The Midsummer Auction

by Pia Tremayne

  The Midsummer Auction

  Coffee heiress Nicola Edgerton auctions herself off to save her dream of being a certified Blue Mountain Coffee grower. Her purchaser is Sir Anthony Astonville. She doesn't recall their ever meeting, yet her heart says he's the one she's been holding out for, to bring her sexual fantasies to life and make her fall wildly in love with him. But he'll never know because, as he bluntly informs her, all he wants is his money's worth.

  Seeing Nicola again has resurrected Anthony's unhappy past. He intends to use her to bury it once and for all. Their plans don't include falling in love, but their off-the-charts erotic sex and fantasy role playing are game changers. Anthony is between a rock and a hard place. Whether he reveals all to her or not. it could drive Nicola into the arms of someone he knows is an impostor. But for Anthony, losing her to another man is simply not an option.

  Genre: Contemporary, Interracial

  Length: 84,394 words

  THE MIDSUMMER AUCTION

  Pia Tremayne

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  THE MIDSUMMER AUCTION

  Copyright © 2015 by Pia Tremayne

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-427-3

  First E-book Publication: June 2015

  Cover design by Christine Kirchoff

  All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  This is Pia Tremayne’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Pia Tremayne’s right to earn a living from her work.

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  DEDICATION

  This book is for those who long to be in dangerous territory—that state of belonging utterly and completely to one person only, and from which you can never chart your way out again without losing yourself.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  THE MIDSUMMER AUCTION

  PIA TREMAYNE

  Copyright © 2015

  Chapter One

  Almost two weeks had gone by since the crash and it still hadn’t really sunk in yet. Mum and Dad were gone forever, both killed when their car veered off the road and down the side of a steep hill. They had gone to visit friends in Montego Bay for a few days and were returning home when it happened. Nicola leaned on the veranda railing, wondering if she would ever come to terms with the suddenness, the finality of losing both her parents, without even a chance to say that last goodbye, Both she and her older sister Emma were orphans now, in their twenties but still orphans, she thought sadly. They would never see their parents again, never hear the sound of their voices. Before, the house had been filled with laughter, with their parents’ gentle murmurings, with the sound of Mum humming snatches of songs she couldn’t be bothered learning all the words to. Now there was a hushed quality to the air, as though the house itself was grieving the loss.

  Hearing Emma’s footsteps, she turned to see her sister coming out onto the veranda with two mugs.

  “Here,” Emma said, handing her one of the mugs. “Have some tea. I just made a fresh pot. Let’s sit out here for a while. We have to talk.”

  “Thanks, Em, I know.”

  They walked over to the wicker settee and sat, sipping their tea in companionable silence. After the turmoil of the last two weeks it was good to have this moment of tranquility, just the two of them alone. Mum and Dad had been cremated and Nicola and Emma had scattered their ashes to the winds in the Blue Mountains. Her parents had said once that when the time came, that was how they would like to go, borne aloft to soar through the universe. Together.

  The stream of visitors coming to the house to express their condolences and to offer help had gradually slowed to a trickle and finally stopped. The relatives who had come from abroad, some of whom had stayed with them, had returned home. Nicola and Emma had been grateful for the many kindnesses that had been showered upon them, proof that their parents had been held in high regard by so many people. But life must go on and it was time for them to make plans, figure out how they were going to manag
e.

  “I know this will be hard for you and you don’t want to hear it, but we have to think about selling, Nicki,” Emma said presently. “With the size of the debt I don’t see how we can keep the estate going. You saw the numbers. Mr. Farnsworth is right. There isn’t even enough money to pay the workers. We have to let them go.”

  Nicola sipped her tea, her face betraying stubborn thoughts. Em knew how she felt about the estate. Nicola had made that clear the day before yesterday in the lawyer’s chambers.

  The day after their parents’ funeral service, Mr. Farnsworth, their father’s lawyer, had revealed that the Edgerton coffee estate had been losing money for years. The reality was that their parents had lived lavishly, beyond their means. Their dad had talked the finance company into lending him large sums of money and the estate was mired in debt. To the girls’ dismay, their parents’ insurance policy had lapsed months earlier because of unpaid premiums. To make matters worse, last year the estate had suffered enormous damage from a hurricane. Most of the workers had seen the writing on the wall and

  had already gone, many of them to the Torres estate, which adjoined the Edgerton lands.

  The lawyer hinted that their best option might be to sell. Nicola was horrified. She jumped to her feet precipitately, thanked him for his advice, and fled his chambers before she forgot herself and shouted in anger at this man who had known them since they were children.

  “I will never give up our land,” she told Emma passionately as soon as his door closed behind them. “And someday the Edgerton estate will be famous for its coffee.”

  “But we don’t even have enough money to keep paying the interest on the loans, much less repaying the capital. And we don’t really know enough about growing coffee. Where will we get the money to pay an overseer, not to mention the workers? I have no real marketable skills that would bring in some income to tide us over even for one year, and neither do you,” Emma pointed out.

  “Don’t worry, Em,” Nicola said stoutly. “Just give me a few months. I swear I’ll find a way to get the money we need. This is our land, our birthright. I will never let it go, no matter what it takes. We may not know all that much about growing coffee now, but we can learn. We can do it, Em.”

  She was the one who shared her father’s dream, his passion for the land. She had taken it for granted that it would always be there, waiting for her to come home to once she had gotten the youthful need for adventure out of her system and was ready to buckle down to taking care of her birthright. Now that birthright seemed about to slip through her fingers and she knew only one thing. She couldn’t let that happen. Somehow, she would fix it, because it was up to her to carry on Dad’s legacy and fulfill the dream.

  Nicola hadn’t had the chance to tell Emma yet, but yesterday on the pretext of going into the city to do some personal banking, she had visited the loan officer at the finance company, hoping to persuade him not to call in the loan just yet. Now she had to break the news to Emma.

  “I didn’t get a chance to tell you because it was so late when I got back from the city, but I dropped in to see the loan officer at the finance company yesterday, just to have a chat with him. He offered to extend the loan for three months,” she announced.

  “He did! How did you manage that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he was in a good mood,” Nicola replied.

  “Well, that’s all well and good, Nicki. I wish I had your optimism but I can’t imagine what will change for us in three months. It’s just putting off the inevitable.”

  Nicola took another sip of tea. No sense telling Em what had really happened. She would just worry that Nicola was getting herself into trouble.

  The truth was that the loan officer had been polite but clearly skeptical about Nicola’s confident assertion that she and her sister were up to the challenge of turning things around and making a profit. He had hemmed and hawed when Nicola pleaded with him to extend the loan, but the look in his eyes, coupled with her woman’s intuition, alerted her that he wanted her, would give her anything if he could have her. It was written all over him.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures. She got up and walked around the desk to take a closer look at the figures on the sheet of paper in front of him. When she bent down, her hair showered down close to his face and her breast grazed his arm. The pen he was holding fell out of his fingers and clattered to the desk. He made no attempt to retrieve it. She was standing so close to him that one more step would have landed her in his lap. She allowed her knee to brush his leg and sensed he was this close to grabbing her. When she looked down, the bulge in his trousers was unmistakable. She went back to her chair and sat down, looking at him calmly.

  “I was hoping that perhaps you could see your way to extending the loan just for a few more months,” she told him.

  He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow, then leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the desk.

  “Of course, nothing is ever cast in stone,” he said in a strangled tone. “An arrangement to extend the loan can always be worked out. We are prepared to make exceptions for our…ah…preferred clients.” His eyes held hers, moist with meaning.

  “It is so kind of you to offer to extend the loan,” she said earnestly, fixing him with a limpid green gaze. “As you know, I left London quite suddenly because of the tragedy of my parents’ death. I will be returning there shortly to tie up a few loose ends, but as soon as I am back here I intend to begin taking care of all my obligations. Knowing I can count on your support means a great deal to me.”

  He fixed his eyes briefly on her parted lips before returning to the document in front of him. “Well, then,” he said, picking up his pen with a flourish of efficiency, “in view of the circumstances, I think I can give you three months.” He made some notes on the document. “This will be a new loan with you and your sister co-signing as borrowers. Once it’s drawn up, copies will be mailed to you for your signatures. Please return them to us as soon as possible.”

  Unobtrusively, Nicola let out the breath she had been holding. For now at least, she would get her way, until he became tired of waiting for her to deliver on what he obviously assumed was her unspoken promise. But by then, with luck and perseverance, she was sure she would have found some way of getting the money to pay off the debt.

  “Look on the bright side, Em,” she begged her sister now. You never know what might happen in three months. We have to take the chance. The finance company will be sending the new loan document in the mail. Promise you’ll sign it, Em?”

  Resigned, Emma shook her head with the air of someone bowing to the inevitable and took Nicola’s hand in hers. “You and Dad are so alike,” she said with a fond smile. “Nobody could ever say no to either of you.”

  Nicola didn’t have the heart to point out to Em that she had said “are”, as though Dad were still here, because she herself still had that feeling sometimes.

  With the most immediate threat staved off and Emma on side, Nicola spent the next few days racking her brains to come up with ways to find the money they needed to save their estate. Selling it was out of the question. Even if the owners of the larger estates were interested, they would know the Edgertons were in dire straits and would try to capitalize on their desperation. They would offer them next to nothing, barely enough to cover the debt, and then what? She and Emma would be left with nothing. That was what.

  And suddenly, literally in the middle of the night—because the nightmarish prospect of ending up a landless person had been keeping her awake—she sat bolt upright as her brain delivered the solution it had been frantically searching for. Investors! People with real money who, unlike the Jamaican loan officer, didn’t automatically assume that two young women couldn’t possibly manage a coffee estate. People who didn’t shy away from risk, who would take a chance and invest in them, in their estate. Somehow, she would persuade them that their investment would pay off. And she could be persuasive. Hadn’t she just lea
rned an important lesson in how to get her way? She was prepared to do anything, whatever it took, to hold on to her inheritance. Nothing, nothing at all was more important than that.

  And hard on the heels of that epiphany came the thought that the obvious place to start looking was London. It was the place where old money and the nouveau riche coexisted, if you knew how and where to find them. She knew her way around the city. It was where she had been living after several months bumming around Europe with friends—a graduation present from her parents. They had paid her rent for a year without a murmur while she looked for her dream job in her spare time. It was a fantastic flat in a great location, but there was no way she could manage the rent on her own. She had to find a cheaper place to live and a job. The rug had been pulled out from under her, and for the first time in her life she was on her own without parents to fall back on and it was scary.

  Two weeks later Nicola was on a plane to London. Time was of the essence because, first things first, she had to find a job to support herself while she looked for investors.

  Leaving Em alone to handle things had been hard.

  “I’ll be back before you know it, Em, and everything will work out,” Nicola said stoutly. But in her heart, she was scared. What if it didn’t?

  Chapter Two

  Two days after arriving in London, Nicola began job-hunting in earnest. She had taken a bed-sit in central London for one week to start. It was a dump, but she could no longer afford to be choosy. Day two found her in a tiny tea shop around the corner, perusing the help wanted columns over a cup of tea. One of the ads sprang out at her and she drew a circle around it.