Winner Takes All (2 page)

Mrs. Hemingway coughed. “Sir, I don’t think you should—”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine,” he said, tossing a wink at Eva. “What do you say?”

“I’m not sure—”

“I’ve got some pull with Cole. Why don’t you discuss your business with me, and if I think your cause is worthwhile, I’ll help you out.”

This offer gave Eva pause. If he really had any sort of pull with Hammond, then she couldn’t afford to turn him down, not with her next appointment scheduled for five weeks away. “All right,” she said cautiously, not at all convinced she was doing the right thing. His interest in her obviously had nothing to do with business, and she feared she was being taken in by an expert. Still, it was a risk she had to run. “But I’m putting the tab on my expense account.”

He smiled, not at all put off by her declaration. “I have no objections to a beautiful woman taking me out to lunch,” he said. Then he directed her to the elevator, where he pressed a button.

Eva, knowing it was best to make the ground rules clear from the very beginning, reiterated the professional nature of their lunch. “This is a business meeting.”

His eyes gleamed innocently. “Of course,” he agreed but with little conviction.

“Really, it is.”

He smiled mysteriously as the elevator doors opened and he followed her into the waiting car. “Good-bye, Mrs. Hemingway,” he called with a wave.

Mrs. Hemingway stared at Eva with stern disapproval until the doors swept shut. “She doesn’t like me,” Eva said, as they rode down the twenty-seven floors.

He shrugged. “She’s just protective. She was Coleman Hammond Sr.’s executive secretary before he died. She’s been with the family for almost thirty years.”

Although this information was news to Eva, it didn’t surprise her. “I figured it was something like that,” she said, as the elevator came to a stop on the first floor and the doors opened. “The gatekeeper is always an old valued family retainer.”

“The gatekeeper?” he asked as he followed her out of the elevator.

“You know, the intimidating woman who controls access to the inner sanctum,” she explained, stepping onto the sidewalk. It was a lovely afternoon in Manhattan, with the late-summer sun still brilliant and warm.

Once they were on the street, Eva confronted the tricky problem of where she should take him for lunch. There were many excellent restaurants in the Rockefeller Center area, and after reviewing several silently, she decided on the Sea Grill. Her business suit was certainly respectable enough, and nobody could take issue with her companion’s appearance. She turned right at the corner of Fifth and Fifty-first, wondering how concerned she should be about getting a table at the height of the lunch rush. They didn’t have a reservation, which was a huge strike against them. Perhaps they would get lucky.

“I don’t know,” he said, as he walked next to her, carefully avoiding street vendors selling their wares and other pedestrians. “You didn’t seem all that intimidated.”

Eva smiled wryly. “I didn’t?”

“Stronger men and women than you have crumbled when Mrs. Hemingway starts tossing around the word
alleged
in that accusatory tone of voice. I myself have slithered away a time or two.”

Even though she was in the middle of a busy sidewalk, Eva stopped. “Just how much of the conversation did you hear?”

“Some of it.”

Eva looked at him through eyes that were narrow slits.

“All of it,” he admitted. “I was standing in the doorway.”

Digesting this information, Eva tried to recall if she had said anything particularly inappropriate to Mrs. Hemingway. Nothing came to mind. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s rude to listen in doorways?”

“Actually, no. But I don’t make a habit of it.”

“Well, it is rude,” she said, wondering why she was so disconcerted by the thought of his watching her without her knowledge. “Please make a note of it.”

“Let me make it up to you then. Have dinner with me at my apartment. You can eavesdrop on conversations between me and my housekeeper,” he said, laying a hand on her arm and smiling endearingly.

Eva stared at him for a long moment, completely unaware of the pedestrians jostling by. Have dinner with him at his house? The man must be insane. They’d met not ten minutes before and already he was trying to get her back to his place. And the frightening thing was, she was interested enough to consider it. She was very interested indeed. The man before her had a good sense of humor and keen, intelligent eyes—two traits that were hard to come by in New York City. And this was leaving his other, more obvious attractions out of the equation.

She gently freed her arm and started walking again in the direction of the restaurant, deciding to ignore his invitation. They were going to have a respectable business lunch whether he liked it or not. “I thought we’d go to the Sea Grill,” she said, her tone cool and professional.

“I’d rather not.”

Eva was disappointed but not completely surprised. This is it in a nutshell, she thought, glad that she’d had the good sense to turn him down. Handsome men in impeccably tailored suits either got what they wanted from the world or they lost interest. “Thank you very much for your time.” She held out her hand. “It was very nice meeting your, Mr.…” For the second time that afternoon she was at a loss for a name. Great, she thought, it’s becoming a habit.

“Reed,” he supplied, with an odd light in his eye. “And you’re not getting rid of me that easily. It’s not the company I object to; it’s the restaurant. I thought we could go somewhere a little more relaxed. There’s a wonderful French bistro on Fifty-fifth that I love. Why don’t we go there?” He saw her hesitation. “It’s still your treat. A business lunch, I believe you called it.”

Eva wasn’t used to having her preconceptions shot down, and she enjoyed the novelty. He had more depth than she gave him credit for, and suddenly she was looking very forward to the next hour or so. “All right, Mr. Reed, French it is.”

He gave a relieved smile. “It’s just Reed.”

“Hi, Reed,” she said, offering her hand. Now that this meeting had some semblance of decorum, she wanted to keep it that way. Nothing said circumspect professional like a handshake. “I’m Eva.”

“I know.”

She was momentarily taken aback by this until she remembered that he had overhead her entire conversation with Mrs. Hemingway. “I imagine you do. I must have said it a dozen times.”

“Said it and spelled it, which I thought was particularly optimistic,” he admitted with a dimpled smile. “Eva Butler is pretty straightforward. You probably don’t get many variations on it.”

“This is true.”

They fell into a companionable silence as they walked through Rockefeller Center. Eva’s office was around the block on Fifth Avenue, and she felt a moment’s tinge of conscience that she wasn’t back there
.
But I
am
working, she reminded herself. Just because I’m enjoying myself doesn’t mean this isn’t work.

Late summer was a lovely time to be in New York, and the closer they got to Central Park, the more tourists they saw with cameras and fanny packs. Eva loved seeing tourists in New York. They always reminded her that she was a New Yorker now. Not quite a native, of course, but certainly not a visitor either. She had moved to Manhattan from her native Texas almost twelve years ago. She had come for an education but stayed for the vibrant energy and excitement the city offered.

“Here we are,” said Reed, as he opened the door for her.

The bustling restaurant was long and narrow, with low wood-beamed ceilings and a rustic brown tile floor. Tables covered with red-and-white-checked tablecloths lined the walls and left barely enough room for apron-clad waiters to bustle through. After a friendly greeting from the host, they were shown to a corner table in the back, near a slow-burning fireplace. The atmosphere was romantic and cozy—no wonder he didn’t want to eat at the Sea Grill—and Eva couldn’t help feeling of fissure of alarm.

To hide her discomfort, she looked at the menu. She’d been too nervous before her meeting with Cole Hammond to enjoy her Greek salad, and her stomach rumbled now at the thought of food. Steak frites would be far too much food. Perhaps something lighter, like soup.

“I can recommend everything on the menu,” Reed said, watching the indecision play across her face.

She noticed that he hadn’t touched his. “What are you getting?”

“The steak au poivre.”

Eva nodded and considered her options, settling on a crock of onion soup.

“Excellent choice,” Reed said. “That was my mother’s favorite. We used to come here a lot when I was a kid. I’ve only recently rediscovered it.”

“You grew up in the city?”

“Yes, on the Upper East Side. We had an apartment near the park.” He paused for a moment, reflecting. “It was very nice. I wouldn’t mind living up there again.”

“Where are you now?” she asked.

“Tribeca. I have a loft.”

“And a housekeeper,” she added, recalling his earlier statement. His loft must be large to be able to accommodate domestic help. In her apartment there was barely enough room for her and her furniture.

“Gina doesn’t live with me. She just drops by from time to time.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “A single man doesn’t need that much keeping.”

Eva laughed while appreciating the casual way he’d dropped his dating status into the conversation. Not that she wasn’t glad to hear it but, still, it had been done very neatly. Just then the waiter came by to take their order, sparing her the necessity of a reply.

“What would mademoiselle like?” he asked, holding his pen over a white pad with jerky fingers. Eva gave her order and listened as Reed recited his.

“And a carafe of the house red,” Reed said, as the waiter walked away. He returned less than a minute later with red wine and two glasses, which he filled with a distracted air before running off to the kitchen.

When he was gone, Reed raised his glass. “To Mrs. Hemingway, for bringing us together.”

Eva didn’t necessarily agree with the toast—as far as she was concerned, they weren’t together—but she didn’t want to seem peevish, so she raised her glass and drank to Mrs. Hemingway. Since she still had to go back to work, Eva took a very small sip and put down the wineglass.

Reed watched her with an amused expression. “It’s still a business meeting if you drink a glass of red wine,” he said.

Hating that he’d read her so easily, Eva chose to ignore the provocative comment. “Speaking of business,” she said, “I would like to talk to you about the Hammond collection.”

“Ah, yes, the coveted Hammond collection,” he said, lifting his glass. “I suspected it was something like that when you said you worked for Wyndham’s. I see they’ve assigned you the job of wooing the elusive Mr. Coleman Hammond. A different tactic than the one taken by Davidge’s and Brooks’s but arguably more effective.”

Eva leaned forward. “What do you know about the tactics taken by Davidge’s and Brooks’s. Did Mr. Hammond tell you about their meetings? Do you know if he’s interested?”

Reed laughed. “Ms. Butler, I’ve just implied that the only reason you were assigned to the Hammond collection was your wild red hair, your spitfire green eyes and your luscious figure and you don’t even flinch. You just lean forward with lively interest, which, by the way, shows your spitfire green eyes to advantage, and grill me for information that I may or may not have. I thought at the very least I was in for a lecture.”

Grateful that the soft candlelight of the restaurant hid her blushing cheeks, Eva looked him in the eye—painfully aware, of course, of her own spitfire green ones being shown to advantage—and resolved to keep matters on professional footing. “I overlooked your statement because I know it’s not true, and when I meet with Mr. Hammond on October sixteenth, he’ll know it’s not true either. I’m very good at my job, and all that matters to me is that I do my job.

“Now, as I was saying, about the Hammond collection,” she continued in her best matter-of-fact voice, “Wyndham’s would like the opportunity to preside over the sale of Coleman Hammond Sr.’s art collection.”

Reed nodded and leaned back to listen to her pitch. “All right. Tell me why Wyndham’s should get the commission.”

Relieved that this was going to be a business meeting after all, Eva reached into her bag and withdrew a mockup of a catalog, which she put on the table in front of Reed. “As you may know, Wyndham’s has been in the auction business for more than two hundred years, although our North American office is relatively young at only ninety-eight,” she said. “In the past, we haven’t gotten quite the high-profile commissions that Davidge’s and Brooks’s get.” This was only the truth and Eva saw no reason to hide it, although she knew her boss would disagree.

At Wyndham’s it was verboten to mention the names of its two main competitors. But Davidge’s and Brooks’s really weren’t their competitors. Wyndham’s had never gone after the blockbuster sales such as Princess Diana’s dresses or the Jackie O estate. All three auction houses had been around since the early eighteen hundreds, but only Wyndham’s retained its old-fashioned reputation as a stodgy concern where ruined aristocrats went to quietly liquidate their holdings. Anyone with a little flash went to Davidge’s or Brooks’s, despite the efforts Wyndham’s had made in recent years to alter that perception.

Part of the problem, Eva knew, was that Wyndham’s was too small an operation to compete. It couldn’t make the lavish claims that the other two houses could make and business suffered for it. But Eva knew that a successful auction depended on more than a world tour and a glossy brochure. Now all she had to do was convince Cole Hammond of that.

She looked at Reed, who seemed to be listening intently. “However, just because we haven’t gone after the large, sexy commissions in the past doesn’t mean we don’t know how to dispose of one,” she said. By positioning their failure as a choice, Eva was twisting the truth, but she knew it sounded good. “We’ve always held back because it’s Wyndham’s policy not to get into bidding wars over commissions with other auction houses but we think the Hammond collection is special and worth fighting for.”