The Antique Love by Helena Fairfax

window, and the pearls gleamed faintly against the black velvet cloth.
    So Penny still hadn’t sold her pendant, which meant she still hadn’t found someone who loved passionately enough to deserve it. The thought brought a smile to Kurt’s face, followed by an unaccountable feeling of relief. He whistled softly to himself as he turned back to the computer screen.
     

 

Chapter Five
     
    At mid-day Kurt closed the lid of Penny’s laptop and leaned back in his chair. His worst suspicions regarding the accounts had been confirmed. Now it was just a question of collecting rock solid evidence. Penny was talking to a customer at the cash desk, and he glanced over at her with a sudden surge of sympathy. When he told her what he’d discovered, she was going to find the news difficult to accept and so was her grandfather. But now wasn’t the time. He would have to prove it beyond all shadow of a doubt, and to do that, he would need to come in a second time to go through her bank records more thoroughly. In the meantime, he’d done as much as he could for the day.
    With a feeling of relief, he stretched his long legs under the desk. Penny’s work space wasn’t built for his large frame, and he was cramped from sitting too long. Throughout the morning, the need to stretch had given him a good excuse to break off and watch Penny at work, and his admiration for her had grown considerably. She had a gift for people and talked to her customers with a charming mix of thoughtfulness and enthusiasm. She also managed to fob off a couple of customers who wanted to buy the diamond and pearl love token, which brought a quiet smile to Kurt’s face as he surreptitiously watched her in action. The first customer she’d denied was a secretary whose boss had sent her out to buy an anniversary present. Kurt completely understood in this case. He’d enjoyed watching Penny sympathetically steering the harassed secretary away from the love token towards a delightful butterfly brooch which, she persuaded her, was far more appropriate.
    It took Kurt a little while longer to figure out Penny’s issue with the second customer she denied. A young man, good-looking, athletic and, in his designer jacket and stubble, he’d seemed to Kurt to have all the right romantic credentials. He’d watched Penny lead the sharp-dressed man to the jewellery case, persuading him to look at a gold chain inlaid with sapphires and ignoring his request to look at the pearls. The young man gave the love token a long, lingering look before finally allowing Penny to charm him, and in the end, he left quite happily with the sapphires she’d picked out.
    Penny gave Kurt an embarrassed grin after she caught his raised eyebrows. Later, as she was passing his desk, she stopped to offer him an explanation. “I had to do it,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the pearls. “That guy’ll be out of love with his girlfriend and in love with someone else before the year’s over. I know it.” She took in Kurt’s expression and folded her arms. “I just couldn’t let him have them.”
    Kurt shook his head with mock exasperation. “You’re wasting a good sale.”
    “I’m not selling them until it feels right.” She was walking away, when she stopped and said over her shoulder, “And one day the right man will come in. Someone who’s actually in love, for once.”
    Tehmeena caught the exchange and later stopped at Kurt’s desk on her way to the cash till. “Penny will never sell those pearls to anyone, you know.” They both glanced over to the window, where Penny was demonstrating one of the mechanical toys. Tehmeena gave Kurt a conspiratorial smile. “She’s an incurable romantic.”
    “Yeah, she sure gets passionate about things.” Kurt watched Penny lift out a set of three mechanical pigs and wind them up with a tiny key. When she set them down, the pig in front began playing the drums and the other pigs marched along behind, all three taking