Ballet Shoes and Engine Grease (28 page)

The black and yellow Spur Citrine came
next. T
elephone bid from
California secured it for $376,000. Nick considered the time zones.
Three p.m. on East Coast. Close to midday in the West. Evening in
Europe. Four a.m. in Japan, not so good for the Far Eastern
trade.

The
next car, black and white Spur Nacré,
for mother of pearl, was bought by David
Ballard, bidding on a webcam. He had told Nick he wanted it as a
baby present for Marcela, for their vacation home in Spain. When
the convent where Marcela had been educated closed down, David had
bought the medieval abbey for her, saying it was to compensate for
having married him instead of becoming a nun, as she’d wanted in
her teens.

Spur Emerald went at the reserve price of
$300,000.

Alarm filled
Nick as he felt the interest in the room wane. If
the next car didn’t sell, that would be it. The spirit that drove
an auction was competition. Behind her, he could hear a female
voice with a southern accent speak in a bored, petulant drawl.
“
Ah
thought she would dance.
Ah
wouldn’t have come if
Ah’d
known there was no
ballet.”

“
Do you want to leave?” a gruff male voice
replied.

Nick eased forward
. “I think we could all use a pit stop,”
he called out. “Restrooms are in the lobby past the cafeteria, or
next to the stairs in the office block. Have a cup of coffee. Have
some more champagne. Snacks are served in the cafeteria.” He
flashed the audience a smile. “I recommend the chocolate cake. But
make sure to be back in fifteen minutes, because Crimson has a
surprise for you. A little hint. It’s connected to the tiny
figurine that stands on the hood of the Spur.”

Crimson
hurried up to him. “What are you up to?

Nick glanced around to make sure
the people milling about had
drifted away, beyond hearing distance. “The room’s going cold,” he
told her. “Some of the ladies expected to see you dance. Get your
costume on. I’ll sort out the music.”

“
You can’t just barge in here
and—”

“
Shut up, Crimson.” Nick gripped her by the
upper arms and held on to her until she looked up into his face. He
frowned down at her. “If you don’t take my advice, in half an hour
you’ll be left with no customers and six unsold cars.”

He could see rebellion in the grim line of
her mouth, in the flare of her dainty nose. “I’m not just barging
in blind,” he reminded her. “I’m pretty well informed. You might
have stopped talking to me, but Hank and Jorge and Peter haven’t.
They’ve kept me up to date.”

Crimson hesitated.
“Where am I going to dance?”

Nick surveyed the space.
“There. Outside.” He pointed at
the patio through the glass wall. “We’ll prop the doors open.
You’ll be able to hear the music, and the fresh air will revive the
crowd. Go on. Get ready.”

With an angry mutter, Crimson hurried off to
change.

By the time
the crowd trickled back into the showroom, Crimson
was warming up in the factory and the soundtrack to the advert was
playing on the speakers. One of the two all black cars, Spur Onyx,
stood in front of the doors leading out to the patio.

Nick settled to lean against the vehicle.
Two mechanics propped the doors open.
The lights dimmed. Peter hurried to alert Crimson
in the factory, and she ran across the lawn toward the showroom,
huge gumboots protecting her ballet slippers.

On the
flagstone patio outside the showroom, she kicked off the
gumboots and assumed her reclining starting position. Keeping
still, she waited for the soundtrack to loop back to the beginning,
and then she started dancing. Like a fantasy creature, she spun and
circled, the trail of her gossamer gown streaming behind her in the
cold winter breeze. At the final crescendo, she darted in through
the door and collapsed into Nick’s arms.

“
Good girl,” he whispered into her
ear.

“
I’m bloody freezing and covered in
grit.”

“
Sorry. We should have swept the patio.”
Nick pushed Crimson up to her feet. “Do a pirouette or something.
Play to the crowd. Sell. We both know you’re good at
it.”

“
You bastard,” she muttered at him, but
there was laughter in her voice. She tiptoed off, arms flowing in a
graceful flutter, and she twirled and spun, dancing around the car.
When she slowed down again, Nick reached out, grabbed her hand and
flung her against him in another romantic pose. Her body felt warm
and supple in his arms, warm and vibrant and full of life.
Reluctantly letting her go, Nick called out for Hank to turn the
lights back on.

“
Bravo! Encore!” the southern belle shouted
into the applause.

“
You’ll see more before the bidding starts
on each car,” Nick promised.

The party atmosphere
returned. Spur Onyx sold to a trendy New
York playwright. The southern lady’s husband bought her the pink
and black car, Spur Ruby. The black and gray car, Spur Graphite,
went to a football star. The three right-hand-drive cars, Spur
Ivory, Spur Jade, and Spur Jet, were sold in a frenzy of bidding.
Spur Jet, the last car to be auctioned, went to the small Japanese
man who’d barged in on them at the restroom. Nick hoped the car
would live up to his boasting that it would make women fling
themselves at him.

****

Nick
had been keeping an eye on Peter Tomlinson, who sat quietly
at his laptop, entering the price achieved for each car into a
spreadsheet. The outcome was evident in the normally unruffled
finance director’s fraught expression, even before Peter gave a
signal to Crimson. Nothing as crude a thumb down. Merely a faint,
sad shake of his head.

A sense of defeat settled over
Nick. So, this was it. Months
of hard work for nothing. He inhaled a long, calming breath, held
it, exhaled slowly. Plan B, he told himself. Just move on to Plan
B. He saw Crimson walk over to Peter, still in her ballet costume,
a navy wool overcoat draped over her shoulders to keep her
warm.

After a brief, whispered conversation, the
pair
hurried out of the
showroom, into the glass corridor. Nick followed, leaving behind
the soar of exited voices as the new owners sat in their stationery
vehicles, surrounded by a crowd of envious onlookers.

He caught up with Peter and Crimson in the
lobby of the office block.

“
No good?” he asked.

Pe
ter turned around. “We’re short by two hundred thousand
dollars.”

Crimson
stared up at Peter with the pleading look of
someone who wants to cling to hope in the face of an adverse truth.
“There’s a month left. We’ll sell more cars.”

Peter spoke with patience.
“That’s taken into account in
my projection. We know what we’ll sell them for. The revenues can’t
go up. Costs, on the other hand, may go up, if there are unforeseen
expenses.”

“
It doesn’t matter,” Nick said to
Crimson.

“
Of course it matters,” she burst out, her
anxious gaze on him.

“
I’ve got the funding,” he told her. “I’ll
buy Constantine Motors. We’ll keep the business, and we’ll hold on
to Longwood Hall.” Something stirred in the back of his mind. “And
that thing about setting up boxing academies for women is nonsense.
It’s not in the will. The part about David Ballard buying the
business wasn’t true either. It was just a way to push your
buttons, and mine. I expect the proceeds will go to the Red Cross,
or cancer research, or some other equally deserving
charity.”

“
But I wanted to…” Crimson curled her hands
around the lapels of the wool coat, huddling deeper into it. “I
wanted it for you…”

An odd
, tender feeling curled in Nick’s chest. “You wanted it for
me?” he said in a gentle voice. “Like a Christmas
present?”

She gave a forlorn nod.

“
It doesn’t matter, Crimson.” And, to his
surprise, as soon as he’d said it, Nick knew it to be true. It
didn’t matter. So, he would be in debt up to his eyeballs, instead
of owning the stock free and clear, but he would deal with it. At
least with his mother and Esmeralda making a go of their interior
design business, he’d only have one female to support.

“
I guess we could still…” Crimson studied
the slate floor, as if the answers to the mysteries of the universe
lay in the pattern. “We could still get mar—”

The fr
ont door swung open with a pang and a burst of cold air.
“Here you are,” an irritated male voice announced. “I’ve been
trying to call you all day. Both of you. And your
mothers.”

Nick turned to see
the gaunt features of Adam Andrews, the
family lawyer. The newcomer swept his felt hat from his head and
patted the thin strands of hair into place across his balding
skull. “Did you not get my messages?” he demanded as took off his
steamed-up glasses and wiped them on the sleeve of his coat. “I’m
sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. I had to verify the signatures
on the documents.”

“
What documents?” Nick asked.

“
You didn’t get my messages.” It was a
statement, not a question. “There are new developments. I received
documents and a video cassette by courier yesterday. It seems that
your mother sent them.” The lawyer pushed the horn rimmed glasses
back on his nose and shot a sour look at Crimson. “Highly
irregular,” he muttered. “I’m afraid the situation has become quite
complicated.”

Back to Contents

Chapter Fifteen

Crimson sat in front of the old VCR
they
had installed in
one of the conference rooms while she researched the advertising
archives. She balanced the padded, sealed envelope in her hand.
“How do you know it’s a video tape?” she asked Adam
Andrews.

“
It said so in the accompanying letter.”
The lawyer glanced at his watch in a manner no doubt intended to
remind her that his time was valuable. “I’ll leave you to watch it.
Let me know when you’re finished.”

“
Don’t you need to stay?” she
asked.

“
The tape is for you. The contents have no
bearing on the documents.”

“
What documents?” Nick asked. He was
hovering in the doorway, looking troubled. That, more than
anything, filled Crimson with dread. Nick would be much better
equipped to guess what was going on. If he appeared glum, she ought
to be petrified.

“
I’m not at liberty to discuss the topic
until Miss Mills has seen the tape. Those are my orders. She has to
watch the tape. Then I have to inform you of the details in the
documents.”

She held
out the envelope. “Nick, you do it.”

As
impatient as a drunk uncorking a bottle, Nick tore off the
wrapper, turned the machine on and pushed the tape into the slot.
He picked up the remote control and pressed the buttons. After a
few seconds of hissing static, a picture of Stephan Constantine
came on.

“
Dear Crimson,” he started, as if dictating
a letter. She recognized the background, the conservatory at
Longwood Hall. Behind him, the lemon tree was in full blossom. It
must be the spring, perhaps a month before he died. Tired,
emaciated, he’d combed his hair and dressed in a shirt and tie,
making an effort to look neat.

“
When you get this, you may be married to
my son. If it’s going well, I rejoice for you. If not, you have my
blessing to get a divorce. If, on the other hand, that stubborn boy
refused to marry you, you’ll have spent six months running
Constantine Motors. Yes, I know it will be six months, because it’s
May now, and in a few days I’ll be dead. And not a minute too
soon—”

He turned away from the camera, gagged
into a handkerchief. From the way the ta
pe jumped, Crimson guessed it had been stopped and
started again.

“
As I said, by the time you get this
message, you’ll have spent six months running Constantine Motors.”
A rueful smile hovered around the old man’s mouth. “Why did I do
it? Why did I land you in this predicament? The answer to that
question is easy. I did it for you, and I did it for
Nick.”

He looked down. Crimson
guessed he was adjusting a blanket across
his knees. On the background, she could hear the budgerigars in the
conservatory chirping, and a faint voice of someone talking. Of
course. Someone must have helped him make the tape.

“
I see fire in you,” Uncle Stephan said. “I
see determination in you. But you lack confidence. Your mother has
told me that you have to give up dancing. I fear that you’ll drift
into some dead end job. Packing boxes in a factory, waiting tables
in a diner. You’re capable of much more than that, Crimson. I
wanted to make sure that you’d have to try.”

Looking exhausted
, he paused to rest. The sound of the budgerigars
filled the silence. “As to that son of mine,” Stephan Constantine
continued. “His heart is encased in ice. I hurt that boy. It’s the
one thing in my life I regret. If I had been a better man, I might
have found a way of balancing two families. But I wasn’t. I backed
myself into a corner and had to make a choice. And I made it. And I
lived with it. And I’ll die with it.”