Authors: Rachel Ann Nunes
Tags: #Literary, #Christian, #Family, #Romantic Suspense, #This Time Forever, #Smuggling, #LDS, #ariana, #Fiction, #Romance, #Romantic Suspense Fiction, #Suspense, #Art Thefts, #clean romance, #framed for love, #Religious
A Bid for Love
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FRAMED FOR LOVE SAMPLE CHAPTER
A BID FOR LOVE
a novel
by
Rachel Ann Nunes
Originally published as
Love to the Highest Bidder
Copyright © 2010 Nunes Entertainment, LLC. Published by White Star Press 2012. ISBN 13: 978-1-939203-12-0. First electronic release 2010. Last updated July 2012. All rights reserved.
This 4th edition (2012) was revised by the author and is significantly different from the previous print and electronic editions. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission in writing from the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.
DEDICATION
To my daughter, Cassi. May you always be as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside.
CHAPTER ONE
Laranda was excited. Jared could tell from the way her eyes fixed on him as he walked into the back room of her New York art gallery. Though she always looked at him with a pointed glint in those green eyes, as if daring or taunting him, today her gaze was more intense. Jared shrugged, trying to ignore her. For six years he had put up with her overt stares and innuendos because she was not only his boss and sole owner of the gallery but also his friend. Besides, he loved his work as the gallery’s head art buyer and didn’t want to endanger his position.
She paced from one end of the packaging table to the other, her strides taut and jerky, movements foreign to her usual sultry grace. Jared watched her warily as he set the box on the table and began removing the small statues for her approval. Her gaze flicked over them admiringly, yet she didn’t pick them up and study them as she normally did. From her peculiar behavior, Jared realized that Laranda’s agitation wasn’t directed toward him or the new art objects he had purchased at auction. His curiosity was piqued, but he remained silent. It was best to let Laranda tell him of her own accord.
“I need you to go to L.A.,” she said finally, when he had finished unpacking the five new statues.
“Today?” Jared didn’t bother to keep the surprise from his voice. He often went to Los Angeles on buying trips for the gallery but rarely on such short notice.
She stared at him, her delicate eyebrows drawing together. Her hands nervously smoothed the tight-fitting green silk dress that was cut short to show off her stunning legs. “You will go, won’t you? There’s an auction at the Hilton starting on Monday. Today’s only Friday, so if you get there tonight you’ll have the weekend to check out the items I want.”
“I seem to remember you saying you didn’t want anything there.”
“I do now.” Laranda picked up an oversized flyer on the table and shoved it under Jared’s nose. A Buddha figure filled the page. “A man in India decided to sell this. And I want it.”
Jared examined the figure. Contrary to the contemporary image of a fat, jovial Buddha, this eight-inch-tall statue was lean and stern. It sat on a large, six-inch-square pedestal, hands resting one atop the other, palms upward, with legs tucked and back held stiff in the classic meditation pose. Large-petal flowers and elaborate swirls decorated this throne where the Buddha had sat with unsmiling lips for sixteen centuries, peering out on the world from heavy-lidded eyes. It was hard, ugly, and expensive—just the sort of thing Laranda adored.
“You’ve got a buyer?” he asked, scratching his shoulder under the thin, short-sleeved button-down dress shirt he wore. Last weekend he had gone water skiing with friends, and his peeling sunburn itched terribly.
She nodded. “Sure do. And she wants it—badly.”
“How much do I have?”
“Four hundred thousand. I doubt you’ll need more. A few years ago it sold for two, and the market is weak.”
Jared whistled. “This buyer does want it bad. Who is it?”
Laranda’s eyes narrowed. “That’s confidential, but I’ll tell you after we complete the sale. If you need more money, call me.”
He studied Laranda’s perfect features—the porcelain skin, the blond hair artfully arranged, the cold green eyes. At forty, seven years older than Jared, she was certainly the most beautiful woman he knew. But while he was attracted to her, he wasn’t in love with her, and to her exasperation he had never let their relationship develop beyond friendship. At times he almost wished he could, but inside his heart Jared knew their differences were too great, and he wouldn’t let go of the values he cherished. Values were something Laranda had done away with years ago.
Loneliness filled much of Jared’s life. He didn’t know exactly when it had happened. Once he had been the most eligible bachelor in his group of friends, admired by all the single women because of his glamorous job and good looks. He had let them chase him, and had even liked a few, but he had never seriously considered marriage. He felt too young to settle down—had enjoyed himself too much. Then, seemingly all of a sudden, he found himself alone at thirty-three. All the women he had dated had disappeared, becoming the wives of his friends and the mothers of cherub-faced babies.
There was only Laranda, and women like her, who were attracted to him—but only for a time, until something better or more interesting came along. Jared didn’t want to settle for such a relationship. He wanted a future that included someone to love and cherish forever.
“Well? You will go, Jared, won’t you? I’ve already made reservations.” Laranda’s sharp voice penetrated his thoughts. He refocused to find her waving a hand with long, red-painted nails in front of his face. “It’s not like you have a wife to consult,” she added. Her words made his deficiency stand out in his mind like a neon sign.
He shoved the hurt away and smiled at her. “Of course I’ll go. I’d enjoy looking up old friends, and June is a great time to visit the beaches.”
She eyed him with an amused smile on her glossy lips. “That’s right. You used to live in L.A. See? I’m really doing you a favor.” She trailed her manicured nails over the light brown hair on his bare forearm.
He laughed and shook off her hand. “Right. But don’t think that gets you out of paying me a bonus when I bring back your precious Buddha. I’m still doing double duty as buyer and guard.” He patted the Glock in his shoulder holster.
“I never forget that.” Laranda pursed her shapely lips into a pout and sidled up to him so close that he could smell her breath. It was sweet like her perfume. “I never forget you at all.” She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek, coming too close for comfort.
Jared stepped back, rubbing his cheek. Red lipstick stained his fingers. “Since I’m going, is there anything else you want me to bid for?”
Laranda laughed, but her eyes hardened. “You don’t have enough fun, Jared.”
“Some things are just too important to play with.”
Laranda laughed again, though she was not amused. “I live only to play.”
“I know,” Jared said sorrowfully. He thought of how he, too, had once toyed with relationships and had ended up alone. “But sometimes the price of play is too high.”
Laranda didn’t hear him. She had moved to the table and was rifling through papers that would list the other items she wanted him to buy for her, the incident between them already forgotten.
* * * * *
The bright lights in the hotel room hurt Jared’s tired eyes. After meeting Laranda at the gallery, he had hurried home to pack. He had also asked his next-door neighbor to pick up his newspaper and handle the arrival of his new sofa. Afterward, he’d barely made his plane to Los Angeles. Once in his room, exhaustion overwhelmed him. He threw his suitcase to the floor, shed his jacket, and sank onto the double bed. With one hand, he loosened the tie at his throat.
Sleep did not take him.
He thought about Laranda, contrasting her to the nice women he had dated. Why hadn’t he married one of them? Some stood out clearly in his mind: Cindy with the innocent blue eyes, Wendy with her beautiful curly hair teased to perfection, and Julie with her lithe runner’s body. Each had been interested in Jared—for a time. Now they were all happily married, busy with their lives and growing children.
“I need to go down and get a complete list of the auction times,” he said aloud to distract himself. Still he didn’t move. He knew there would be plenty of time the next morning to get the list before the hotel opened the items for inspection prior to the bidding on Monday. Besides, there could be some last-minute additions or changes that wouldn’t be reflected on the flyers tonight.
I’ll go tomorrow morning,
he decided. He would spend all of Saturday talking with other buyers or studying the merchandise. That was why he was so good at what he did.
“I didn’t know what was important,” he said, returning inevitably to the reason he was alone. “I wanted to work, earn money, have fun.” All that didn’t mean anything now.
Fighting his loneliness, Jared pulled the covers over his head and slept.
CHAPTER TWO
The dark brown curls were everywhere. They were a curse, and had been for twenty-eight of Cassi’s twenty-nine years. They puffed out from her scalp and plunged halfway down her back as if they had lives of their own, helplessly tangled and twisted together. The bathroom lights above the double sink reflected from the brown tresses, bringing out subtle gold highlights.
Cassi stared at herself in the large, well-lit mirror and sighed. It would take her at least half an hour to tame those unruly locks. Thirty precious minutes. Even then they wouldn’t look much better than they did now. “I just want a peek at the auction schedule,” she murmured to the olive-skinned girl in the mirror, her frustration evident in the flushed face. “Oh, Mom, why did you have to give me your hair?”
But her mother was far away in Utah with her father, where they lived close to Cassi’s only sibling, her brother Robert. Her mother couldn’t hear her complaints or say, as she usually did, “You’re so lucky to have curly hair, Cassi. Your friends spend hundreds of dollars to look like you do.” Cassi sighed and lifted the brush.
A banging on the door drew her attention from the imposing task before her.
“I gotta go!” her best friend, Renae, shouted through the closed door. “Aren’t you done yet?”
“Yes, come in.” Cassi threw down the brush and hurried to the door. Renae wasn’t joking when she said she had to go. She was more than eight months pregnant and had a baby sitting on her bladder.
Renae burst through the door before Cassi reached it, dancing slightly. “I seem to spend all my time in the bathroom these days.” Cassi shut the door behind her as Renae sighed with exaggerated relief. She shook her head in mock disgust; but in reality, she envied Renae her situation, despite the obvious discomfort.