Outbid by the Boss (2 page)

When Sam finally found what she’d been hunting for, a small change purse with an even smaller cache of banknotes, everything else went back in her bag.
Everything except the envelope with the American cash.

"All right then..." the auctioneer’s wife was muttering as she made her calculations. Sam glanced at the total, removed a wad of hundred-dollar bills, and handed it over.

The deal was done.

"Thank you, thank you,
thank you
," Chas heard Sam say as she lovingly scooped up the candlestick. "You have no idea how much this means to me."

"It’s not me you should be thanking," drawled the woman. Her eyes slid past Sam’s.

But Chas Porter was already beating a retreat through the crowded hall – this was not the place to confront Miss Redfern no matter how much she deserved it.

Clutching the candlestick to her chest, Sam hurried for the exit. She had a plane to catch. And now, she realized with a frisson of panic, she not only had to nip back to her flat, she also had to
stop at the bank. It would take all her savings and half her rent money to replace the firm’s cash, but her purchase was worth every penny.

As she dashed through the open doorway, Sam remembered thinking how nice it was that the morning rain had given way to a sun-filled afternoon and then...

Woof!

She ran smack into a wall of solid masculinity, gasping as the base of the candlestick dug into her ribcage.

She staggered backwards. A pair of strong hands grabbed her upper arms to steady her, holding her fast as she regained her balance.

And then he spoke.

The "thank-you" Sam was about to utter caught in her throat.

"In a hurry, are we?" The voice was well-bred, well-schooled and awfully familiar.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

And began to mentally chant.

Please, please, please...anybody but Chas bloody Porter. Please, please, please...

"Anytime..." the voice said, rudely interrupting her pleas to the goddess of single women caught in compromising positions.

Stupid woman must be on a lunch break, thought Sam.

Her lids fluttered open and she followed the buttons of the beautifully-stitched, pale-blue oxford-cloth shirt he wore beneath his soft leather jacket to the button at the base of his neck. It was open. Revealing enough of the man to make one feel that every inch of him would be just as enticing as the dark stubble on his chin, the slightly battered but still patrician nose and...the steel-blue eyes washing over her like an icy Arctic wind.

"Miss Redfern, isn't it?" Chas Porter said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I could have sworn you were representing us in New York this week. You do remember the two-day sale at Sotheby's? Previews in....what?" He removed his left hand and checked his watch. "Twenty-four hours?"

"Which, allowing for the time change," replied Sam choking back an urge to flee "gives me twenty-nine hours...

"Now, if you don't mind..." She pointedly eyed the hand grasping her left bicep, an amazing feat given the fact that her knees had turned to water and her brain was sending high-pitched alarm signals to every nerve in her body.

Chas dropped his hand and stepped back, his eyes resting on the candlestick nestled protectively between her breasts.
"Very nice workmanship.
Get it for a good price, did you?"

Sam flushed and like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, whipped the candlestick behind her back.
Which of course thrust her chest forward.

She raised her chin defiantly.

Chas Porter gazed down at her, his eyes slightly hooded, impossible to read.

She stared back at him. The candlestick was hers. Or was it? She felt an unexpected stab of fear. Had he seen her use her expense money to pay for it?

A young couple coming up the steps dropped hands and gave them a wide berth. "We are blocking the entrance," hissed Sam. "And, as you so rightly pointed out, I have a plane to catch."

"Not today, you don't," Chas shot back. He crooked his finger and abruptly turned away leaving her little choice but to follow him down the steps and around the side of the building.

For an instant, Sam rebelled. Who did Chas Porter think he was, calling her to task as though she were a lowly
serf.
He was her boss, she reassured herself as she hurried to catch up, not some feudal lord who expected her to do his bidding. Perhaps she should just tug her forelock and be done with it. 

A cobblestoned alleyway separated the auction hall from its nearest neighbour, a tumbled-down ironmonger's Sam surmised from a brief glimpse at the shop window; still eking out an existence selling buckets and nails and who-knew-what.

Taking a deep breath, she plunged into the alleyway behind Chas.

It was creepy. A rickety fire escape hung from the yellowed bricks of the ironmonger's, water dripping from its bottom rung; the bolts holding it to the wall were loose and rusty with age. Sam shivered in the dank air; she could almost hear the rats scuttling in the shadows. Gripping the candlestick even tighter, she hurried to catch up to where her boss, the head of Burton-Porter & Sons, one of the country's most exclusive dealers in Fine Art & Collectibles, was waiting for her.

Her best, and perhaps only defence, Sam thought, was that she had good taste.

But then so did he. As had all the other Burtons and Porters before him. They were the ones who had taken the firm from its 18th-century beginnings as a small shop on Regent Street to the discreet upper echelons of Mayfair and Belgravia.

It probably hadn't hurt that the men in the family were all devastatingly good-looking, thought Sam, assuming the portraits lining the panelled walls in the Burton-Porter boardroom were true-to-life.
Raven-haired, broad-shouldered, tall, arrogant and cold.

Just like the one waiting beneath a long-faded advertisement, its white-painted letters barely visible on the wall of the ironmonger's. Chas Porter's expression was as hard as the nails they sold. "Anything you want to say in your defence?"

Sam shook her head. "Not at the moment." She wanted to ask him if he had been the one bidding against her and, if so, why he had stopped.

Probably not a good idea.

"In my experience," he began scrubbing his chin as he spoke, "my employees generally take their extra days to fly to New York to make contacts and educate themselves by visiting galleries and showrooms..."

"Which they do at your expense..." muttered Sam.

"You're hardly in a position to say anything right now."

"I'll replace the money!"

"You're darn right you will! As for New York..."

"Oh, for heaven's sakes," Sam interrupted, "you wouldn’t have hired me if I hadn’t been fully qualified. And....just for the record...slinking about New York takes a lot less time than some of your staff members would have you know..."

Her voice trailed away....challenging authority was a bad habit. Once acquired, hard to lose.

"Did you know your sentences get longer when you're angry."

Sam felt her jaw drop. "That's all you have to say!"

Chas shook his head.
"Hardly."
He reached into his jacket and pulled out his mobile. "Wait here. I have a couple of calls to make."

The little glimmer of fear grew and began to gnaw its way into Sam's thoughts as she watched him retreat further into the gloom. Technically speaking, she had used company funds to pay for the candlestick but surely he wouldn't...

...call the police.
Or the firm's solicitors.
Sam shuddered. If only she could lip read. She heard Chas say "send me a text," and then he was on to another call.

Worst case scenario, she decided, he'd fire her.

The candlestick was beginning to feel like a dead weight. The only reason she'd even known about this sale was because of a tip from a friend at a rival firm. Small sale in the Midlands, he’d said, squaring the books with Sam for a favour done in the past.

Sam had visited the auction website, which was feeble at best, read the brief description and realized that not many people would have recognized the candlestick or its history based on the information given.

So how did Chas Porter end up here?

Her head ached. With her free hand, Sam reached up and pulled the clip from her hair. As she shook it loose she felt some of the tension ease.

If Chas been able to get rearrange his busy schedule to attend the sale, he must have been on the lookout for the same silver candlestick. Which meant....what?

A number of theories flitted through her brain. She needed to talk to Mia. Mia was logical. She was Sam’s best friend at Burton-Porter, and she knew every piece of scuttlebutt worth knowing.

In the meantime, as far as Sam was concerned, the candlestick was hers.

She'd bought it fair and square.

And she was keeping it.

Part of him, Chas had to admit, felt a tad guilty as he covertly kept his eye on Sam. He had half-expected her to bolt but she was no coward, not by a long shot. With the sun behind her, her hair shone with copper and gold framing her face like a modern-day Madonna.

Which, he reminded himself sharply, she definitely was not.

He heard a voice in his ear and the image disappeared.

"Hello?" he said into the phone. "It’s Chas....slight change in plans."

Without revealing anything untoward about the day's events, he explained to his secretary why the assistant appraiser in the firm's art department would be going to New York instead of Samantha Redfern.

"It'll be fine. Tell her to concentrate on her own area of expertise...maybe check out the abstract expressionists while she’s there. And book her into the Park Plaza.
Nothing like a five-star hotel to smooth the waters.”

Chas ended the call.

His focus shifted back to Sam.
One problem down, another to go.

You had to admire her, thought Chas as he sauntered towards her. He knew how hard it was to stand one’s ground. When he had taken control of the business, family issues had weighed heavily on his young shoulders. The company's good name was everything. He couldn’t risk it then, and he wasn't going to now.

No matter how awkward the next few days might be.

Or pleasurable, he thought, as he took in the light dusting of freckles across Sam's nose and the flecks of gold in the green eyes warily tracking his approach.

"Well?" she asked. "What's the verdict?"

"The jury is still out....however, as I'm on my way to Derbyshire to catalogue an estate sale," he continued blithely. "And since you evidently know more about Georgian silver than even I realized, you will be my assistant."

"But I'm expected in New York!" Sam blustered.

He waggled his mobile in her direction. "Not anymore. Helen Chalmers will go in your stead. In fact, as I understand it, she only bowed to your persistent campaign to be the one to represent the firm because you offered to give up a day at Christmas. And yet here you are..."

"But..."

"A last minute decision, was it?"

"That is so not..." Sam sputtered.

"Fair?" Chas prompted. "As in taking it upon yourself to delay your departure to attend a sale and using your expense money to pay for a personal purchase....that kind of fair? We call it fraud here by the way..."

Sam shook her head. "I can't go...you'll have to get someone else."

"And why is that?"

A myriad of emotions crossed her face. "I have a rental car to return and, as you well know, a little banking to attend to..."

"Both of which are easily solved," countered Chas. "We can drop your car off at their office in Coventry, and grab a bite of lunch…I'm assuming you used the company account," he waited for her nod, shook his head and said, "then it's a good thing you're coming with me. You'll be able to work off your debt in no time."

"But...."

"What?" He hardened his gaze, silently daring her to take him on.

A brief flash of mutiny and then the realization dawned. She was trapped and they both knew it.

There were times, Chas reasoned as he steered her towards the high street, when one needed to spill a little ink.

In the best interest of the company, of course.

Trust Chas Porter to go for the quiet elegance of a luxury car, fumed Sam, as she zoomed out of the car park in her budget rental and tucked in behind the sleek grey sedan. Almost immediately, his relentless blue eyes sought hers in the reflection of his rear view mirror. Sam tightened her grip on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. He could check up on her all he liked. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not with her luggage safely stowed, at his insistence, in the back of his car.

After fifteen minutes crawling up the high street, Sam decided a little space was in order. Easing her foot off the accelerator, she dropped back to where a delivery van had been patiently waiting for a break in the traffic. Sam flicked her lights. The driver waved his thanks and nudged into the lane ahead of her.

Effectively blocking her from Chas’ view.

Score one, Samantha Redfern.

The morning had started out full of promise. After months of searching for the match to her grandmother’s candlestick, she’d found it, only to have the most disturbing man she had ever met turn her life upside down.

Her eyes drifted to the passenger seat where the candlestick lay nestled in a soft scarf at the bottom of her purse.
Along with her maxed-out credit card, an empty Burton-Porter envelope and the shreds of her pride.

Sam frowned. It was mortifying, the way her boss had purposefully taken over the bidding and then left her holding the bag. Yes, she’d screwed up, and yes, she would have to make up for it, but really, several days in a remote part of England when she could have been in New York City?