“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.”
Reed took a sip of wine and smiled. “All right, enough spin. How would you handle the Hammond collection?”
Eva wanted to be annoyed at the way he cut through her carefully worded speech but couldn’t. He was treating her like a business equal. It was exactly what she wanted. “I thought we’d start with a full-color catalog. It would have the complete collection and would be released three months before the auction in order to whet the public’s interest,” she said, pushing the mockup she’d drawn up toward him.
Reed picked it up and started flipping through the pages. “What else?”
“We’d display the collection in our New York gallery as well as tour the highlights. I envision a four-city tour: London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Nashville.”
“Why only highlights?” he asked. “Davidge’s and Brooks’s want to tour the entire collection.”
Of course they do, she thought. That’s the kind of money they have. But even if Wyndham’s could afford it, Eva would be reluctant to. Showing only part of the collection was a more effective way of piquing the public’s interest. “I think a collection should be mysterious and aloof, a little seductive, like…like a woman doing a veil dance,” she said, cursing herself for coming up with such a trite metaphor. “We show them a few excellent pieces to get their attention. Then we tell them there’s even more if they follow us to New York. You don’t remove all the veils at once. And getting bidders from far-flung paces is key. In my experience, the farther a bidder travels, the more he or she wants to buy something. It’s like going on vacation. Nobody wants to return from New York City without a souvenir. For some people that means a commemorative spoon with the Statue of Liberty on it and for others that means a Monet.”
Reed nodded. “Why Nashville? Nobody else has mentioned Nashville.”
At this observation, Eva smiled and felt a keen satisfaction in herself and her ability to dig up arcane information. It hadn’t been easy to identify an enclave of art collectors in Tennessee, and only the obsessive tracking of auction sales of Impressionist paintings for the last twenty years had revealed the pattern.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “Obviously, Nashville is a hotbed of country music, not art collecting, but it’s a city with a surprising amount of money, and rising executives who are trying to establish themselves are always on the lookout for new ways to show off their wealth. Moreover, the city is home to a small community called Belle Meade, which topped Forbes’ list of the best places in the U.S. to retire rich. Its median household income is $250,000, and homes average $915,000. Al Gore lives there, as does billionaire Thomas Frist, who cofounded the Hospital Corporation of America. There’s a lot of money centered in a small area, and many of the residents are avid collectors of Impressionism. I want to get them involved, and bringing the collection to them is an opportunity to do that. It will go a long way to earning their goodwill as well as flattering their egos and ensuring that they don’t feel like some sort of Southern backwater.” She paused and took a sip of wine before continuing. “As peddlers with wares to hock, I think it behooves us to stroke as many egos as possible.”
Reed considered her as the waiter brought their meals to the table. He waited for him to leave before saying, “You’re an astute businesswoman, Ms. Butler.”
Eva cocked her head as she accepted the compliment. “Thank you.”
“I’m familiar with Belle Meade and have even had dinner at Al Gore’s home.”
Knowing how few people could make that statement and with such nonchalance, Eva narrowed her eyes and wondered, not for the first time, who he was. “What exactly do you do, Reed?”
Reed shrugged. “Mostly, I plug holes when things start to leak.”
As far as job descriptions went, she thought this one was thoroughly inadequate. “And you plug holes for Hammond Communications?”
“Usually.”
“What’s your title?”
“CHP. Chief Hole Plugger.”
Eva couldn’t decide if she should be amused or annoyed. She settled on the former. “Don’t you ever give a straight answer?”
“If the question is right.”
Eva knew this was just another diversionary tactic and gave up. “For a man who may or not be an employee of Hammond Communications, you seem to know a lot about what goes on there.” Deciding she was too hungry to wait any longer, she dug right in. The soup burned her tongue but tasted so good, she didn’t mind. She took another spoonful.
“I hear things.”
“What things?” She sampled some of the cheese that had melted over the side of the bowl. “This soup is fantastic.”
He smiled warmly, revealing the dimple. “Told you so. What do you want to know?”
“I don’t want you to break any confidences or anything—this is strictly an above-board operation—but do you happen to know if Mr. Hammond has made up his mind?” she asked, tearing off a piece of bread and dunking it into her delicious soup. “I don’t want to waste my time and get my hopes up if the whole thing is already a done deal.”
He looked at her with his sapphire gaze for several long moments. “I can tell you truthfully and unequivocally and without breaking a single confidence that there are no done deals. Right now, anything’s possible.”
Eva let out a tense breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. “Great. So, to continue, commission rates.”
“Ah, yes, commission rates,” he said, cutting his fillet.
Reed obviously knew enough about auctions to realize that this was where the real dealing was done. Decisions were often made based on the commission rates charged. Wyndham’s, because of its size, had never been very competitive when it came to commissions. It was standard to charge the buyer fifteen percent; people rarely complained about this. But the seller’s commission—now, that was a hot topic. Wyndham’s had been known to go as low as ten percent but that was all in the past. Ever since the Wyndham heir presumptive had taken over the New York office, seller’s rates had remained fixed at fifteen percent. Ethan had sent out a press release to that effect four months after he’d taken over and nobody in the firm had strayed from it. Until now.
Eva wasn’t sure how she was going to square it with upper management, but she knew she would figure it out. The Hammond collection was too important to be a victim of policy. “Fifteen percent for buyers, ten percent for the seller,” she said, a little nervous. Even if she wanted to go lower, she couldn’t. For a small firm like Wyndham’s, the financials didn’t work out. It was different for Davidge’s and Brooks’s, which had both been known to cut their seller’s commission to zero in order to get the high-profile sales. Those firms had also announced a fixed-rate structure a couple of years ago, but Eva had little faith that they were sticking to it.
Reed considered her carefully. “Ten percent for the seller?”
Although she felt a fissure of alarm, Eva knew it was too late to backtrack now. “Ten percent.”
“Can you guarantee that right now?”
All right, so maybe it wasn’t too late to backtrack. “I can’t guarantee it right here and now,” she said honestly. “I have to talk to a few people first. But I’m reasonably sure that Wyndham’s will stick by that offer. By the time I meet with Mr. Hammond, I will be able to guarantee that figure.”
Holding his wineglass, he nodded slowly. “It sounds good.”
Eva leaned forward. She didn’t want to get too excited. Not yet. “Does that mean you’ll put in a word for me with Mr. Hammond? Nothing lavish, just maybe a suggestion that he should move my meeting up by, say, oh, I don’t know, a month. October sixteenth is simply too far away.”
“I haven’t finished listening to your pitch,” he answered cautiously, “but the way things are going, there’s a very good chance you’ll see him before
October sixteen.”
Although it could hardly be termed as professional behavior, Eva reached a hand across the table and touched his arm. “Thank you, Reed.”
He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “My pleasure.”
Eva felt the electricity of his lips even before they made contact with her skin. She schooled her features to show no response, but inside her chest her heart was racing painfully. To hide her discomfort, she cleared her throat and tried to focus on something other than her ridiculous heart. “Right, my pitch. As I was saying, the catalog will be four-color.…” Eva trailed off when she realized he was still holding her hand. “I’m going to need that back if you want me to continue with my presentation.”
“Of course,” he said softly, loosening his grip.
With the contact between them broken, Eva was able to concentrate on catalogs and sales figures and commission percentages. When she had said she was good at her job, she had been speaking nothing less than the truth, but her job had never before consisted of a sales pitch to a client. As a junior associate, Eva had toiled behind the scenes, appraising furniture and working out strategies for showing those pieces to advantage.
But you’re not a junior associate anymore, she reminded herself. All her hard work and determination had paid off with a promotion, a rarity at Wyndham’s, which was stingy with its rewards. Knowing that made her accomplishment all the more sweet.
Because her saleswoman skills were still being developed, she welcomed the opportunity to practice her pitch on someone as quick and perceptive as Reed. He was a good listener who gave the impression that he was paying attention to every word she said. Eva found this refreshing. In her experience, the opposite sex listened to a woman only with a distracted ear. Men like her father were always thinking about things they deemed more important, and the men she met socially were always concentrating on a clever comeback to impress her. Reed was different. He interrupted only to ask thoughtful, intelligent questions, some of which caught her off guard. Eva had thought that she was completely prepared for this meeting. She’d believed that she had covered every possible angle, but Reed made her see differently. Halfway through the meeting, she took out her phone and started taking notes.
Winner Takes All Page 2