“Okay, I need to drop off the truck and then I’m going to head over to the house.” He pulled his duffel bag over one shoulder.

“Can I at least buy you dinner? As a thank-you, I mean.”

Their eyes met, and she knew—she knew—from the expression in his that he wanted to say yes.

“It’s fine. You already said thanks.” He gave her a complicated look, one that was part pity, part regret. He brushed past her, out of the room. She followed him into the hallway. Before he reached the stairs he turned. “Good luck tomorrow. Enjoy your moment. You deserve it.”

And then he was gone.

Elodie, not a patient woman to begin with, was losing the last of her forbearance.

Every day, she made a solid effort to irritate her sister. She loitered around that antiques shop of hers, she reminded her that she wasn’t going anywhere until the papers were signed—she’d moved into Jack’s family’s house, for heaven’s sake! And nothing. Celeste had clearly become too comfortable with Elodie’s presence in town.

It was time to make her uncomfortable.

The empty storefront on Commercial was sandwiched between a T-shirt shop and a bakery. The past few days she’d tried calling the number posted in the window for leasing, but no one ever answered. Things were clearly not very buttoned up in this town, and so she would have to try a different tack. Today, she was going to make an attempt in person.

She found the front door propped open.

“Hello?” she said, stepping over copies of the Cape Cod Times and ptownie magazine left in the doorway. She almost collided with a ladder.

“Whoa—careful down there!”

Elodie looked up and found Tito perched near the ceiling, working on dangling wires.

“Tito?”

“Elodie? What are you doing here?”

Trying to save my company. And yes, it was starting to feel like that was just how important it was to get the auction underway. While she was busy putting the pressure on Celeste, her CFO was putting the pressure on her. “This is no time to be taking an extended vacation,” he said during their morning phone meeting. “This is the worst June we’ve had in a long time.”

What he didn’t say was that it was also the most competition they’d ever had. Jewelry companies—especially online companies that could sell close to cost because they didn’t have the expense of a physical space—were starting to cannibalize the market. It was getting more and more difficult to make the case that buying your engagement ring at Pavlin & Co was special. She needed something to resuscitate their glamorous image, their place above the rest. She needed this auction.

“I’m here to look at this space. I’ve called the leasing number posted in the window but I never get anyone on the phone.”