my wildest dreams that I would be involved in an art heist.”
“Does it not belong to your family, Gabriella?”
“I feel it does,” she said.
“Then it’s hardly a heist.”
“Still. I’ve done quite a lot today that I never imagined I would.”
Dancing with him. Kissing him. Being called beautiful. Now it was ending. This was the end of it all. She didn’t care about stealing the painting. She cared about the mission being over.
“I have to say the same, Gabby, and I did not think that was possible.”
She wasn’t even irritated this time when he called her Gabby. No one else called her that. It was a name that only came from Alex. And she decided that there was something she quite liked about that. Whether it was because it kept this entire event separate from her real life, or because it made all of this feel special.
She was desperate to feel like it was special to him.
“I’m glad you found it diverting.”
He laughed. “Oh, I found it more than that.”
He took his mask off then, reached up and loosened his black tie. There was something about that look. That rakish, disheveled look that made her heart beat faster. That made her limbs feel weak. That made her stomach tighten.
Of course, it was the same when he was perfectly pressed, the same when he had a mask over his face. It was the same no matter what.
“We will leave tomorrow,” he said.
“What reason will we give?”
“I will tell him that urgent business has come up in the States. I think I have done enough to secure a deal with the prime minister, and I managed to get what I came for. All in all, quite a successful trip.”
Gabriella couldn’t help but laugh. “Almost too successful. I keep expecting guards and hounds to descend upon us.”
“Nothing like that, I think. I’m not sure this painting is truly valuable to anyone other than our grandparents.”
Gabriella blinked, pulled up yet again by the link between Lucia and Giovanni. “Yes. It’s very strange, that.”
“Not especially.”
“A bit.”
“Only if you like romanticizing things. And I do not.”
She rolled her eyes. “How very surprising.”
He paused in front of her, a strange expression passing over his face. The left side of his lips curved slightly upward as he studied her. He moved forward and her breath caught in her chest.
He reached out, tracing the edge of her mask before lifting it slowly. He pulled it away, the soft brush of his skin against hers enough to make her feel like she was on fire. “So very beautiful,” he said, his words hushed.
She waited for him to lean in. Waited for him to kiss her again. But he didn’t. He simply stood, looking at her, not touching her, not making a move to close the distance between them.
She wished she were brave. Brave enough to touch him. To lean into him. To recapture what had happened in that empty room.
“Goodnight, Gabriella,” he said finally, his words summarily dismissing her, stealing her chance at bravery.
She cleared her throat. “Goodnight, Alex.”
She turned and walked into her bedroom. She felt very much like she had missed something. Like she had left a very important piece of herself behind.
She blinked hard against the stinging sensation in her eyes, did her best to breathe around the rock that had settled on her chest.
They would leave tomorrow. They had completed their objective. Tomorrow, she would be back on Aceena. Back with her grandmother. And everything would return to the way it was.
EVERYTHING HAD GONE smoothly during their escape from Isolo D’Oro, and it continued to go smoothly upon their reentry into Aceena. Alex would have been surprised, but things tended to go smoothly for him, so he saw no reason this should be different. Except for the fact that everything about it felt different in a million small ways he could not quite quantify.
Well, there was one thing that he could name. Gabriella. He ignored that thought as they walked into the hall at the D’Oro estate.
He had the painting under his arm, the rest of their bags being handled by the staff. Gabriella was walking along beside him, wearing a pair of plain pants and a button-up blouse, her very large glasses returned to their usual position. And somehow, even with all of that, he saw her no differently than he had last night. She was fascinating, beautiful, irresistible. But here he was resisting. Overrated, in his opinion.
“We must bring this to my grandmother as quickly as possible,” Gabriella was saying, the animated tone of her voice never failing to stir something inside of him.
She cared about so many things. Dusty books and history and the people around her. It made him ache. Made him wish he could still feel like that. Feel in ways he hadn’t since he was eleven years old.
They were directed by the staff to the morning room, where her grandmother was taking her tea.
“Grandmother,” Gabriella said, the word sounding more like a prayer than anything else. As though Lucia were Gabriella’s salvation, her link back to the real world.
He still didn’t feel linked to the real world. The shipping company was back in New York, along with a great many of his real-world concerns. Somehow, over the past week, his life had started to revolve around a painting, and giving compliments to the woman that stood before him.
“Is that it?” Lucia asked, gesturing to the painting that Alex held, facing away from her.
He nodded slowly.
“May I?” she asked, her voice suddenly hushed.
He handed the painting to her, careful not to reveal too much of it. He had seen it, but he felt the need to allow her to experience this at her own pace. In somewhat of a private fashion.
He watched the older woman’s face, watched as she placed her fingertips over the painting, her dark eyes filling with tears. “I can see,” she said, her voice trembling, “I can see how much he loved me. It is there. Still.”
“Who?” Gabriella asked.
“Bartolo. His name was Bartolo. An artist. And I... I did not think there was any way I could sacrifice my position for love. But I’m old now, Gabriella. And I look at this and I see just how deep his feelings were. And then... Then we were thrown out of Isolo D’Oro, anyway. I asked myself every day what the sacrifice meant. I married a man who was suitable. I rejected the one who was not. For what? For a kingdom that crumbled. Seeing it again... Understanding...
