago. His company is well-known in the community, the media
loves them, and they’ve become
the
company to work for. They receive thousands of
applications each year from young adults desiring to work there. I
wanted to know how they managed this status. We’re a good company,
Gavin, and we make a lot of money. However, my goal is for us to be
great. Morgan said that he wanted me to meet someone who might be
able to help. Imagine my surprise when Faith joined us for lunch
that afternoon. I was amazed at how much she had grown. The last
time I had seen her was shortly before she herself had left for
college. That was over sixteen years ago.

“Morgan told me that before Faith joined the
company, they had no community presence, they weren’t involved in
any volunteer efforts, and that the media had not acknowledged
their existence. Faith connected them with the people. She gave
them a reason to discover what Spring Entertainment was all about.
They began to get involved in activities to aid in building the
communities. They donated to, and sponsored, various charities. She
represented them in front of the media, and they absolutely loved
talking to her. Morgan said she was just a natural. He credits her
exposure to various cultures over the years. She has an
appreciation for all races, creeds, and colors. She was like a
light that brightened up their atmosphere.

“Faith wasn’t planning to move to the states.
Since I had expressed that we had a need for someone with public
relations expertise, Morgan thought she would be the perfect fit.
Sounds like he was right.” Adrian wasn’t telling Gavin everything.
He hoped this was enough.

“Well, based on her
performance today, I would say you were both right. Our meeting
schedules were structured so that we could discuss one of the
cities we’re looking to expand to each day. I expected it to take
us at least three or four weeks to get through them all. She
already had city facts, contact names
and
numbers, annual activities, and
potential office sites organized in an outline. She took over the
meeting. I was totally taken off guard. It was incredible.” He
handed him the outline that Faith had prepared. “She has a file
like this for all of the cities we were scheduled to discuss this
week.”

“Impressive,” Adrian said as he looked it
over. “How many cities were you going to go over this week?”

“Three. Nashville, Jacksonville, and Denver.
I gave her the agenda yesterday.”

“What?” Adrian exclaimed. “Did she stay up
all night?”

“She said she didn’t. She says she just knows
how to use her resources.” Gavin smiled, still amazed about it.

“
When is your next meeting?
I’d like to sit in, if you don’t mind,” he said as he handed the
outline back to Gavin.

“I thought you would. We’ll be meeting
tomorrow morning at nine. I think we’ll be able to cut our schedule
down to two weeks if it’s going to be this organized. I’m going to
talk to her about it this afternoon.”

“That’s great, Gavin. I’ll see you tomorrow
morning,” Adrian nodded, smiling proudly at his son.

Gavin stood up and walked out of the office.
As soon as he left, Adrian made a phone call.

“Yes, it’s Adrian …
It’s starting. I’ll call you when I have more
news. Talk to you soon,” he said and hung up the phone.

Gavin was hungry, so he decided to get some
lunch before talking to Faith. Before he spoke to her, he was going
to deal with Carter.

Carter and Faith were enjoying lunch together
not too far from the office. It was a beautiful spring day, so they
opted to eat outside.

“So, it looks like you’re adjusting well to
the position. How long have you been in public relations?” Carter
asked.

“Almost ten years, but I’ve always been
involved publicly, in some form or fashion. I love people. I love
connecting with what really matters.” She took a bite of her
salad.