Winner Takes All (4 page)

“Yes, and I still have the paper cuts to prove it.”

“Ah, the mailroom. Very hazardous duty,” Eva said, wondering where their coffee was. The hour was growing later and later.

“You’re mocking me,” he said.

“Only a little,” she admitted. “I’ve had a few paper cuts in my time. They’re certainly no laughing matter.”

Just then the waiter returned with their coffee. He put the demitasse cup in front of Reed before laying out cream and sugar for Eva.

“I really should be getting back to the office soon,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “A two-hour lunch is extremely decadent for me. I feel like I’m about to turn into a pumpkin.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Not at all. I won’t really turn into a pumpkin, unless, I suppose, I keep eating like this. That soup really was fabulous.”

Reed laughed. “No, I meant that you think a two-hour lunch is decadent. This is nothing. I see now that a large part of your education had been sadly overlooked. But don’t worry. We’ll rectify that.”

Her heart leaped at his words. He’s just flirting, she reminded herself. It’s what handsome men in Italian suits do. “We will?” she asked, her voice breathless.

“Right away,” he said, his eyes alight with mischief. “Instead of going back to work, we’ll hop on a plane and go to my house in the Bahamas for the weekend, where we’ll spend many decadent hours sitting on a beach and drinking margaritas.”

He wasn’t serious, of course. Eva was both relieved and disappointed to realize this. “But it’s only Tuesday.”

“A long weekend, then. What do you say?”

Eva turned away from those sapphire eyes and reminded herself to stay sensible. He was only teasing her. “I say it’s time I got to work on that proposal. I want to send it first thing in the morning.”

The change in conversation from the exciting to the mundane did not dim the light in his eyes. “All right. But maybe next weekend?”

He’s irrepressible, Eva thought. “Sure, maybe next weekend.” She knew it was a safe answer. By next weekend he will have forgotten her name. Men like him had long attention spans when it came to business and considerably shorter ones when it came to women. Her father was the same way, working long hours in the office and often forgetting he had a family waiting at home.

“I don’t think you mean that, but I’m going to hold you to it anyway.” He caught the waiter’s attention and motioned for the check. It arrived a few moments later on a plastic tray with two chocolate mints.

While Eva unwrapped a chocolate, Reed reached for the check.

“Uh-uh,” she said, with a shake of her head. “We had an agreement. Lunch is on me. I’m going to need the receipt as evidence that I was working. Do you have a business card?”

He seemed baffled by the idea. “A business card?”

“Yes, you know, a little rectangular piece of paper, frequently made of cardboard, with all your contact information embossed on it. Typically has the company logo.” Digging through her shoulder bag, she retrieved her wallet and withdrew her credit card. As soon as she had put out her card, their waiter darted out of nowhere and disappeared with the tray. “I wanted to staple it to my expense report. I find having physical evidence usually speeds the reimbursement process along. Give accounting a reason to drag their heels and they’ll take it. They seem to have a real hang-up with issuing checks.”

“I don’t think I have any on me right now,” he said, smiling apologetically, but he looked in his wallet just to be sure. “Nope.”

Eva shrugged. “That’s all right. I don’t think this meal was extravagant enough to raise eyebrows. Now, if we had gone to the Sea Grill as originally planned….” She let the thought dangle as she calculated tip. Then she signed the receipt with a flourish, folded it into a small square and stuck it into her wallet. “Shall we go?”

He stood up. “Thank you very much, Ms. Butler, for a lovely lunch. I look forward to returning the favor.”

“My pleasure,” she said sincerely. She couldn’t remember the last time she had passed such a pleasant few hours in male company. “And if you really want to return the favor, you could double-check Mrs. Hemingway’s calendar the next time you drop by and make sure my meeting on October sixteenth is still there.”

He laughed and followed her out of the restaurant. “I’m going to hop in a cab. Can I drop you somewhere?”

The air was warm and Eva had been looking forward to the solitary walk back to the office—she needed time to clear her head—but she took him up on his offer. She would never see him again after this; spending another few minutes in his company couldn’t do any harm. Or so she hoped.

CHAPTER TWO

After her business
meeting, Eva returned to the office to square the lavish promises she’d made to Reed with Wyndham’s. She was reasonably confident that she could convince Elliot of the necessity and efficacy of ten percent, but first she had to get him on the phone—and that was the tricky part. Ethan, Elliot’s son and head of the North American division, was extremely possessive and would resent her presumption. All matters that pertained to New York business were supposed to go through him, and Eva knew he would immediately shoot down the idea of bending his signature policy on commissions.

She needed an excuse to go over her boss’s head, and opening his calendar on the server, she easily found it: In an hour, Ethan would be flying to Barcelona for an antiques show. All she had to do was wait until he was wheels up and call his father. Although it would be after ten in the London office, Eva was optimistic the elder Wyndham would still be there. He was notorious for working well into the night, despite his age of seventy-two.

While she waited, Eva debated the usefulness of consulting Ben first. Since he was her immediate supervisor, she felt some obligation to keep him in the loop. But he was also Ethan’s subordinate and he might cautiously advise her to wait until the morning to call Spain. The Hammond collection meant too much to her to run the risk.

When Ethan’s plane was finally in the air, she called his administrative assistant as a matter of form and expressed surprise and disappointment when she learned he was unreachable. Then she dialed Elliot’s extension and was relieved when his assistant picked up on the first ring. Eva quickly identified herself, confident that the Wyndham patriarch would recognize her name, as there was no way she could have gotten her recent promotion without his signoff. As she waited for him to come onto the line, she felt her heartbeat kick up. She was nervous. Making this call was a huge break from protocol, and it was very possible this whole thing could blow up in her face. Still, she held steady to her plan: Wyndham’s needed an edge to beat out its two main competitors and the discounted seller’s commission was that edge.

When Mr. Wyndham came on the line, Eva identified herself and waited for him to recognize her name. He did not. Rather than bring up her promotion, she reminded him that they’d worked together on the Farthing matter. William Farthing was an old school chum of Elliot’s who had gotten himself into a bit of a pickle, thanks to an unregulated love of horseracing. He’d had to liquidate his assets rather quickly, and Elliot, hoping to make the experience a little less painful for his friend, had overseen the matter personally. They’d held the auction in New York so that their other old school chums would be less likely to read about it.

“Ah, yes, of course, Eva,” he said, a thread of recollection in his tone. “How are you, my dear?”

Eva assured him she was well and, determined not to waste his time, jumped right to the matter at hand. “So you see, reducing the commission would give us a great advantage. I know it is no longer standard practice to make this sort of concession, but the Hammond collection is impeccable and well worth the sacrifice.”

“The Hammond collection, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

He was silent for a moment. “What does Ethan say?”

“Ethan’s on his way to Barcelona,” she explained calmly. “I just missed him. I don’t have time to wait, sir. I promised the Hammonds I’d get back to them at once. The reduced commission has definitely whetted their interest. I think if we agree to this, we have a very good chance of getting the sale.”

Her argument made sense to Elliot. “In that case, you have my approval to go ahead with the ten percent. But it’s just this one time, of course. It wouldn’t do to make a practice of cutting our commission. In fact, the fixed-commission schedule is one of Ethan’s best ideas, especially since Davidge’s and Brooks’s followed suit. It made us look like an industry leader. I liked that.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered. Elliot Wyndham was obviously happy with the work his son was doing. Although she herself had nothing to complain about it, she knew many of her colleagues liked to grumble about their new boss. Her cube neighbor David was one of the loudest, always telling stories to Ethan’s discredit, but his information was suspect, as he had an almost pathological need to gossip. If he wasn’t dishing about something, he’d simply explode from internal pressure. “Thank you. I’ll let you go now. I know you’re very busy.”

“It’s been lovely talking to you, Eva, and I look forward to seeing the Hammond collection,” he said before hanging up.

Eva put down the phone, feeling satisfied with that day’s work. Things hadn’t gone according to plan—she still couldn’t believe that there was no record of her appointment—but she’d made good progress. Meeting Reed like that had been a stroke of luck.

She took out her Hammond file and read the notes she had taken during lunch. Then she turned to her computer and began working on her final presentation.

***

Four hours later, Eva was still staring at her computer screen. Everyone else had left the office ages ago, and she was alone with her thoughts, which was good because the isolation helped her focus. But it was also bad because the thing it helped her focus on was Reed. Reed in his sexy pinstripe suit with his gorgeous blue eyes. Reed
out
of his sexy pinstripe suit peeling her crisp white shirt off her.

It was absurd, she knew, for her to have this reaction to a man she’d just met and had only had lunch with. Not even lunch, she reminded herself: a business meeting over food to discuss the dispersal of his employer’s art collection. The experience had no first-date connotations at all.

So get over it, she ordered herself silently.

But that was easier said than done, which she knew because she’d been trying to get over it for several hours to no avail. Putting together the proposal was taking twice as long as it should because her mind kept wandering. At the slightest provocation, it returned to that moment in the cab when Reed had said good-bye. His manner had been as warm and friendly as ever as he shook her hand, but he made no attempt to arrange further contact.

“And why would he?” she muttered to herself. “Business meetings don’t end with your jotting down your telephone number on a cocktail napkin.”

Eva shook her head and reread the letter she was working on. The rest of the package was ready to go: the mockup of the catalog, a demographic breakdown of the cities on the proposed tour, pie charts illustrating the financials, a time line. All she needed to finish was the stupid letter of introduction. She couldn’t figure out why it was taking so long.

Suddenly, her phone rang, causing her to jump, and she stared at it malevolently, wondering who could be calling her office line at such an hour.

“Hello?” she asked cautiously.

“There you are.”

Eva sat up in her chair, surprised by the accusation she heard her friend’s voice. “Here I am.”

“I’ve been calling your phone for ages,” said Ruth.

“You have?” Eva said as she dug her phone out of her handbag. Sure enough, it was dead. “You have. Sorry. I let my battery run down. What’s up?”

Ruth was silent for a moment. “You forgot,” she said, her accusatory tone laced with disappointment.

Although Eva had no idea what her friend was talking about, her knee-jerk reaction was denial. “No, I didn’t.”

“Oh, so you’ll be here soon?” Ruth asked.

“Yeah, I was actually on my way to”—she tried to remember where she was supposed to be on her way to and came up blank—“there right now. I swear I’m shutting down my computer.”

Although her friend wasn’t fooled, she didn’t call her on her obvious dodge. “Right. Just make sure you don’t walk in at the same time.”

At the same time.…?

“Jenny’s birthday!” Eva shrieked as the memory kicked in. “Today’s her surprise party. Yep, I totally remembered. Seriously, I’m leaving now. Don’t worry. I’ve got her gift right here.” She looked at the assortment of office supplies on her desk and wondered which would be a good thirtieth birthday present. A stapler? No, that didn’t quite capture the landmark importance of three decades of life. Brightly colored Post-It notes? They were festive. And practical. “I’ll get into a cab and be there in ten minutes. All right? Ten minutes. Jenny’s not supposed to arrive until nine-thirty, right? I’ve got plenty of time.”

“If you say so.” Her friend didn’t sound convinced. “Just don’t ruin the surprise.”

“I won’t. Gotta go.” Eva flipped off her lamp and ran to the elevator. She caught a glimpse of herself in the high gloss of the black elevator panel. Her hair was disheveled from hours of abuse and her makeup had almost completely worn off, but she couldn’t worry about it right now. She had to get to Jenny’s surprise party before Jenny. No, first she had to buy a gift for the birthday girl.

Before hailing a cab, she ran over to Rockefeller Center. “Please be open. Please be open,” she chanted as she approached Teuscher, the high-priced Belgian chocolatier. “Please be open.”

Because it was only a little after nine, the doors were closed but the saleswoman was still inside. There was hope. Eva debated for a moment how much discomfort this was worth, and deciding that she couldn’t think of another quick present on the fly, knocked loudly on the door.

The saleswoman gave her a friendly smile and mouthed, “We’re closed.”

“Gee, like I hadn’t noticed,” mumbled Eva, knocking again. For the third time that day, she pulled out her pep-squad smile. “Please.”