Read Online Winner Takes All by Jacqui Moreau - Free Book Online Page B

she promised me four months ago. She said something about an early frost in Bahia this year. I didn’t quite follow her conversation because she speaks so quickly. Tomorrow we’re meeting to discuss other orchids that might do in the arrangements. It’s a shame, of course, since I had my heart set on the Rhyncholaelia digbyana . It was your father’s favorite flower and I’d like to have them this year especially.”
    This was the first Hammond Foundation Fashion Ball to be thrown without the Hammond patriarch. He searched his mind for another problem spot to remove the forlorn look from his mother’s eyes. “Are the designers behaving?”
    “They’re like disorderly schoolchildren, as usual. We are engaged in the timeless battle of arranging the order of the fashion show. Every designer wants to go first. If they can’t go first, they want to go last. Nobody wants to be in the awful middle. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. A Gucci dress in the middle of the show raises just as much money as a Gucci dress at the beginning. It’s the same for a Celine corset or a Michael Kors skirt. And I have the numbers to prove it, since we’ve been holding this event for five years.”
    “And the photographer?”
    “I don’t know why we use the same firm every year. They’re so—” She broke off and laughed at the situation. She would rail off complaints about everyone involved in the fundraiser if he let her. “You’re like a straight man feeding me lines, aren’t you? You know exactly what to say to set me off. Enough of that. Now why don’t you tell me what this dinner is about?”
    The waiter appeared suddenly at their side with Cole’s cocktail. “We have several excellent specials today,” he said, before reciting them with his eyes partially closed as if the list were printed on the insides of his eyelids.
    After the waiter disappeared, Loretta took a sip of her wine and examined her son. “You were saying…”
    “What makes you assume this dinner is about anything? Can’t I have a meal with my mother without having an ulterior motive?”
    “Of course. But we did that on Sunday. Now, Cole, what’s on your mind?”
    “The Hammond collection.”
    “Ah,” she said knowingly. She was well aware that her son wanted her to hold on to the paintings. He believed that her selling them off and giving the proceeds to the Hammond Foundation was rash. He feared that in a few years she would regret her actions. They had talked about this all before, and she was surprised he would bring it up again. As far as Loretta was concerned, it was a done deal. All that was left was the bidding.
    “It’s not what you think. It’s not my intention to try to talk you out of it,” he stated quickly. “Unless, of course, you’re having doubts. In that case, I’m willing to take another crack at it.”
    “No, my mind is quite made up. Your father is not in those paintings. They’re merely inanimate objects that have to be dusted with alarming regularity.”
    “Dad loved those paintings,” he said softly.
    “Which is why I think he’d be very pleased to know that his cherished paintings were going to help find a cure for colon cancer.”
    Cole bit back a response. Even though she raised millions and millions of dollars each year, Loretta Hammond didn’t think she did enough. She would never think she did enough. “It really wasn’t my intention to discuss this, Mother. I wanted to talk about the auction end.”
    “All right. Talk away.”
    “I met with a woman from Wyndham’s this afternoon and—”
    “Wyndham’s called you? How strange. I thought I told them to have their representative get in touch with me. I’m sorry they bothered you with this.”
    He recalled the image of Eva holding out a felt-tipped pen to Mrs. Hemingway. “I assure you it was no bother.”
    She saw the look in her son’s eye. “Really? How remarkable.”
    He was unaware that he revealed anything remarkable.