Courting the Clown (7 page)

Doris chuckled. “Mr. Falcon doesn’t like wasting time. He frequently storms out of here and then calls me during the elevator ride.”

“His phone bill must be outrageous.”

“I’m sure it is.” Doris reached for the phone again. “But time really is money, isn’t it? I’ll call Mary at R&R, and tell her to expect you. One o’clock, he said, does that suit you?”

“That would be fine. Thank you.”

Lunch. If she was going straight to work she better get some lunch first. She pushed the button to summon the elevator and quickly glanced at the sheet of paper he’d passed her.

The offer was more than generous, twice what she would have expected. She stared at the figure offered, and guilt struck so hard she winced. She was being bribed. The man was concerned about his daughter’s mental health, and she was cashing in on it.

But then he’d said he’d be hiring people anyway. And she’d make a good, reliable staff member. He’d offered this salary, she hadn’t made any demands. And he’d get his money’s worth. It wasn’t as if she were taking his cash and giving nothing in return. She had nothing to feel guilty about.

She got in the elevator and stared at her mirror image during the ride down – after all there was nothing else in there to look at. Nick sure had been in a hurry to get out of there. Of course he was, she told herself. He had a business to run. Of course he was busy. What had she expected? Where did this distinct feeling of disappointment come from?

She was just sleep-deprived. And half-starved. She had been too anxious to eat breakfast before the interview and now her stomach was growling. At least it had waited until after the interview, thank God for small mercies.

Following Nick’s directions, she found a small deli where she could buy a sandwich for lunch. Then when the clock approached one, she started walking towards R&R, wondering what she’d find. Nick hadn’t been clear about what kind of a store it was. Electronics, perhaps, judging from the mess in his office? It seemed a likely guess.

Not that it mattered. A job was a job, and this was an actual music job. She just hoped their piano was decent. It was always rather painful to play untuned instruments, not to mention stained and sticky keyboards. But she was used to that too. It was just an annoyance, nothing she couldn’t live with.

If this turned out to be an electronics store – would it be an electric piano? She wasn’t used to those, but she’d probably be able to hammer out decent Christmas music anyway. It would all work out.

She rounded the corner and immediately saw the store in question. She stopped short, causing a fellow pedestrian to walk straight into her back. She apologized absently, and moved closer, almost hiding behind a street sign as she stared towards the giant store just across the street.

“R&R” he’d said.

He hadn’t mention what the letters stood for, and hadn’t directly answered her question about what kind of a store it was. Then he’d rushed her out of the office before she could repeat her question. But she hadn’t suspected a thing.

She sagged against the street sign, practically hugging it. The store was huge. Three large floors, brightly lit display windows, and it seemed like half the population of the city was going in and out its many revolving doors.

Robots and Ragdolls.

She grabbed on to the street sign with both hands, and imagined it was Nick’s neck she was throttling.

He’d sent her to a toy store.

Chapter 5

“Rudolph!” a little girl in a red winter coat yelled, holiday excitement shimmering in her eyes as she jumped up and down, holding her mother’s hand. “Pwease pway Rudolph!”

Sylvie smiled towards the child and complied – after all, the kid had used the magic word. Despite Sylvie’s recent traumatic experience with red noses,
Last Christmas
morphed easily into
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
. It wasn’t quite seamless, but you couldn’t have everything, and her audience didn’t seem to mind.

This wasn’t too bad. She’d survived yesterday, and this morning had been pretty uneventful too. She was getting to the point of relaxing at the piano, even with half the city’s children running back and forth around her.

She was probably playing
Rudolph
for the third time that morning. It was quite amazing how few Christmas songs there actually were when you had to play them for hours on end. And even more amazing how her young audience would request the same three or four all the time.

The piano was wonderful though. An expensive brand, gleaming and polished, almost new from the look of it. No cola stains, no false notes, no chips and cracks. Thanks to the platform – she had to climb a ladder to get here – it didn’t even have millions of little fingerprints all over it.

She’d played in stores before, mostly department stores, and in comparison, this was a dream. The acoustics were better than most places, and the platform meant minimal interruptions. Sometimes the kids even stopped to look and listen, their attention drawn away from the lure of the toys all around them. Some would shout requests, and she was glad to oblige – as long as there was a vague Christmas theme. Okay, so it wasn’t a concert hall, wasn’t Beethoven or Chopin, but all in all it could be worse.

On the downside, she’d already played
Jingle Bells
so often that she’d probably be hearing it in her nightmares for weeks.

“Hey!”

Her fingers faltered, striking the wrong chord and then another one, before she recovered. Very unprofessional, but then her gorgeous boss was standing in the ladder, his head and shoulder clearing the platform, and he still had the strangest effect on the butterflies who’d moved into her stomach. She smiled back at him before she remembered he’d pulled a rotten trick on her, and deserved to be punished.

She reined in her imagination before it started suggesting suitable punishment and instead greeted Nick cheerfully. Punishment would come later. When he least expected it – and not sooner. It was Grandma Alex’s way. “Good morning, Mr. Falcon.”

He frowned at her. “Nick.”

She smiled demurely back at him, didn’t argue, but didn’t acquiesce, either. Nobody else around here referred to him as Nick. Why should she?

“Time for a break?” he suggested. “How about lunch?”

“Lunch?” she repeated. Her brain tended to slow down around him. Very annoying. It meant she had to buy time by repeating what he’d just said, and sounding like a parrot. Probably a polka-dot parrot.

Nick tilted his head to the side. “I know you said you were a starving artist, but you do eat, right? You don’t have an ethical objection to food?”

“Eh... no. I mean yes. I do eat. Occasionally.”

His smile flashed again. “Great. It’s on me. We’ve got that contract to sign, so it’s business. Come on down.”

When the boss offered a break and free food, you didn’t protest. She reverently put the lid down over the keys. This was one gorgeous instrument. What a waste, sticking it in the middle of a huge store where it only got a workout around holidays. It didn’t belong here. It belonged somewhere else. It belonged someplace it would be appreciated.

Like, say, her living room.

She climbed down the ladder with Nick waiting below; double glad she’d worn trousers this morning.

“Is the piano okay?” Nick asked, and she paused on the second-to-last rung, because he was standing so close to the ladder that she’d practically fall into his arms if she stepped down. She hung on, waiting for him to move back, but he continued, oblivious to her problem. “We bought it before last Christmas, and hired someone to play it over the holidays, but it has hardly been touched since then.”

“The piano is perfect. A lovely instrument.”

“Mary tells me you spent close to an hour dusting it before you started. Sounds like we need to have a talk with our cleaning staff.”

“Oh, no. They did their jobs. It’s just such a lovely instrument, I had to have it totally spotless and gleaming before I started.”

Nick shrugged. “It’s not played very often. I’m glad we’re changing that. Live music makes such a difference to the atmosphere.”

As if to prove his point, someone flipped on the store speakers, and a tinny version of
Jingle Bells
filled the store. She winced. “What is it about that song?” she sighed. “Doesn’t anybody ever get sick of it? Apart from me, I mean?”

Nick took a step back and she jumped down to the floor, only to look up at him again. He was towering over her now. That had been a plus up on the platform – she’d looked down at him. He wasn’t as intimidating that way. And she had better control of her butterflies up there. He was back in jeans and a thick sweater now. An open parka, dark-blue, a gray scarf. Dressed for snow. Like he was about to take his daughters outside to build a snowman – or in Emily’s case, a snowball fight was more likely.

“Okay. Not bad.” She looked at him sideways as two little kids ran between them and attacked a display of Legos. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

He grinned. “Thank you.”

She smoothly moved out of the way as a third kid barreled through. She was getting pretty practiced at that. “Lots of toys. Lots of kids.”

His eyes sparkled with mischief, reminding her of little Emily. “Yup. That’s what a toy store is all about, isn’t it? Toys and kids. How about that lunch? There’s this nice restaurant just across the street. Ready to talk business?”

Sylvie noticed some of her co-workers looking curiously in their direction. “Sure. I should let someone know I’m leaving--”

“No need. I’ve already told Mary you’ll be back after lunch. Let’s go.”

He had that bossy look on his face again, the one she recognized so well from before. No, not bossy, more like desperate determination. Not that he had any reason to be desperate anymore. She’d already agreed. She’d promised to be there, and she never broke promises. It was one of those things Grandma Alex had felt strongly about, and she’d passed it on to her granddaughters as the 11
^th
Commandment. But from the look on Nick’s face, he probably wouldn’t be relaxing until after Lana’s birthday party was over.

“So, have you had time to review the contract?” he asked as they settled down in a small restaurant just across the street, and ordered sandwiches and coffee.

“Yes. I’ve got it right here in my purse, signed and sealed.” She pulled it up and put on the table between them.

Nick nodded in approval as he flipped through, checking for her signature. “Excellent. So you approve of the terms?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course I do. Who wouldn’t? It’s extravagant. I’m being bribed, and I know it. Nevertheless, I will take your money and run because a) I need it and b) I’m going back in the clown suit and I deserve to be well paid for it – and last but not least c) because you didn’t tell me this was a toy store and it’s only fair that little joke costs you a small fortune.”

Nick leaned back, laughing. She looked down and swallowed carefully. That charm was lethal when turned on full blast. “You mean you didn’t recognize the name?” he asked, that wicked look still blazing in his eyes. Emily was his daughter, no doubt about it. This man was just as frightening as his daughter – and probably an even worse risk to her sanity.

“R&R? Well -- no.” She crossed her arms on her chest, leaned back, and gave him the kind of look she really ought to have given his daughter the other day. “Of course, strictly speaking, that isn’t the name of the store, is it?”

“It’s what we call it at the office,” Nick said.

“ If you’d said
Robots and Ragdolls
, I’d have caught on. I do have to buy presents for kids occasionally, and this is the best toy store in town after all.”

“Sorry. About not warning you.” He didn’t look very sorry. Glee was still shimmering like glitter in his eyes. “I couldn’t help myself. Besides, I was afraid you’d turn me down if I told you the truth. But it’s not that bad, is it? I trust nobody has shoved fake snow up your nose, or tied you to the piano so they could stage a tribal war dance around you?”

“No,” she admitted grudgingly. “Not yet, at least. Of course, it’s early days yet.”

“Good. And how’s that comfort zone of yours? Expanding any yet?”

“ So that’s your excuse, is it? You’re
helping
!” Her fingers slashed quotations marks in the air, and she stared at him with disgust. Was the entire world collaborating with her evil cousins?

Nick ate his sandwich and just grinned at her. She sighed. “I swear, if I didn’t know better I’d think this was all my cousins’ doing. They didn’t hire you, did they?”

He chuckled. “No. It was all my own doing. But if you want to give them my phone number...”

Nope. She didn’t want to give any female Nick’s phone number. And she didn’t want to dwell too much on what that meant, either. “It’s just for the holiday season,” she told him. “This job, I mean. I wouldn’t feel right about taking your money longer than that. Not when what you’re really paying me for is that birthday party. I’m sure I’ll be able to find more temp jobs after the holidays, and then you can hire someone at more reasonable wages.”

Nick shrugged. “No problem. It’s up to you. Keep the job as long as you need it. The salary isn’t really that extravagant. I’m paying my assistant more than that, and she never lets up dropping hints about a raise.”