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had six different owners in the last eighteen years?”
    I nodded.
    “I’ve decided owning Panther is like being married to Elizabeth Taylor or Zsa Zsa Gabor. First year’s the honeymoon. Second year: daily sessions with a shrink: Can we make this marriage work? Knowing deep down that you don’t really think it can. And third year: How do I get the hell out of this mess with some of my assets still intact?”
    “It’s definitely a mess.”
    Owen shook his head and tapped his finger on the glowing red numbers. “There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that. Are you certain?”
    “Yeah. It’s the classic conundrum: As long as the cars are manufactured in England, by hand, it’s unworkable. But . . . that’s part of the car’s magic, its attraction. It’s what keeps the waiting list ten years long.”
    “They’re so beautiful.”
    “Not to mention it’s the sweetest car on the road to drive. It’s a real heartbreaker. And I’m just as much of a sucker as the owners before me and whoever owns the company after me. Frankly, for me, the prestige of corporate proprietorship has diminished with each quarterly report—sort of like living with Tina and her implants. The thrill is gone. Get Gil on the phone. Please.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Gil Garrett, Owen’s best friend, if a yard dog can have a best friend, was president of the Panther Automobile Company. The two men had been in a number of deals together, and they’d both known going in that Panther’s future was on the line since day one. They sometimes spoke hourly. The deal was now in day #475: heavy relationship counseling.
    “And close the door.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    I returned to my desk and unwrapped a marshmallow caramel and sank my teeth into it. As the sugar dissolved on my tongue, I couldn’t help but wonder what all he’d done that had gotten her calmed down so quickly. My imagination ran so wild, I think I was blushing. I popped the rest of the chewy little morsel into my mouth and got my papers, purse, and gloves together in preparation for our imminent departure for Carstairs Manor, Lady Melody Carstairs’s Richmond estate.

E  I  G  H  T
     
    “Give me the latest, Bertram,” Owen said as the company’s gleaming new $265,000 dollar Bentley limousine pulled away from the curb in front of our St. James headquarters.
    We left right on schedule. I sat on the backseat with Owen. Bertram Taylor, our ballyhooed new president, sat sideways on one of the jump seats, a sheaf of papers on his lap.
    “How many times do I have to tell you, Michael? Close the goddamn window,” Owen shouted at his driver/bodyguard, a muscle-bound thug who’d driven for him for several years, and who looked completely out-of-place in his formal black livery. I’m fairly positive he’d been called Mickey until Owen bought Ballantine & Company and upgraded him, too.
    Michael gave me the creeps. Bertram and I looked quickly at each other and then away. Owen’s rudeness was embarrassing and unnecessary.
    “Sorry, boss,” Michael mumbled.
    The privacy screen rose silently as we turned onto Piccadilly and sped through misty drizzle past the Ritz Hotel and along Green Park.
    “I’ve worked the numbers down as far as I can, possibly farther than I should, and I think we can make a very competitive offer,” Bertram answered.
    Bertram Taylor was one of the, if not the, world’s top antique furniture experts and auctioneers. His smoothly parted grayish hair and bright blue eyes lent him a jovial, boyish, dashing air, especially when he went to work on the podium, and his hair would flop in his face and his eyes would flash with challenge and derring-do. He was fluent in six languages and had “the touch” when it came to working a room of high rollers—he could squeeze the proverbial blood from a turnip, raising the competitive temperature in the saleroom to dizzying heights and putting buyers on the edges of their seats. He could