Eva thought of Cole’s mother last night, holding up the empty champagne bottle and insisting that the waiter bring another one to the table immediately. She fought a smile. “I suppose so. Mrs. Hammond hasn’t mentioned anything about it one way or the other.”
“Hmm.” He seemed disappointed, although no news was often good news. “Well, regardless of that matter, I hope you’ll stay with us, as an assistant manager, of course. Ben will give you—”
“Excuse me, sir, are you offering me a promotion?” she asked.
He seemed thrown off by the interruption. “Erm, yes.”
“I appreciate the offer, sir, but given the fact that I didn’t deserve the last one I got, I’d rather not get another,” Eva said, mortified by the idea.
For the first time since she’d entered the room, Elliot Wyndham smiled. “Won’t let an old man appease his conscience, eh? Good for you,” he said admiringly, “but there’s no reason to get stiff-necked about the offer. This promotion is based on your performance here. You’re one of our best people, and if my son’s treachery hadn’t been uncovered, another casualty would have been the loss of you to the auction world. You’re not only very competent at your job, but you also have a certain outgoingness, or an affability, which I suppose some would call people skills, that many of the employees around here lack.”
Eva was surprised the patriarch had noticed. “Very well, I accept. I don’t know what my long-term plans are,” she said, exchanging honesty for honesty, “but I promise to stay on until the Hammond collection has been dispersed.”
“Good. Good. I hope by that time you’ll feel at home again at Wyndham’s, assuming, of course, that Wyndham’s is still here,” Elliot said.
“There’s no doubt about that,” assured Ben quickly. “We have several impressive auctions lined up.”
Eva hid a smile—she’d never seen this cheerleader side of her boss before—and made a vague comment about the future. She didn’t know which half of the optimism-pessimism debate to support, so she straddled the fence. “Is that all?” she asked when the room fell quiet.
“Yes, that’s all,” Elliot told her. “I’ll be here until things settle down, so if you have any problems please feel free to discuss them with me. It’s going to take a lot of work to get this company out of the trash bin, and the first thing that requires is trust. I’m here if you need me.”
Eva thought this was a very nice offer and thanked him as she stood up. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good. Good. Now why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” he suggested. “You’ve been through an ordeal.”
“No, that’s all right,” she said, her hand on the doorknob. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t be silly, my dear. Why don’t you take the week off. Actually, take two weeks. Two weeks is better,” Elliot said. At her confused look he laughed. “Don’t worry. We’ll still be in a heap of trouble when you get back.”
Eva tried to protest further, but Elliot wouldn’t listen to her. Neither would Ben, who threatened to fire her if she didn’t take the two weeks off. Back at Joseph’s desk, she read a text from Ruth—“WTF? Cut yourself some slack and go home!”—and called Cole to say she could take that long lunch after all. Mrs. Hemingway, sounding happy to hear from her, immediately put her through.
I will never get used to that dragon-faced gatekeeper asking about my health and wishing me well, Eva thought after she hung up. Then she logged off the computer without even using it, stood up, pushed in her chair and tried to figure out what she would do with two weeks off. Not since finishing grad school had she had such a huge chunk of time to herself. Although Wyndham’s gave the standard two-week vacation time to its junior employees, the company didn’t encourage you to take the weeks consecutively. In fact, it was frowned upon, which tended to frustrate Eva. She always wanted to take trips to faraway places like Africa or Asia, but it never seemed worth the jetlag to stay for such a short time. Maybe now’s the moment.
But as soon as she had the thought she dismissed it. She wanted to go somewhere exotic and would definitely get there someday, but now, right now, she wanted to spend the time with Cole. In a few months, perhaps, when their relationship had settled into a comfortable rhythm, she wouldn’t be overcome with this jittery feeling at the idea of leaving him for so long.
She was disgusted with herself for being such a lovesick fool, and she wondered if Cole felt the same way. They had grown so close in the last few days it seemed inconceivable that he could simply disappear to Asia for two weeks again. In the future, he’d take shorter business trips, wouldn’t he? Suddenly Eva wasn’t so certain of the answer. Being in a relationship meant changes, she accepted that, but she didn’t know if Cole did. Maybe he wasn’t ready for changes. Maybe, now that the threat of incarceration wasn’t hanging over her, he’d lose interest in her. He’d said he loved her but what did that mean? How many women had he loved over the years?
Don’t do this. It was too easy to be negative and to assume the worst. And what about Cole? He’d been nothing but supportive and understanding throughout the entire ordeal. And not just the ordeal—their whole relationship. He deserved better than her doubts. Besides, billionaire playboys didn’t stand by you while your life was falling apart only to walk away when things starting to go smoothly again. Any man who was afraid of commitment and complications would have let her dump him when the scandal broke. Not Cole. He wasn’t like any other man. He would be around for a while. They would be around.
Before heading to the elevator, Eva inspected her work station to make sure there was nothing she needed. The Post-its had no relevant information on them, just scribbled notes she couldn’t even decipher, and she tossed them away. While she was in her meeting with Ben and Elliot, David had disappeared, which was a relief. Although she’d already dumped two cups of coffee on his head, the desire to go for the hat trick was almost irresistible. Perhaps in two weeks she would overcome the urge to pour scolding liquids on her coworker’s head. She certainly hoped so. It would be extremely inconvenient for David, not to mention Eva, who would have to walk by Devorah’s desk every time to refill her coffee cup.
When Eva arrived at the restaurant, Cole was already at the table. He was talking on his phone nursing a glass of red wine. He hung up immediately when he saw her.
He greeted her with a kiss. “You don’t look much worse for wear,” he said, before ordering her a glass of Shiraz the same vintage as his.
“I shouldn’t think so,” she said sighing. “I didn’t do a speck of work today, except pour coffee on a coworker’s head, which, technically speaking, isn’t actually work.”
Cole smiled at the image. “But still a worthy endeavor nonetheless. I assume your victim was the always gregarious David Taverner?”
She nodded, only a little impressed by his rapid deduction. “How’d you guess?”
“Once you remove Ethan from the equation—and the Justice Department has beautifully—he was next in line,” he explained. “I believe all your other coworkers were reasonably well behaved, although there was some woman named Deborah, I think, who claimed you hoarded packets of sugar from the kitchen. Obviously a charge like that isn’t deserving of such an extreme reprisal.”
Eva wasn’t sure she agreed. “Her name’s Devorah and I don’t recall reading that.”
“That’s probably because after a while I disconnected the WiFi,” he reminded her. “It was a post on Buzzfeed.”
“A wise man. But, yes, it was David. First I threw some week-old coffee at him, then a hot cup of latte. I would have stopped with the week-old coffee, but I was egged on by my boss,” she said. “I’m hoping that two weeks’ vacation will temper my desire to throw coffee on my colleagues.”
Cole glanced up. This was precisely the opening he’d been looking for. “Two weeks?” he asked.
Eva decided on pumpkin soup and peppered skirt steak before closing the menu. “Yeah, two whole weeks,” she said with a sigh, as if freed
om and time were twin albatrosses around her neck. “Elliot Wyndham forced them on me. He claims I’ve been through an ordeal and need time to rest. Like sitting in my apartment staring at the cracks in the walls is going to be restful. It’s just going to remind me that I have to have my walls painted and who can deal with that? The management company will send over someone who doesn’t know how to spread a drop cloth, and he’ll get white paint all over my beautiful wood floors. It will probably take me the whole two weeks to get the floors clean again, which just goes to show—”
“Eva,” Cole said, interrupting her rant. She looked up. “You’re babbling.”
She smiled deprecatingly. “See? I’ve been on vacation for”—she checked her watch—“twenty minutes and already I’m as tense as a violin. If I were a smart girl, I’d go down to a travel agent and tell her to book me on the next flight to Borneo or Bora Bora or Bali or some other fabulous place with a B, but I’m not. I’ll just stop by your apartment, pick up my stuff, go home and start staring at the wall cracks. I should probably pick up a can of turpentine on the way home.”
The excitement Cole felt at the mention of several warm, sandy vacation spots was promptly superseded by dread. Stop by his apartment and pick up her stuff? It sounded like she was moving out. Cole didn’t want her to move out. He loved having Eva around. And there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he wanted her around forever. With a sinking heart, he realized Eva was too cautious a woman to have reached the same conclusion so quickly.
“You don’t have to pick up your stuff,” he said sullenly. He wanted to ask her to marry him, but he was afraid of scaring her off. The entire history of their relationship consisted of him trying to get near Eva and her pushing him away.
The objection was so half hearted Eva thought he’d made it only out of a sense of obligation. He obviously wanted to have the whole place to himself again. And that’s all right, she thought, fighting the keen disappointment that she felt—that she had no right to feel. We can do this slowly. “It’s not a problem. Like I said, I’ve got nothing else to do.”
This conversation wasn’t going the way Cole wanted it to, and he tried to get it back on track. “So what’s wrong with going away? Two weeks off is the perfect excuse to go to Borneo or Bora Bora or Bali.” If the choice were up to him, it would be Bali. Hammond Communications owned a villa there.
Eva shook her head and debated whether or not to tell him the truth. She had an understandable reluctance to confessing the depth of her feelings but then decided if they were going to have a relationship, it would be a completely honest one—at least on her part. “I’d miss you too much,” she said, looking him in the eyes and trying not to blush. Somehow saying that was harder than admitting she loved him.
Cole heard this and made a decision. To hell with being cautious. It wasn’t his style anyway. One didn’t get to be a captain of industry by playing it safe. “Marry me.”
Eva, who had been taking a sip of red wine, started coughing. Cole assumed she was choking and got up to help, but she stopped him with a shake of her head. It was no big deal. She had just swallowed wrong. And no wonder!
Cole tried to wait patiently as she cleared her throat, but it was the first time he’d proposed and he wanted a speedy and positive answer. Eva kept him waiting.
“What?” she asked, gasping for air.
“Marry me.”
There, he said it again, and still Eva couldn’t believe it. She put down the wineglass, which she’d been holding tightly in her grasp, and considered asking him to repeat it. But no, she thought, she couldn’t make him propose a third time. And he was proposing! So much for their taking it slowly.
“Marry me,” he said again, more out of nerves than anything else. He knew she understood him—he could see it in her eyes—but he was too nervous to remain quiet for long. “Marry me right now.”
So this is how it happens, she thought. This is how you wind up calling your friends in the middle of the day and telling them to screw work and come down to the Municipal Building for a wedding. Oh, my God. “All right,” she said, smiling brightly. There was none of the fear she’d expected to feel, none of the indecision she’d anticipated. Just a glowing happiness and an excitement for what came next. “I’m not exactly dressed for it, but I’d be happy to marry you right now. I suppose this means I don’t have to go back to my apartment and stare at the cracks in my wall. What am I going to do for my vacation then?”
She sounded so vexed by this problem that Cole laughed out loud. Several patrons and a few waiters turned to look at the source of the happy sound. Cole ignored their interested glances and kept his eyes trained on Eva. Then he stood up, pulled her into his arms, and, thinking of their two naked bodies on a deserted beach, assured her in dulcet tones, before his lips captured hers, that he’d be happy to keep her busy.
About the Author
Jacqui Moreau lives in Kansas City with her three cats, two dogs and an insomniac goldfish called Sleepy. By turns, she’s been a waitress, a hairdresser, a newspaper delivery boy, an event planner, a store clerk, a dog walker and a janitor (one day but still!). Winner Takes All is her first novel.
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