Read Online The Little Antique Shop Under the Eiffel Tower by Rebecca Raisin - Free Book Online

were usually kept under wraps, but with him goading me, my rules vanished.
    “Twenty-two, away from you,” the auctioneer called. I wanted to spin on my seat and face my opponent, but I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing my face fall when I had to bow out.
    I did some quick calculations and knew it was well beyond my savings.
But he was American!
Another beloved piece of French history would be freighted to some fancy summer home on a coast far from here to collect dust.
    And poor Andre would wander those cavernous halls, a shadow of bad memories in his wake.
    My face reddened. “Twenty-three!” Anxiety gnawed at me – my stomach roiled. I’d send myself bankrupt being caught in a bidding war. It was his flippancy that galled me. Just because he could afford the cello didn’t mean he deserved it.
    “Twenty-four, away from you.”
    Damn him to hell!
Anger coursed through me, my hands shook, so I planted them under my legs. The auctioneer called it, and looked past me, and then back, waiting in case I bid once more. I worried my bottom lip, clamping down hard, as conflicted emotions tore through me. I hated letting people down, really despised it, especially in business, but going higher than twenty-four would be making a bad choice. It was a little more than I had in the coffers in case I got stuck with the scroll for a while. I slowly shook my head no.
    He picked up his gavel. “Last call, for the Mollier cello, a magnificent instrument played by the maestro himself…”
    A sob rose in my throat but I swallowed it down.
    “Une fois, deux fois, trois fois,”
Once, twice, three times
, the auctioneer closed the bidding. With a bang of the gavel the cello was lost to me. And I would have to explain to Andre that the deal was off. This wasn’t my year, that was for sure. It went to show you could never be complacent in business.
    Time slowed, as the other lots were called. I stayed riveted to my seat, until
finally
, it was over. With as much poise as I could muster I made my way out of the auction room, tugging my skirt straight, wondering who my new nemesis really was, and how I’d go about finding out. The melancholy notes of the cello would drift up under a different sky,
if
it ever got played again. Of course, he couldn’t let his win go unnoticed. With his hands deep in his suit pockets he sauntered over to me.
    “Who were you going to sell it to?” he asked.
    I scoffed. “As if I’d tell a stranger my business.”
    “But I’m not a stranger, I’m a friend, a fellow antique aficionado.” He was goading me, and I just couldn’t understand why. For fun? His way of flirting? A way to ease his boredom? Whatever it was, it rankled. This was my lifeblood, and he had bid against me on purpose.
    “You
are
a stranger, Monsieur Black –”
    “Tristan,” he said.
    I sighed and continued: “Monsieur Black –”
    “Just call me Tristan; we don’t need to be so formal, do we?”
    Now he was telling me the rules? “Do you make a habit of interrupting every time a person tries to speak?”
    He reared back, and laughed. “Are you angry with me for some reason, mademoiselle?”
    “Are you dense? You knew I wanted that cello. You don’t need it. America has some fine
objets d’art
… Why don’t you hop back on your private jet and go hunt in your own country.”
    His lips curved into a wide smile. “My private jet?”
    For years, I’d heard men identical to him harp on about custom leather seats, and dinner degustation menus aboard their private planes. Memory-foam pillows, and round beds, and any number of things they boasted about to one-up each other with their vast wealth. Why couldn’t they fly on a domestic plane like everyone else? Their carbon footprints were yeti-sized. “Yes, fly it to America or somewhere else, and leave France alone.”
    “I’ve just been to Italy,” he said. “And nothing there compares to what I’ve seen here today… The quality is breathtaking.” He