The Boss's Daughter

Amy hung back till the crowd thinned, hoping for a chance to have a private word with her hosts. If they were thinking of selling the Picasso…

Now that she’d seen it, she had no doubt of the painting’s value. It was a major work which would bring millions at auction, and the commission for Sherwood Auctions would be a significant chunk of cash.

She multiplied the figures in her head and concluded that this one deal could produce enough money to solve Gavin’s financial crunch in one blow. She wouldn’t even have to wait for the auction to actually be held. As soon as the Maxwells had signed an agreement, Amy could turn all the arrangements over to Dylan and go off to Connoisseur’s Choice with a clear conscience. She’d be happy and Gavin would be ecstatic. Dylan might not be thrilled, but he was certainly capable of carrying out the details.

If only she could pull it off.

Eventually there was a moment when the Maxwells were standing alone by the front door, and Amy seized her chance. “Thank you for letting me come in my father’s place tonight.” She held out her business card. It was part of the outdated supply that she should have thrown away after she resigned from the auction house. It still listed her as an appraiser—but at least the Maxwells would have her name right. “Gavin will be back to work in a few weeks, but he’s asked me to tell you that if you make a decision about the Picasso in the meantime he’s authorized me to act for him in arranging the sale.”

Mrs. Maxwell stared at the business card she was holding as if it had abruptly turned into a cockroach. She suddenly looked even more like the impossible woman of the painting, and her voice had turned to ice. “What are you talking about?”

Rex Maxwell shifted from one foot to the other. “Now, my dear…a mistake…anyone could misunderstand…Gavin must have thought…”

His wife turned on him. “You talked to Gavin Sherwood about selling my Picasso?” The accusation cut sharply across the remaining party conversation.

Rex Maxwell glared at Amy, but his voice was mild, almost pacifying. “The possibility came up,” he admitted. “I didn’t say yes or no.”

He was lying, and Amy knew it. The glare he’d sent her way told her that he and Gavin had seriously discussed the sale—but Rex Maxwell had never consulted his wife about it.

She felt unsteady on her feet, as if the apartment tower had suddenly begun swaying in a high wind.

Now it made sense that Gavin’s note had mentioned only the husband. The only remaining question was whether he had known his friend was working behind his wife’s back. Had he even suspected it, or had he been as innocent as Amy herself?

Not that it mattered now what Gavin might have known, because the cat was most definitely out of the bag.

It was too bad the apartment tower was entirely air-conditioned and the windows were all the tightly sealed sort, Amy thought. Because right now would be a perfect time to throw herself out of one.

CHAPTER THREE

MUCH to Dylan’s surprise, Amy was already waiting for him when he walked up to the Neptune fountain, at the corner of the Plaza shopping district, at precisely six o’clock the next morning. She was sitting on a bench with her head in her hands, and she didn’t look up as he approached. In fact, she didn’t even flinch when his Irish setter plopped at her feet, panting from the run they’d already had, with her tail slapping against Amy’s ankles.

“You’d better stay a little more alert to your surroundings,” he suggested. “A mugger who saw you sitting there that way would think you’re a pretty tasty morsel.”

“Who cares?” Her voice was muffled by her palms. “Bring on the muggers.”

Dylan wrapped the dog’s leash around his wrist and put one foot up on the bench, stretching his muscles to keep them limber in the still-cool air of a mid-May morning. He didn’t look at her, and he kept his voice carefully neutral. “It must have been quite a cocktail party last night if it left you with a hangover of those proportions.”

She looked up at him with her small, pointed chin aggressively thrust out. “It wasn’t how much I drank that was the problem.”

“I suppose you’re claiming it was food poisoning instead,” he scoffed. “They all say that.”

“No, I didn’t get a funny-tasting sausage.” She sighed. “The problem is…well, I didn’t just put my foot in my mouth. I shoved it so far down my throat that a surgeon could remove my appendix and trim my toenails all in the same operation.”

Dylan stopped stretching and looked at her more closely. “That bad, huh? Who’d you insult?”

“The Maxwells, of course. I committed a major faux pax, and even though I apologized all over myself, I barely made it out alive.” She fixed her gaze on him. “If I thought for an instant that you knew Rex Maxwell was trying to sell that Picasso behind his wife’s back, and you didn’t warn me, I’d…I’d…”

She apparently couldn’t conjure up a punishment that was bad enough. Dylan decided not to give her a chance to think about it. “No, I didn’t set you up,” he said. “But now you see why I didn’t want to be the one in charge.”

“Thank you very much for the sympathy.”

“At least you’re efficient. Your methods leave no question that any more time spent on the Picasso would be wasted.”

She gave a little moan.

“I wonder why he wanted to put it up for auction in the first place,” Dylan mused, “if he knew his wife was likely to object.”

“He said Gavin misunderstood him and he never had any intention of selling.”

Dylan considered and shook his head. “You know better than to think Gavin makes that sort of mistake. More likely Rex Maxwell is in financial difficulties and doesn’t want to confess to the wife. Not that it matters to us. Scratch the Picasso and move on to the next possibility.” He felt a shudder run through her. “What’s the matter? From the sound of things, it can’t get worse than that experience.”

“I certainly hope not,” she said drearily. “Where’s a good, efficient mugger when you need one? If somebody hit me over the head, maybe I’d lose my memory along with my wallet.”

“Put the whole thing behind you.” He held out a hand to pull her up. “Come on. A couple of miles through the Plaza and you’ll be a new woman.” He stepped back to look at her appraisingly. “Nice shorts. Not only are they attention-seeking pink, but they fit just right.”

“Don’t flatter yourself that I’m out to impress you. This was the only pair I could lay hands on this morning in the dark.”

“I know perfectly well you’re not trying to impress me,” he said gently. “You were just trying to attract muggers.”

She began to stretch. The dog, who knew the routine, stood up and whined, eager to be off again, and for the first time Amy seemed to notice her. “Aren’t you a beauty?”

The setter tossed her head bashfully and sneezed.

“And she’s modest, too,” Dylan said. “Give her a compliment and she promptly proves that she’s only human. Or something like that.”

“How far have you run already?”

“A mile or so. Reggie would rather run in Loose Park, but she’ll make do with the Plaza if she has to.”

“Well, I don’t imagine she gets the same excitement from window-shopping that people do.” Amy dropped into step beside him, and Reggie loped easily ahead. “Do you live somewhere around here? If you usually run in Loose Park—that’s the one just south of the Plaza, isn’t it?”

Around the corner ahead of them, Dylan spotted a jogger turning into their path and interrupted her. “There’s Mitchell Harlow, right on time.” He lengthened his stride in order to catch up, and glanced over his shoulder to see if Amy was having trouble keeping the pace.

Her gaze was fixed on their quarry, and she looked startled. Dylan realized that from his description of Mitchell Harlow’s jogging routine, she’d probably expected an athlete instead of a short, prematurely balding, not-quite-rotund man in a purple running suit.

Amy speeded up till she was beside him again. “He doesn’t have a wife who’ll have a fit about selling his autograph collection, does he?”

“The last I heard, he wasn’t married.”

“And exactly how long has that been? Last week? A year?”

Dylan grinned at her and raised his voice. “Good morning, Mitchell.”

Mitchell Harlow turned his head to return the greeting, but he saw Amy first and the words seemed to stick in his throat.

It was the sort of reaction Dylan had expected—especially after he’d noticed the pink shorts himself. So he certainly had no reason to feel irritated by the bug-eyed way Mitchell Harlow was goggling at Amy.

It was obvious that Amy had also noted the interest in Mitchell Harlow’s eyes, for there was a gleam in her own. Dylan wondered if she was speculating whether in this case, unlike with the Maxwells, she had an advantage that her father didn’t.