Love me, please

Chapter 3 :

------------- Jen's POV -------

Days passed full with meetings, training sessions, inventorying. I was quite happy with the work, the training went smoothly. Craig has been a huge help, providing me with all the documents needed and giving me feedback from the team leaders regarding how receptive they were to the training and the new process put in place.
The real test came in the middle of the week when we experienced a power outage. The lights came back up almost immediately, but I needed to check how the systems did, if they were affected.

I went with Craig to the servers' room, checked the wiring and turned on the monitors. It showed that most of the sectors have been rendered inoperable.

"What is the situation?", asked Casey entering the room accompanied with a tall man strongly built in his fifties."This is Mr. Judd Bartley, a visitor from Sydney who will be spending a few days here."

"The power outage affected the systems", I explained,"even though the power is back up again, the servers and the machines need to be reconfigured. This will take some time."

"I would like to stay and watch", the visitor said, smiling at me.

"This way",Craig said leading both men to a sofa to the right of the control board.

Right then, a notification popped on the screen with the status of the network. Forgetting about the three men in the room, I got back to work.

------------------------ Matt's POV -----------------------------

This was not a good day. Judd Bartley was a hard man to deal with on his best days and he was downright unbearable when things wouldn't go his way. I invited him to Casey Electronics in hopes of drafting an alliance between out two companies. Such a partnership was essential to gaining a foothold in Australia.

The visit went rather well.However, right when I was escorting him to elevator to see him off, there was a power outage, it lasted for just a few seconds but I knew it must have affected the productivity of the teams. I needed to assess the damage right away. Bartley seemed to be of the same opinion. He insisted on coming with me to the control room. I knew what he must be thinking. This was the best opportunity for him to assess how we handled a crisis. This was also the best opportunity for me to confirm if PVCS was a good investment.

As we reached the control room, I found Ms Carsten already there settled in front of two big monitors. Craig was next to her talking on the phone.

"We are working on it",he was saying," Everything is under control. The systems will be back online momentarily."

"What is the situation?",

The young woman turned towards me and said : "The power outage affected the systems. Even though the power is back up again, the servers and the machines need to be reconfigured. This will take some time."

"I would like to stay and watch", Bartley said

"This way",Craig said leading us both to a sofa to the right of the control board.

"This monitor here,"the young woman said, no longer looking at us," shows the status of the sectors. Green means that the sector is up and running, yellow means it is under repair and red means that the sector is down."

So far, only a quarter was green. There were two yellow bars and the rest was red. It looked bad. I was already thinking of how much delay this was going to cost us.

"It is not as bad as it looks", Ms Carsten said"This will be fixed by the end of the day."

She then gave us a polite smile before turning back to the monitors and started typing quickly on the keyboard.


For some time, you could only hear the sound of the keyboard buttons being pressed. As for Bartley and I, our eyes kept returning to the status monitor. As Ms Carsten said, gradually, green was increasing steadily and with every stroke of the keyboard. We stayed in the control room for a while longer, then Bartley said "I thik I've seen enough. How about we go to your office and discuss the terms of our partnership?"

And just like that, we won. After years of hard work and sacrifices, it was time to reap the rewards. Calmly, I nodded my head at him, then I told Craig :"Call me when it is done!" When we left, the young lady didn't even notice our departure.

We spent the rest of the afternoon with the legal team drafting the contract . We had just finished when Craig called to report that the repairs were almost complete. We headed back to the control room and the first thing I grabbed my attention was the statistics on the monitor. All sectors were in the green.

Bartley whistled "That's some fine work here!"

"Indeed", I agreed.

Craig came to us saying "All the sectors are up and running. Jennifer is finishing a failsafe she put in place to prevent incidents such as today from happening again."

Right then, Ms Carsten rose from her seat and after a last glance at the monitors, she turned to us and said "Everything is back to normal. All sectors are up and running. I also took the liberty of setting a backup program that I will start if there's ever a power outage so that the production wouldn't be affected and to prevent data loss."

"Splendid",Bartley said,"Matt, my friend, I think that having this young lady in here is one of the best decisions you've made!"

Said young lady blushed and then turned to me and said "I will send you a full report first thing in the morning"

I nodded my head "That is fine"

"Well, then, how about the two of you join me to dinner at my hotel? We have to celebrate our new partnership!"


------------------------------ Jen's POV ----------------------

"Dinner?", I asked looking at my watch,"It is seven already?"

It was about time Adrian finished his piano lessons. I had to be there in thirty minutes. I raised my head as I heard Mr Bartley say "You have to join us Ms Carsten. After all, it was your impressive work today that secured the contract."

"I really didn't do anything",I protested feeling myself go red again. "And I am terribly sorry, but I am afraid I can't join you for dinner. I have a prior engagement and I am already late."

"Is that so?", he pouted,"too bad, but I insist we have dinner sometime. I am staying in Boston for a week. Here is my card."

He gave me his card and when I reached out to take it, he grabbed my hand with both of his and squeezed it lightly. I raised my head to look at him questioningly wondering if he wanted to tell me something but he kept smiling.


------------------------ Matt's POV ----------------


One thing I forgot to mention about Judd Bartley was that he was a womanizer. He didn't care about age, race, social status, whether the woman in question was married or single. He would pursue anything wearing a skirt relentlessly.

His favorite saying was that the world was full of pretty things, it didn't make sense to limit oneself to only one. That was rather cliché but the women seemed to fall for it and accept his advances.

It seemed that this time, he set his eyes on Ms Carsten. I knew him well enough to know that his dinner invitation was just a pretext to get her into his bed. He was the kind to go to great lengths to arrange a dinner with candles, expensive wine, flowers. His date would feel so special, she wouldn't think twice before following him to his hotel suite just to find herself alone the morning after.

I had no doubt that he intended for Ms Carsten to be a new addition to his long list of adventures. I had no wish to witness such an unnecessary drama or to see the young woman become a mess over this one night stand. It would be unfortunate to replace her since she proved to be so competent.

Thus I was understandably relieved when she declined his invitation. Even when he gave her the look that was known to melt women's resistance and grabbed her hand, she gave him a curious look as though she was unaware of his intentions. I didn't know whether she was naive or playing dumb. Either way, it was rather amusing to see the great Judd Bartley get rejected by this small woman.

"Jen",I saw Craig coming down the corridor,"I am afraid that the cab that was supposed to pick you up is running late, it will be here in twenty minutes"

She looked down at her watch and a worried expression crossed her face before disappearing quickly as she smiled reassuringly to Craig :"It's alright, it can't be helped."

"How about I give you a ride to wherever you want to go?"Bartley offered eagerly This guy really didn't know when to give up. Ms Carsten seemed to hesitate. I knew she was about to accept his offer so I cut in shortly. "Bartley, you don't know your way around here, you'll most likely end up lost."

Then surprising even myself, I turned to the young woman and said "I will take you home. Craig, you can call off the cab."

è"Are you sure?", she bit her lower lip and asked nervously,"I don't want to bother you"

"I wouldn't have offered if I didn't feel like it"

"Alright then, thank you very much"

"Well then, if you can follow me." She gave a small smile to a disappointed Bartley then she followed me into the elevator and down to the parking lot. I unlocked the door to my car and she slid quietly in the passenger's seat.

As I drove out of the parking lot, I asked "Where do you live Ms Carsten?"

"Actually, if it isn't too much trouble, can you please take me to Jefferson School in M street?" I nodded my head and turned back to the road. I didn't recognize the school's name but M street was about a twenty minutes ride away.

We drove in silence for a while. It was a rather comfortable silence. Usually women would feel uncomfortable with the quiet and would start some meaningless discussion just to be the main center of attention. This girl was different though. She seemed quite content with the quiet. I haven't seen her much during the week, but the few times I did, even when she was with a group of employees, she would hardly participate in the conversation, she would just stand there smiling and only speaking when spoken to.

Craig has told me that she was invited by few team leaders for a drink after work but she declined all these invitations politely.

Stopping at a red light, I took a glance at my quiet companion and to my surprise, I found her asleep. She was resting her head on the window, with the breeze playing with strands of her hair. She must have been exhausted, after the work she did today, it was only understandable. But to fall asleep in someone's car, so defenselessly, that was just asking for trouble.

As much as this girl seemed professional and exceptional at work, she seemed so naive and inexperienced when it came to dealing with people.

Soon enough, I reached M street. As I was unsure of the way to the school I gently shook Ms Carsten awake. Her eyelids fluttered for a while before she opened her eyes. She looked around her trying to figure out where she was, then when it came back to her, her cheeks reddened and she said :"I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep on you like this"

"It's quite alright, you had a very tiring day"

She looked outside and said "Oh! We're already in M street!" She turned to me and said "You can drop me off here. The school is close by"

"It's fine, I'll drive you there", it was already dark, I wasn't comfortable leaving the young woman alone in an empty street. Following her instructions, I stopped the car in front of a building with the sign "Jefferson School". She undid the seatbelt and then flashing a bright smile at me she said "Thank you so much for driving me. I'm sorry you had to go out of your way to do it . Goodnight Mr Casey !"

"Goodnight Ms Carsten!", I nodded my head and watched her hurry into the school before driving away.