Man Under the Mistletoe Read online

  Just when she thought she’d lost him for good, she caught sight of a familiar dark head thirty feet away and felt a tingling jolt of recognition.

  He turned in her direction. She quickly darted behind a mirrored pillar, then caught sight of herself in the twin pillar across the aisle, standing out like a beacon in her scarlet linen blazer. She could see him, too. His reflection paused, and for a moment the lean, handsome face appeared to be staring right at her.

  Flushed from her hiding place, she casually strolled around the counter filled with silver jewelry, keeping him in sight out of the corner of her eye. Finally she had a good view of him only one aisle away. He stood with his back to her, apparently scrutinizing another transaction.

  “Okay, so you won’t let me take you to a club. How about McDonald’s, for a burger?”

  Her breath escaped in a squeaky gasp as she put a hand to her racing heart. She’d been so intent, Colin’s voice had almost made her jump out of her skin. She turned to find him at her elbow again, his fine-boned face inches from her own. Stepping back, she put a hand against his chest and gave him a determined push.

  “Colin Worth, you behave yourself or I’ll...”

  “Or you’ll what? Go out to dinner with me?” He grinned at her, his teeth even and white in his tanned face. Patience be damned! Right now she felt like shaking the kid till his bones rattled.

  “Colin, please.” She craned her neck to keep the tall man in sight over his shoulder. “Look, I’ll make a deal with you. Let me get back to work and I’ll meet you for a Coke later, okay?”

  “Do you mean that?” He gave her a suspicious look.

  Sabrina grimaced. The incorrigible brat. Yes, they’d better have that little chat, and the sooner the better. But not now. Right now her attention was focused on the man moving purposefully through the Lingerie Department and on through Ladies’ Shoes.

  “Yes, I mean that.”

  “Great! Now you promised, remember.” He gave her a warning look, then turned and walked away.

  With a sigh of relief, she turned in the opposite direction, following her suspect as he moved down the aisle once more. The man stopped, as if undecided where to go next, and she stopped too, behind a convenient rack of scarves.

  He seemed to make up his mind and his pace became more purposeful. Walking quickly, with a long, loose-limbed stride, one hand tucked elegantly in his pants pocket, he looked the essence of casual ease, for all the world like one of the male models from Worth’s fashion shows. But she realized with a shock that he was taking the shortest route toward the big double doors marked No Admittance. The doors leading to the stockrooms and the back alley beyond.

  After carefully lagging behind, she now broke into a near run, trying to cover the distance between them. Once again she felt panic rise up in her throat. There was no going back now. She’d have to collar him, and in the alley of all places. She could only hope and pray there’d be someone in the back room to help her, because she was going to need it.

  She pushed through the heavy swinging doors just in time to see him disappear through the scratched and dented gray metal doors of the elevator. The elevator leading to the cash office.

  “Oh my God!” Sprinting over to push the button, she grabbed for the black wall phone at the same time. Her fingers trembled as she punched the extension for the security office.

  The money. That’s what he was really after. The Brink’s truck was due within the next hour for the regular Wednesday pickup. There were two days’ worth of receipts sitting in that safe upstairs. Sales were poor these days, but that still amounted to thousands of dollars.

  After five interminable rings a deep male voice answered.

  “Chuck, it’s Sabrina,” she responded breathlessly. “We’ve got a Code 1. He’s heading for the cash office, but he also has some jewelry in his pocket. I’m on my way up.” Slamming down the phone, she bit her lip and stared impatiently at the battered steel doors.

  She couldn’t wait for that old clunker to get back down. Pushing through the fire doors to the right of the elevator, she raced up the steps, two at a time. The ungainly clatter of her shoes on the terrazzo stairs echoed all the way up to the fifth floor. Panting for breath, she burst through the fire doors just in time to see Chuck Wilson and one of his security men escorting the tall stranger into their office.

  Hovering uncertainly in the hallway, she clutched her aching side and tried to bring her breathing under control. Through the glass window of Chuck’s office, she saw the security chief indicate a chair and the man sink into it with a cool smile. A smile that gave a sensuous curve to the firm, determined line of his mouth. He looked as urbane and at ease as if he owned the place.

  She chewed nervously on her lower lip. Surely she didn’t have to go in there? After all, she’d done her bit. There was no point in hanging around. Chuck could take it from here. Besides, she really didn’t want to come face-to-face with the man. For some reason she felt embarrassed. Embarrassed...and disappointed. As if he had let her down, which was just plain stupid.

  Just because he looked distinguished and prosperous didn’t mean he couldn’t be a thief, as well. On the contrary, that intimidating sense of power probably indicated just how successful he was at being a criminal.

  Turning slowly on her heel, she pushed open the heavy fire door to the stairwell once more, doing her best to subdue the irrational feeling of disappointment. She took the stairs at a more thoughtful pace up to the seventh floor.

  Seeing him pocket that jewelry had all the unreality of something that would happen in a movie. Maybe because he looked so glamorous. But unlike the movies there was nothing glamorous about crime. He was just a common thief, and he deserved everything he got.

  She yanked open the door with more force than necessary and stepped into the gray carpeted hallway. Walking past the other offices, she rounded the corner into her own. Barely large enough for a desk and two tall filing cabinets, its saving grace was the window looking down on the busy traffic of King Street.

  Sabrina sat down with a sigh, kicked off her loafers and wriggled her stockinged toes on the carpet. The top of her desk was covered with fabric swatches and sketches of float designs for the Santa Claus Parade, the Toronto institution that Worth’s sponsored every November.

  She picked up the large padded envelope lying on top. Good, the designs for the costumes had arrived. Tearing it open, she pulled out a sheaf of papers, began leafing through them, then let out a groan.

  Oh, no, not more rabbits. Last year’s parade was overrun with them. Turning the rabbits facedown, she sighed and looked sideways out the window, beyond the tall downtown buildings, to the cloudless July sky. Almost the exact blue of his eyes.

  She expelled her breath in another sigh, impatient this time, and turned back to the desk to pick up the next design. For heaven’s sake! Forget about that man and think about work—that’s what she had to do.

  Staring down at the page without really seeing it, she absently rubbed a finger over the tip of her nose and felt a tiny pinpoint of pain. She pulled her compact from her purse and flipped it open to examine herself in the mirror.

  Her own wide, chocolate-brown eyes stared back at her, still betraying a lingering trace of disillusion, and something else she didn’t want to analyze. Angling the mirror away from her disturbed expression, she turned toward the light and noticed the tiniest little scratch on the end of her nose. The diamond tiepin.

  Even in that brief contact he’d left his mark on her. Whimsy gave way to a disgusted groan. Snapping the compact shut, she picked up the next design and forced herself to concentrate.

  Now here was something novel—walking nutcrackers, the old-fashioned German kind straight from the Black Forest. They’d be perfect right before the Hansel and Gretel float. Penciling okay at the corner of the sheet, she moved on to the next, trying to ignore the image of that penetrating gaze that kept intruding on her thoughts. Wrinkling her brow in concentration, she slowly f
lipped through the sheaf, occasionally marking her approval or setting some designs aside as completely unsuitable.

  The phone rang and she picked it up. “Sabrina Cates here,” she replied automatically, cradling the phone on her shoulder while continuing to flip through the sketches.

  “Sabrina, can you come up here? Right away? Mr. Stevenson wants to see you.” Anya’s normally upbeat voice sounded solemn.

  She transferred the phone to the other shoulder and continued studying the sketches. “This sounds serious. Am I in the doghouse again?” Some of her ideas didn’t go down well with the senior vice president. Perhaps he’d already seen the “Passion in Paradise” window.

  “Don’t ask me.” Anya’s hushed voice gave no reassurance. “I have no idea what’s happening. All I know is they want to see you right now and I suggest you get up here, pronto.”

  “They? What could I have done so wrong that they would want to see me?”

  “You’re asking me?” Anya gave a disbelieving snort. “This from the woman whose idea of an Easter menswear window was half-naked mannequins in boxer shorts decorated with little pink bunnies!”

  “Maybe Worth’s isn’t ready for my inspired ideas.”

  “That’s the understatement of the century. You’ve come up with some of the weirdest display windows I’ve ever seen at Worth’s.”

  “I thought you liked them.”

  “I do. I think they’re great, but I don’t sign your paycheck, so you’d better get up here.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way.”

  With a sigh, Sabrina put down the phone and fumbled for her shoes with her feet. With meticulous care, she checked to make sure there were no stains on her white cotton shirt and no threads clinging to her red linen trousers. If she had to walk into the lion’s den, she was going to do it with confidence.

  The elevator doors slid noiselessly open and she stepped out into the executive suite, her feet sinking deep into the sable carpeting. On her rare visits to the top floor she’d never been sure whether to feel in awe or oppressed by the atmosphere of hushed luxury. The carved mahogany paneling and heavy antique furniture always reminded her of a British men’s club in the old movies. The kind where no one dared speak above a whisper.

  The sleek receptionist gave her a curious look, then told her to go on in. Passing through a set of massive double doors, she entered the plush outer office where Anya presided as the CEO’s secretary.

  “Sabrina, what have you done now?” Jonathan Kent, the Display and Promotions Manager, straightened from his perch on the corner of Anya’s desk and adjusted his wire-framed glasses as he gave her a quizzical look.

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Not this time,” he said, shaking his sandy head.

  “You mean they haven’t given you the gears like they usually do when I’ve goofed?”

  “Please, don’t remind me.” He gave a fastidious shudder. “Now let’s find out what this is all about.”

  Anya picked up the intercom on her desk. “Sabrina Cates is here, Mr. Stevenson.” She put down the phone. Her pale green eyes widened in her freckled face as her voice dropped to an ominous whisper. “They’re all waiting for you. You’d better go on in.”

  Sabrina felt the faintest touch of butterflies in her stomach. “What do you mean, all?”

  “I mean all the VPs.” Anya pushed the unruly auburn curls off her face to sink her chin on her hand and raised one ginger eyebrow in blatant curiosity.

  Surely this couldn’t be about something as trivial as a window design. Her mind skimmed back over the past few days. “I just can’t think of anything I might have done...recently.”

  “Well, come on. The sooner we go in, the sooner we’ll know. And I do have work to get back to.” Grasping her elbow with firm decision, Jonathan began to lead her toward the big double doors.

  He raised his hand to knock, then lowered it again and gave her a reassuring smile. “Hey, don’t look so nervous. You won’t be alone. I’ll be there.”

  Sabrina smiled back, then took a deep breath as her gaze focused on the dark wood paneling carved with twining ivy leaves.

  Sybil Worth’s office. She could swear she caught a whiff of the heavy, flowery scent of Sybil’s perfume. Impossible, of course. The family matriarch had been gone for over a month.

  They had found her at her desk, slumped over her paperwork, dead at the age of seventy-eight from a massive heart attack. She had ruled Worth’s for more than half a century, seeming as enduring as the granite and brick of the building itself. They called the store the Old Lady of Yonge Street, but the term had applied just as well to Sybil.

  Jonathan knocked, then opened the door for her to walk through, remaining comfortingly close behind.

  The first thing she noticed was Walter Stevenson and all the other vice presidents gathered at the far end of the room in one somber clump of gray flannel, almost obscuring the vast desk set before a floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window.

  Sabrina faltered. Out of the corner of her mouth she murmured to Jonathan, “What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

  “This is no time for jokes. Be serious.”

  He was right, but how serious could this be? After all, Colin was there, looking rather cheerful.

  Through the cluster of executives, she could just see him standing behind the desk, grinning from ear to ear. In his loose-fitting white cotton shirt with the top buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, he was a youthful contrast to the deathless conservatism of the suits around him.

  The broad mischievous grin added a sparkle to his blue eyes, but rather than reassure her, it made her feel suddenly uneasy. It reminded her too vividly of the fourteen-year-old Colin she had first met, the boy who had delighted in playing pranks, like putting goldfish in the water cooler. With everyone else looking so solemn, that grin meant trouble.

  But she smiled back at him for a moment, before her gaze settled once again on Walter Stevenson’s heavy jowls. She advanced toward the group, dimly aware of more richly carved mahogany paneling and the beautifully ornate Victorian plaster ceiling above her head.

  “Sabrina, you’re wild.” Colin began chuckling. “I wish I’d known what you were up to. Believe me, if I’d had any idea, there’s no way you could have got rid of me.”

  Did that boy have no sense? She shot him a hard, meaningful look. Whatever this was all about, he wasn’t helping. One glance at the rest of the unamused group told her that. And now she wasn’t just mystified, she was embarrassed.

  Mr. Stevenson shot Colin a reproving look over his shoulder, then turned back to her with a self-satisfied smile that made her distinctly uneasy. Whatever the old weasel had on her this time, it must be a hanging offense; nothing else would fill his beady eyes with such malicious glee.

  “Miss Cates. Thank you for coming so promptly.” He waved to the Queen Anne chair in front of him. “Won’t you please have a seat.”

  Prepared to do battle, she began sinking down. The vice president stepped aside, revealing a man sitting in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk. She found herself staring directly into the cobalt-blue eyes of her gentleman thief.

  Belatedly realizing that she was suspended in midair, she plunked down heavily. A quick mental check told her that her mouth wasn’t hanging open like a grounded fish. Her mind raced wildly. What was he doing here? And why did the room suddenly feel hot and airless?

  He sat back at ease, but studied her with the same intense scrutiny he had given the store earlier. His unwavering gaze made her mouth go dry.

  To her disgust, she found herself making a mental inventory of her entire appearance, from her neatly scissored chestnut bob to the tips of her black leather loafers. Did she have a stupid look on her face? Was that the reason for the hint of a sardonic smile in the back of his eyes?

  She didn’t know how he’d done it. The man must be a brilliant con artist. And now the tables were turned and everyone in the room was looking at her as if she ha
d done something wrong. From the imperceptible shake of his head and the expression on his face, she knew that Jonathan was even more confused.

  Walter Stevenson cleared his throat. Even in her stunned state, the portentous sound irritated her.

  “Miss Cates, let me introduce you to our new chief executive officer, Mr. Michael Worth.”

  2

  SABRINA GAVE a small groan and buried her face in her hands.

  “I assume that since you had him apprehended in such an embarrassing fashion, you were unaware of Mr. Worth’s identity,” Walter continued.

  “Naturally.” To her intense annoyance, the words emerged in an undignified croak.

  She shot the vice president a hard look and her mouth tightened with determination. She refused to allow him to intimidate her.

  But when she turned back to Michael Worth, her bravado fled before his hard, implacable gaze. It took superhuman effort to meet those deep blue eyes with their humiliating glimmer of satisfaction.

  “You see, I saw you put those in your pocket....” Her gaze fell for a moment to the diamond-drop earrings shimmering on the polished desk surface between them. “Naturally I would never have...I mean I never dreamed—”

  She broke off awkwardly and caught her lower lip between her teeth, then wished she hadn’t when she saw his gaze drawn to her mouth. Only a brief glance, but it sent an uncomfortable wave of tingling warmth surging through her.

  Walter’s accusatory whine broke in on her dangerous thoughts. “Surely you knew Mr. Worth’s arrival was imminent?”

  Sabrina was almost grateful for the question. It gave her an excuse to transfer her attention to the vice president’s scowling face. So much less disturbing than Michael Worth’s relentlessly probing gaze and continuing silence. It was unnerving. It made her feel exposed and vulnerable. Why didn’t he say something, for God’s sake? Even if it were just to scream at her that she was an incompetent idiot and she was fired!

  But his eyes only narrowed more, until the thick, silky lashes revealed only a flash of blue, making it impossible to guess his reaction to all this. “Of course I knew, Mr. Stevenson, but like everyone else I was under the impression he wasn’t due till tomorrow.”