In the meantime, Heather noticed her phone ringing a few times but decided to ignore Matthias’ calls and hang them up. Nonetheless, her phone continued to ring again and again, no matter how many times she declined them. Eventually, Heather became annoyed and directly turned off her phone after her refusal to answer the call failed to make Matthias give up.
On the other hand, the man lay down his phone in disappointment, surprised that Heather would rather turn off her phone than answer his call. It seems that I really did piss her off pretty badly yesterday. Great! Even Heather won’t talk to me now. At the thought of that, he somehow felt overwhelmed by loneliness.
Meanwhile, Heather was bothered by mixed feelings inside her, deeming Matthias capricious and fathomless. Deep down, she reckoned Matthias still stubbornly insisted that it was all her fault for ruining his chance of living a happy life with Myra. Despite her guilt toward him about the things that had happened in the past, she was still rational enough not to blindly shoulder all the responsibilities, not to mention the fact that the chain reaction that was triggered in the subsequent events was something she didn’t expect.
Nonetheless, Heather continued to bury herself in work to forget about Matthias, thinking she had better things to do with her time. There is enough on my plate to handle, so I should probably stop thinking about him. As she dedicated her energy to her work, she was forced to put her entrepreneurial business aside. The Langston Group seems to have reached a dead end, and our customer simply won’t give me a break. It’s hard for me not to suspect Blake is conspiring with someone behind all this.
In fact, the project that Heather was working on seemed to struggle in making progress. Thus, she did everything she could and came up with different propositions to please her customer, but for some reason, her suggestions just didn’t seem to be satisfactory every time. This customer is extremely hard to satisfy. It almost feels like we are not working with them but for them. Heather’s patience was wearing thin. Why didn’t Blake communicate with them? Why am I the one who needs to keep changing again and again instead? This is obviously a trick that someone is pulling off against me!
While Blake had secretly given his orders to every member in Heather’s team and even arranged two of his trusted subordinates to work with her, she knew that her brother was trying to keep an eye on her every move. Therefore, the intense scrutiny put Heather under a lot of pressure and limited her freedom, preventing her from making the most out of her creativity. If this goes on, I’m going to embarrass myself in front of everyone, and neither will I have time to attend to my entrepreneurial business. No, this has to be stopped. I must talk to the person in charge to get us out of this dilemma.
At the thought of that, Heather unhappily walked out of her office and headed to the rendezvous to meet up with her client. Although a private meeting like this could go either way, it was her last resort because she didn’t have any other choice left. After all, while a happy negotiation would result in a happy ending, it didn’t usually end well for both parties. Furthermore, sexual harassment was rather common in the modern work culture since men tended to assumed this was acceptable if the women asked to meet up.
Wearing her usual office outfit, Heather went straight to meet up with the person in charge of the project. Then, she saw the man fiddling with a cup in his hand before she showed him a charming yet mischievous smile, leaving him with his eyes wide open. After all, Heather was always seen with a poker face, which deceived many people into thinking that she wouldn’t smile at all. Therefore, the man couldn’t take his eyes off her, still trapped in his trance while enjoying the luxury of admiring her smile.
Soon, Heather stopped smiling and nodded at him. “May I have a seat here?”
The man answered, “Of course. Go ahead.” Since both of them were meeting each other for the first time, he somehow found Heather to look a little different from the way she usually seemed in the office.
At that moment, Heather gave off a charming feminine aura that most men wouldn’t be able to resist, although she naturally possessed the skill to easily seduce any man at will. However, she was rather disciplined as she wouldn’t resort to that unless she wanted to ask favors from someone. At the sight of the man’s slight anxiety, she curled her lips upward to reveal a faint smile, thinking he was not as intimidating as she thought he would be. He may be in charge of the project, but he doesn’t look that powerful.
Heather then began to suspect that there was someone else behind the man she was sitting in front of. Therefore, her instinct told her that it would be easy to deal with him the moment she saw him. This guy has been rejecting my proposal again and again just because of some trivial issues that he can’t see past. Trusting her judgement, Heather believed the man right in front of her was not difficult to deal with, which was why she had asked him out so that she could confirm her suspicion.
“Thank you very much for coming, President Cassidy.” Heather politely greeted the man with a seducing smile.
Upon hearing Heather’s soothing voice and how she addressed him as President Cassidy, Isaac lost himself in his inflated ego as he started to fall for her beauty. At the same time, his eyes gave him away, indirectly revealing his lechery to Heather.
“The pleasure is mine.” Isaac remembered what he was told and tried to keep quiet as much as possible when facing Heather.
Heather ambiguously fixed her gaze on Isaac as she didn’t seem to notice anything special about the man. Instead, he looked more like an ordinary businessman to her. He doesn’t seem like a bigshot; he looks more like a middle-aged pervert who doesn’t even bother to talk much. And his gaze? It disgusts me. “Actually, the reason I wanted to meet you up this time is to talk about our business,” Heather said, trying to sound Isaac out for some useful information while masking her intention with her smile.
“Understood.” Isaac seemingly wanted to talk more with Heather, and he would have slipped in a dirty conversation somehow. Nonetheless, he was an obedient servant to whoever was behind him as he never forgot what he was told. Nope! More talking leads to more mistakes, and I can’t afford to let her see through me.
“My team previously submitted our proposal thrice, only to be rejected by you, President Cassidy. Well, while people always say the third time’s the charm, in our case, I guess the fourth time’s the charm as we will be extra careful with the next submission,” Heather said, seemingly implying something ambiguous.
Nevertheless, Isaac seemed to notice the subtle hint as well and began to wonder what she was up to. Thus, he pricked up his ears and listened to every single word Heather was going to say closely. In the meantime, Heather caught a glimpse of Isaac’s calm and collected look, thinking she might have underestimated the man.
“Regarding your proposal, I admit that I’ve been rather rigid and stern because I want the best result from our synergistic partnership.” Isaac put his words implicitly, reacting differently from what Heather expected.
This guy knows what he’s doing; he is acting like an old cunning fox.
“Of course, maximizing profit is always the ultimate goal for all businessmen, so I can definitely understand that you engaged in a partnership with us to seek more profit.” Heather continued to smile, trying to make herself look approachable because she’d seem rather apathetic if she didn’t.
As the conversation went on, both of them made their own situations known in a harmonic way despite their conflicting standings. Soon, Heather was able to have Isaac figured out, whereupon she felt happy that she had roughly learned everything necessary about the man.
Meanwhile, Isaac’s rational mind succumbed to his lust, thanks to Heather’s beauty. After all, he failed to prevail over his lechery despite knowing the danger that might follow. With his lust clouding his judgement, Isaac was barely able to think straight as he was eventually dominated by Heather, who later managed to extract the information she needed successfully.
Two hours later, Heather grew tired of exchanging pleasantries with Isaac, who was starting to get a little inappropriate. Disgusted by that, Heather was afraid that the man would take his perverted act too far, so her smiling face was quickly replaced by her usual glacial look. Because of that, Isaac came to his senses and kept his lechery in check.
“I’m glad that we’ve had a fruitful discussion, President Cassidy. It’s getting late now, so I should get back to the Langston Group and work on the proposal further. I hope our next proposal will meet your expectation, President Cassidy.” Heather spoke while she extended her arm to shake Isaac’s hand.
In the face of the lady’s serious attitude, Isaac immediately snapped out of his trance and shook her hand in response, only to feel a strange adrenaline rush throughout his body, as if he was being shocked. Oh, gosh! Heather’s hand is so smooth. Not long after Isaac regained his rationality, he was taken over by his lust once again while Heather registered the situation.
“President Cassidy.” Heather called out to Isaac, trying to retract her arm back.
Needless to say, Isaac immediately let go of the lady’s hand, feeling ashamed of his action. Man! What just happened?! That was embarrassing! Since Heather was no ordinary woman, Isaac didn’t dare to take her lightly.
After parting ways with Isaac, Heather returned to the Langston Group, thinking the two hours she had just spent on the man was worth it. As I expected, there is indeed a bigger fish behind Isaac. Although she managed to confirm her suspicion, she didn’t think this was good news to her as she was soon bewildered by her next question. We’re just business partners, so is it really necessary to go through so much trouble by getting a puppet?
Thus, Heather started to have second thoughts about her initial assumption and reckoned Blake might not be the mastermind behind the matter. Instead, it was someone else behind Isaac. If that’s the case, this matter is even more complicated than I’d thought. If Isaac were behind all this, the worst he’d do is just humiliate me, which wouldn’t affect the project or lead to more trouble; but if the problem comes from our customer, the project will be at risk of abortion with or without my humiliation. Ah, man! This is going to be a sticky situation.
After all, any conflict with the partnership could likely jeopardize the project and lead to heavy losses. Still, Heather was confused with the mastermind’s intention, seeing no point in creating all the mess since the project was meant to be a win-win situation for both parties.
I don’t understand this at all. If we don’t work together properly, no one is going to benefit from our situation, so it makes no sense for anyone from our customer’s side to ruin our project. Perhaps it is necessary for me to pay their boss a visit. Although Heather was unsure whether the customer’s boss was the mastermind behind it, fhey were the only suspect who came to her mind.
While their fourth preparation for the proposal was ongoing and nearing its completion, Heather would hate to see it fail again, deeming the previous rejections a big humiliation to herself. Therefore, she carefully dove into every detail of the project and told her team members to pay attention to any mistake, no matter how insignificant it might be. After all, she was afraid her proposal would be rejected again because if it happened one more time, she would be too embarrassed to continue leading the team or staying in the company.
