Casanova LLC

Episode 5

“… I am forced to admit that we ourselves are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so unreasonably complain. If I could live my life over again, should I be wiser? Perhaps; but then I should not be myself.”

― Giacomo Casanova

Alessandro

I bolted upright like a teenager who’d been caught doing what I’d just been doing.

Another more insistent knock.

I grabbed my phone. No text from her. Why would she have come up here? She knew it was off-limits. Not that I didn’t want her here, but rules were rules.

Maybe she needed something? Maybe she wanted something?

I stood, smoothed a hand through my hair, and went to the door. I opened it a crack and pretended I’d been woken from a dead sleep. “Cara, is everything all right?—”

“Ma, sì, Caro.” Jacopo pushed into my room as if it were still his. He held two glasses in one hand and in the other was a bottle of wine.

“What are you doing here? Do you realize how late it is?”

“We are celebrating.”

“What? Your Oscar-worthy performance last night?” He set everything on the table. “I texted you today. Many times. No reply.” He filled the glasses. “Are you listening to me? You can’t just pull a stunt like that and expect?—”

“The motor…” He held up a glass for me to take, smiling. “She is fixed.”

Begrudgingly, I closed the door and went to him. I took the glass, clinked his. Said, gratuitously, “Salute.”

“Salute.”

“Congratulations, she’s a real boat now.”

“Grazie.”

He sipped and I downed my entire glass, which he watched closely. He went to pour me more, but I waved him away. He poured me more anyway, which is how I knew he had something else to say. Sure enough: “How was today?”

“Fine.”

He looked at me.

“What! Fine! Good!”

He nodded silently. Then, after a long moment, “Paola, she text me. Earlier. To see if I would be at the palazzo when she come by with the costume. To say hello. But I was in Mestre, with the motor.” He sipped. “You took Bella to the ball?”

“Paola’s texts you answer. Yes, I took Bella to the ball.”

He silently sipped and stared.

“I hate when you do that.”

“What? What I do? I say nothing.”

“Your face says it all.”

He held up his hands. “Why you so ready to fight me? It is a good thing. I mean, I was surprised, she does not seem the type, but?—”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you have notes?”

“I just?—”

“It’s late, I’m tired, can we stop doing whatever this is? Why are you so bothered by her?”

“It is not her that bothers me.”

I recorked the bottle, trying to signal we were wrapping this up. “I know, I know, it’s me, that I offered her the barter. Apparently I’ve broken the working order of the entire universe.”

“You know, yesterday, I was sure you offered because you wanted her. But today, I think about it more, and I realize something else: you offered because you are guilty.”

I groaned, “Minchia! Guilty about what?” I walked toward the door.

“The deal with her shitball husband. Tell me I am wrong.”

I wanted to tell him he was wrong. But if I did, I would be lying. And worse, I would have to continue this conversation. It was easier to let him win. I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “So what? She’s been through a lot. Because of him.”

“So you have told her.”

Silence.

“So you are going to tell her.”

“You heard her at dinner: she still thinks he loved her.” I said these words to the battered old door. I didn’t want to look at him right now. “Telling her does nothing but burst that bubble. She’s been harmed enough.”

“Ah, so you are protecting her , not yourself.”

I opened the door. “It’s not that deep, Dr. Freud. She’ll be gone in two days. I’ll have my paintings back, and she will have had a great time.” I stepped back, leaving him lots of room to exit. “Okay? We finished?”

“Sì.” Chuckling, he grabbed the wine bottle and both empty glasses in one hand and walked to me. With the other hand, he patted my cheek. “Ma hai finito prima che arrivassi qui.”

I felt my face go little-boy red. “I didn’t?—”

“Use oil next time. You do not want to get raw.”

He left.

I might have slammed the door behind him.

* * *

The first time I saw her…

I need to go farther back.

The first time I saw Richard Craven.

They’d moved me from the lobby to his outer office and if power had a smell, that’s what it smelled like in there. And like a smell, his reputation preceded him, but being here? It was tangible. It was the difference between looking at a photo of the sun and laying out in it.

A rather severe-looking, pencil-skirted beauty came from the inner office, told me Mr. Craven would see me now, then turned back around, obviously expecting me to follow, which I did.

This next room was austere, paneled walls and only one window. Her desk might as well have been a dining room table. As she walked to large oak doors I had a jolt of nervousness. Not because I was meeting Richard Craven, but because I didn’t know why. Yes, he was an avid art collector and yes I was a struggling artist, but his taste ran to the abstract and I was anything but. She opened the double doors, stepped to the side, and waited for me to enter. I took a steadying breath and walked straight into the sun.

He was standing at a huge window, drink in hand, in the clichéd posture of a rich man surveying his domain. He didn’t bother to turn toward me, even after the doors closed with castle-like finality.

I didn’t know if I should speak. So I stood there. Just as the silence was about to devolve into awkwardness: “Come in. Make yourself comfortable. Drink?” It was only then that he faced me.

“Sure. Thank you. Whatever you’re having.”

“Help yourself.” He pointed to a collection of bottles on a crystal bar cart.

As he walked over to his glass desk and sat, I assessed him. He was good looking, not great. He was average height. But there was something magnetic about him nonetheless.

Money, I supposed.

I considered, then, the situation of my life: I spent my days with wealthy women, but rarely interacted with their male counterparts. Stranger in a strange land, I went over to the bar, poured myself a glass of bourbon, and headed over to his desk, where he was leaning back in his chair, his feet up.

I sat in one of two large, overstuffed club chairs opposite him. I sunk into it. And kept sinking. It put me at a childish angle to him. Like George Bailey sitting opposite Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life . “So, Mr. Craven, to what do I owe this pleasure? It’s not every day a?—”

“How’s your bourbon? You chose the Pappy Van Winkle 20 year? You have good taste.” His smile was one of arrogance. I was sure many people read it as confidence.

“It was on your bar. I would say you have good taste, Mr. Craven.”

“Which is why you’re here. And please, call me Richard. May I call you Alessandro?”

“Of course…Richard.” I raised my glass in an airy toast and sipped.

He just stared levelly back at me, a smugly aloof smirk on his face.

What I knew about him, what everyone knew about him, I could admire. A rich kid whose father had died young (in what would turn out to be foreshadowing), he’d been shuttled off to boarding schools while his socialite mother train-wrecked herself through Page Six. But he was off-the-charts smart. Made his first personal million by fourteen, day-trading from his Swiss dorm room. He went to Yale for a couple years, but when his trust matured, he dropped out to build a company that turned that money into more money. Then he started doing it for other people. Now, the press loved him. He was a genius, but not nerdy; yeah, a billionaire, but one of the “good ones.” He liked his women, but what wealthy, heterosexual male didn’t, and he was the largest single collector of art in the world. And now he was staring at me.

Just as I was about to ask, again, why I was here, the most bizarre thing happened:

He burst out laughing. Knee-slapping, hyena-wheezing laughing.He kicked his feet up and down on his desk. Stood up and came around to the other club chair next to me and flopped down.

“Oh man, I got you good! Right by the nads!” He affected the low, serious voice he’d been using when I walked in: “Good day. Make yourself comfortable. Drink? Please, call me Richard.” He said, in what I now knew was his normal voice, “I like to fuck around a little in these first meetings. You know, meet the billionaire, power room after power room like a fucking cave system, some Pappy 20.” He pointed a finger at me. “I gotcha, didn’t I? Just a little? Tightened up the ol’ bunghole?”

He seemed to really be asking. “You got me,” I confirmed, while thinking what the hell is happening right now ?

“Listen, I’d love to spend the whole day fucking around, I really would, but the Nikkei’s about to open, so here’s the deal: You know my reputation. I turn artists into legends. If I have it, the art world wants it. Doesn’t matter what it is, only matters that I have—this is a hobby. The money I make on this shit doesn’t matter to me. But it matters to the artists. It matters a metric fuckton to the artists.”

Something told me to take his magnanimity with a grain of salt.

I was right. “But, man , can you get these art assholes to burn money. Jesus Christ. Sometimes I wonder if I should become an artist. If I started pissing on blank canvases, I swear I could fucking retire.”

I understood him, then. He was a chaos agent. He got off on seeing if he could make the art world lose its mind. He was the market equivalent of an internet troll. The Joker to Batman.

I asked the question that had been burning inside me since his assistant—or one of his assistants—called last week. “How did you find me?”

He held up a finger. “Good question, but don’t interrupt my flow. I don’t mean that in a rude way, I’m just tight on time”—he tapped his Patek Philippe—“and I want to make sure we get through everything, okay? I ‘found you’ because my intended has fallen in love with one of your paintings.” He resituated himself, throwing one leg over an arm of the chair. “You know my eye is for contemporary abstract. Of course you do, everyone does. But my future wifey has an eye, too. And even though I don’t like it, I’ve learned to respect it, because she’s always right. Always. So here’s what we’re gonna do. Step one: I’m gonna buy the painting she loves for her wedding gift. I know: awwwww. And I’ll pay you double what you’ve got it listed for on your site, which—Sidebar: who built your fucking website?” He leaned in. “And, bro, who is pricing your shit?” His thumb made a quick succession of upward jabs. “Can’t expect anyone else to take you seriously if you don’t take yourself seriously, and you can’t expect me to ask people for a 20 X valuation if it looks like I picked you up for fifty bucks at a village art fair in the Poconos.”

He leaned back again and drew a breath. I was so confused. “But if you’re just buying the one painting, for your fiancée, then?—”

“Interruuuuupting,” he sang. “Which brings us to step two: When she showed me your painting, the one that drenched her panties, I decided to take a look at your body of work. Do I like it? No. Do I get it? Who gives a shit? Do I think I can sell it? Absofuckinglutely. You’ve got, what, a dozen others? What would you say to a partnership?”

There was silence.

“Can I talk now?”

“Yes, you can fucking talk, I asked you a question.”

“What kind of partnerships do you usually do?”

“Doesn’t matter what I usually do. You and I are gonna do something a little different. Like I said, I can sell you, but it could cost me. It’s risky. Our lanes are night and day. I gotta grab hold of a whole different brand of buyer. People are going to wonder why you. When did this guy start sucking my dick.”

I wanted to ask which side of his mouth I should be listening to. The one that said he could absofuckinglutely sell me, or the one that said I had to suck his dick.

“So, here’s the deal. I’m not gonna pay you for the other paintings. But you’ll send them to me and I’m gonna do some handselling. Some good old-fashioned retail politics. Invite a few people over to the house, casual, couple drinks, some Nobu, test the waters. If it works, I’ll only take ten percent.”

That was it? A gallery would take at least fifty percent. He could take seventy percent and it would still be the deal of the century.

“I just need you to do something for me.”

“Suck your dick?”

He laughed. “No. At least not now. Not here.” Then he pointed at me with his foot. “Gotcha, gotcha back, huh?”

I didn’t want to look as eager—as honestly, desperate—as I felt, but I also suspected he was the kind of guy who liked to have you acknowledge the power he held over you. “Richard? I’ll paint a portrait of your fiancée as the Venus de Milo on velvet. Shit, I’ll paint your house . I will do whatever you want.”

He smiled. Nodded. “Good. Good.” He brought his glass to his lips. “I want you to fuck my bride.” He drank.

Laughing, I raised my glass for a sip. “I’ll get right on that.”

He laughed, too. “Good. Because I’m serious.”

I couldn’t swallow. The Pappy burned my mouth as I stared at him.

He set his glass down and stood. Sighed a bit. “Okay, so listen. We’re men of the world. Aren’t we men of the world? Don’t answer, not a question.” He leaned against his desk in front of me, putting his crotch at eye-level. I sat up straighter. “Your paintings? They’re fantastic. To some people. My girl, for starters. Who’s pretty, by the way, I probably should have led with that. I mean, of course she is. Obviously. She’s a bit”—he tightened his entire body like he was about to be rolled up in a rug—“you know, but that’s your problem now.” His perpetual smile rested easily on his face. “Something tells me, though, that you can handle that. That you might be an expert, of sorts, in handling that. You know how I know that?” He started pacing. “Because when she showed me your painting, all gooey-eyed, all swept up in some romantic fantasy bullshit world you’d created, I said to myself, I said, ‘Self? Where’s it come from? What’s his inspiration?’ Because every painter I’ve ever known—the great ones and the shitty ones—all have something that makes them do what they do. You know, like a muse or whatever. Right?” He turned back, pointed a finger at me, a teasing tilt to his head. “You were going to interrupt me there, weren’t you?” He recommenced his pacing. “So! I did a little dig.” He scoffed. “A little. A little for me is a lot for someone else. I gave my people shovels. And the thing about my people is they dig until I say stop.” At which point he stopped, and just looked at me. “And guess what they found.” He smirked. “Feel free to interrupt now.”

I didn’t want to interrupt. I didn’t want to say anything. I had gone from a proud lion to a cornered mouse in the blink of an eye. “I have no idea.”

“EEEEEE.” An annoying final buzzer sound. “Wrong answer.”

“What answer do you want, Mr. Craven—sorry. Richard.”

“The honest one, Mr. Casanova. Sorry. Mr. Vianello. Do you have a preference?”

We stared each other down.

He clasped his hands behind his head. He’d won and he knew it, so he could be generous: “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know. It’s fucking baller, actually. The family castle, the lineage, the name every woman knows? Wish I’d thought of it.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Ally, relax, it’s a good thing. I need you, you need me. Maybe we’ll get fucking married.”

I stood.

“Oh, come on with your performative moral outrage. Like you haven’t fucked another man’s wife before.”

“Not like this.”

His hand landed on my shoulder. “You’ve got two choices here. Either sit back down and listen like the man of the world you are or clutch your pearls and get the hell out. But this offer expires the second you leave.”

I didn’t like breathing the same air as this man, but there were my paintings to consider. And more, my possible freedom from the very lineage he was trying to hold over my head. I stayed standing. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s not for weird reasons. It’s not like I want to watch or anything.”

“Okay?”

He perched on the edge of his desk like a vulture on a carcass. “I know how this sounds in this day and age, but my muse? Money. And I’m about to get married, a thing I swore I would never do, because she’s…” he drifted off and looked at the floor. Something complicated momentarily passed over his face. I couldn’t get a read before his expression hardened again. “She expands my portfolio, let’s leave it at that. But what I’m not gonna do is be like every other fucking idiot who loses his mind when his dick falls in love and walks itself right into a hedge-trimmer. No piece of ass—I don’t care how valuable—is getting half of what I’ve built.”

“Isn’t that what a prenup is for?”

“Ding, ding, ding! We have a prenup, Your Honor. She said she doesn’t want any of my money and I could put that in writing. But if that got out, I’d look like a creep. Made her sign her rights away or whatever? That’s a no-go. On paper, she gets half. Shows everyone how much I trust her, right?”

“But if you trust her, then why?—”

“I don’t trust anybody.”

“What exactly is in the prenup?”

“Simple. We both are faithful or the whole thing is voided. And between us men of the world, that’s gonna be a problem. A problem you’re gonna fix for me.”

“Why me?”

“You fucking kidding?” he laughed. “You were designed in a lab for this. Not only are you a professional, which takes all the feelings out of it, but there’s the art thing. Hell, she’s half in love with you already. And she hasn’t even seen you yet.” He stood. “Just do whatever it is you do for a goddamn living.”

I tried to organize my thoughts. “How do you envision this happening?”

“Glad you asked. Our rehearsal dinner is tomorrow night. Come by. We’ll tell her about the gift, introduce you. At some point, I’ll leave. Which I’m known to do, which she hates, but which gives you the perfect opportunity to be a sympathetic ear. Shoulder? Sympathetic shoulder? Whatever.”

“You want me to sleep with her the night before your wedding?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I’d like to have that peace of mind before I walk down the aisle, yeah. But she’s, you know”—he stiffened his body again, like he was pretending to be a Redwood in some acting workshop—“so maybe you’ll only be able to lay groundwork tomorrow. Took me two years to get in her pants, but you’re a professional. I’m not here to tell you how to do your job. But if it does happen that night, don’t, like, overshoot and make her bail on the wedding. She falls in love with you, you’re a dead man. I’ll bury you next to your paintings. Kidding. Obviously. Oh, and one more thing: I’ll need proof. Irrefutable proof. I’ll have your paintings picked up tomorrow morning.”

“What kind of proof?”

“Proof. You know, pictures. Video. Ironclad. Work it out.”

My stomach turned and I sat down. Put my elbows on my knees and looked at the floor.

Richard loomed above me. “Hey hey hey. There’s nothing evil here. You’re not forcing her. Besides, she signed the prenup; she knows the consequences of her actions. It’s all above board. As above board as any business transaction is. All you’re doing is leveling the playing field. She said she doesn’t want anything from me anyway. You’re just helping me hold her to her word, should I ever need to. And in exchange…I’ll change your motherfucking life.”

Everything he said was true.

It was a barter. Just another barter.

But still, I sat with it. And sat with it.

He groaned, losing patience. “Man, come on, this isn’t difficult. Just ask yourself one question: Are you a gigolo or are you an artist? If you could choose, right this moment, which would it be? Who do you want to be?” He thrust his hand forward with finality. It was my last chance to take the deal or not.

No one had ever, for lack of a better word, “outed” me like this before. Had so clearly put who I’d dreamed of being up against who I was made to be. I’d convinced myself that painting was nothing more than a nice hobby. Because when I’d made the decision to take over for Jacopo, to not let the line end with him, I’d had to stop wanting anything other than that.

I could feel Craven getting ready to withdraw his hand. “Look, I don’t know your deal, okay? I don’t know who you want to be; I’m just telling you that once I’m done with you, you’ll be able to be whoever the fuck you want to be.”

And then there was the money. I hadn’t even considered the money. My current stock of finished work would be sold at twenty times their worth and whatever I painted after that was one-hundred percent mine. I could take care of Jacopo. The palazzo. I could do what I’d always wanted to do.

Did the dubious morality of what he proposed outweigh all of that? I could easily rationalize it away. Because let’s be honest: I knew the kind of woman who would marry a man like Richard Craven.

So.

I shook his hand.

* * *

The day dawned bright and clear. After a simple breakfast in the garden, I motored Claire over to the island of Burano. I thought she’d fall in love with the lace, which had made the island famous. But beyond that, I knew she’d appreciate the colorful houses. Blue next to pink next to yellow next to orange.

I told her the history of the island on the way over, but in truth, I was not myself. I hadn’t slept at all, thanks to Jacopo, as my conscience warred with itself. Yes, I should tell her everything she didn’t know. But how much did the truth matter? Did it matter enough to not only ruin this weekend, but also her lingering love for her late husband?

But he didn’t deserve her devotion. Didn’t deserve it while he was alive, why should he have it for eternity?

But I didn’t deserve it either.

But I wanted it.

But what if I also wanted to tell her? Who I really am. The man hiding in the shadow of the fantasy. Then what? I wanted to keep talking about art and sex. But what if I also wanted to talk about dreams and desires, vulnerabilities, pain and longing? And, most frighteningly, the future?

No.

Better to leave the magic intact. Keep the magician intact.

Once again, what I wanted was the problem. The fact that I wanted anything at all was the problem.

We disembarked and I led her to a small lace shop. Everyone in this lagoon was a friend of my uncle’s, but guests were only brought to those who made quality products. This shop had been in the same family practically since lace was invented, and the current proprietor was the daughter of two of Jacopo’s best friends, Silvia and Luigi. She took her time explaining the craft to Claire, who, as with the palazzo, or the gondola workshop (or anything else she gave her attention to), had a wealth of questions. In the end, she pulled out her wallet and bought two lace placemats for two-hundred-fifty euro. She saw me watching. “It’s okay. I withdrew a grand from the company account before I left. Just in case.”

“In case what?” I teased. “In case I never picked you up at the airport?”

She grinned. But then she asked for them to be gift-wrapped.

We left the shop and I couldn’t help but ask, “A gift?”

“Don’t be jealous. They’re for Jacopo.”

“This is not a jealous why…but why?”

“For his boat.”

“That’s a lovely gesture, but if she’d known they were for Jacopo she would have given you a family discount.” I started walking back to the shop.

Claire’s hand landed on my forearm, tugging me to a stop. “That’s why I didn’t tell her. Let her make her money. Please. It’s my pleasure. Don’t refuse me my pleasure.”

Her mind was made up. I had to admit: there was something I liked about that. “At the very least, he doesn’t need two .”

“Maybe not right now. But who knows? Right?”

I’d never imagined him having a partnered life. I’d never even thought to ask him if he wanted that.

“Besides, it’s from my company. A write-off. Feel better, now?” She took my arm in hers and we continued to explore the village until we got hungry enough to have some lunch. I took her to a favorite place of mine, where we dined on their house special, a fresh seafood risotto. The bottle of wine was complimentary, no matter how much I insisted.

I decided to channel my problematic desire to have her know the real me into getting to know the real her instead.

“So, Visage. What made you want to start a cosmetics company?”

“Self-preservation?”

“Why not just marry a plastic surgeon?”

“Ah, but by marrying a billionaire, I could have all the plastic surgeons I wanted.” She tapped her temple, and I grinned. “No, the truth is, it was as close as I could get to creating art.”

“You do have impeccable taste.”

“Because I adore your work so much?”

“Obviously. But, seriously, why a cosmetics company?”

“Because I’m good at it?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

She sipped from her glass of Vermentino. “Look. If I had to do it all over again, I’m not sure I’d do cosmetics. It was right at the time. For a lot of reasons.” She waved this off, getting back on track. “But I made it more than just makeup. I made it art. Made foundations for over twenty different complexions, used my knowledge of color theory to bundle them with complementary eyeshadow, blush, bronzer, and lipstick.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s smart, and I appreciate what you did, but why didn’t you do something with actual art instead?”

“The business of art is what I enjoy the least about it.”

“Fair enough. But maybe you could have changed that?”

She chewed her bottom lip, considering. She looked at her wineglass, twirled it on the table. “When I started dating Richard, he kinda sucked up all the oxygen in the art world. Even though I was building my own reputation, a respected one, but…you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Once we were together, it would never have been my own gallery, my own school, my own endowment. He…loomed large.” She picked up her wineglass. “In all ways. In all areas.”

“Except cosmetics.”

“Except cosmetics.” She sipped on her Vermentino. “Didn’t stop people from thinking he was involved, of course. That was the most exhaustive investigation. But it came back clean. Literally the day before I got here.”

I’d read about that, but I’d left it up to her to mention it. The pundits had been sure he’d used Visage to launder money. But the audit had vindicated her and she walked away with full ownership. For whatever it was worth now. “We don’t have to talk about this if it’s?—”

“No, it’s good. I want to.” She put down her wine and picked up her spoon for another bite of risotto. “Building Visage, honestly, wasn’t about what I created, but how I did it. That’s what mattered to me. I wanted nothing from Richard. No doors opened, no financing, no let-me-make-a-call, nothing. And when it became successful, when I became successful…” She wiped her beautiful mouth with her napkin. “He would see me as…more. And he’d want more. Of me.”

“He didn’t want you?”

“He wanted the me he could put on a shelf, along with his other prized possessions. But that, forgive the pun, has a shelf life. But joke’s on me. I needn’t have worried about the future.”

I was going to tell her. I was going to tell her how he was everything she ever suspected. He was an idiot, he was an asshole, he was?—

“He was a good man. He was loyal. He was supportive. I hate that he will be remembered for the last six months of his life. He gave me so much. And in return, he just wanted me to be his fantasy version of me.” She picked up her wine once again and looked at me. “Something you know something about.”

I didn’t answer. There was a world of difference between me and Claire.

“Anyway. I wanted off the shelf and Visage was my way to do it.”

“Did you get what you wanted?”

She considered the question, tongue running over her teeth. “Yes. I made it a success.”

I took a moment before reiterating, “But did you get what you wanted?”

Her voice tightened. “You mean the shelf?” She stared past me. “He got sick and the shelf became irrelevant. All that mattered was love. All that’s left is love.”

What was I supposed to do with that?

* * *

On the way home, just as the sun began to dip in the late-afternoon sky, I detoured slightly and took her down the side canal that abutted our palazzo. I pulled the boat up to the opposite wall and cut the engine.

She looked all around, at the water, at yet another view of our palazzo across the canal, everywhere but at the wall directly behind her. She lifted a what’s going on brow at me.

Smiling, I inclined my head toward the pale pink wall we had pulled alongside.

She turned around and a moment later, she gasped. Her head spun back to me, eyes wide. “The wall in your painting! The color that inspired the lipstick.”

“The very one.”

Beaming, she spun back around. She scurried to the back of the boat so she could step up on the sun deck and get close to it. I watched the delight on her face as she lifted her left hand to the wall and…pressed. A moment of connection. Of honoring.

My mind photographed it. Which shocked me. I hadn’t had that impulse in… years . My creative flame sparking. She leaned back and looked up, taking in the whole building. “It’s peeling a bit.”

I nodded sadly. “It’s been vacant for years, like many Venetian properties. The city is all tourists now; locals have been pushed out.” The old houses that hadn’t modernized, hadn’t been turned into apartments or hotels, were prohibitively expensive to maintain and who had money like that anymore? Ours was hardly a replicable business model.

She looked more closely at the wall. “I actually like it. I like the color underneath. The contrast. It’s more authentic. More real.” She took out her phone and held it up. “Do you mind?”

“What?”

“If I take a picture? Just of the wall. I’ll keep you out of it.”

It took me a moment to realize she was referencing a part of the NDA that prohibited photos. “Of course.”

As she photographed it, I thought: Take a photo of us, Claire. With my arms around you. Sitting on my lap on the bench of the Riva. Kissing. I wanted proof that we had existed. That this was real. I wanted to see us together in a moment that would last forever.

Jacopo would laugh in my face.

When she was done, I started the engine, and we went home.

Claire insisted on stopping by the sailboat on the way into the palazzo, her gift in hand, but luckily Jacopo wasn’t there. So we walked into the androne and stopped at the stairs.

“So.” She cleared her throat. “What’s the plan for tonight?”

“What’s your pleasure?”

“Loaded question. What are my options?”

“Well.” I slowly moved toward her. “We could go out for dinner.”

“Where?”

“Couple choices.” Closer. “A casual trattoria around the corner. Or I know the somm at a Michelin place. Seven-course tasting menu kind of thing.”

“Sounds…” Her eyes dropped to my mouth as I advanced. “Filling. Or?”

“Musica a Palazzo.”

It took her a moment to hear what I’d said and to realize she didn’t understand it. Her eyes came back to mine. “What?”

“It’s a company of performers who stage an opera in a palazzo. They’re fantastic.” I backed her up against the stone banister. “Tonight is Tristan und Isolde ,” I murmured. “Wagner.”

She swallowed. “I would love that.” My heart sank. But then she said, again, “Or?”

“Or.” I braced my hands on either side of her, pinning her in. Dropped my mouth to her neck. “We stay in.”

She shuddered. And tried to speak normally. “Do we have something to eat here?”

I ran my open lips over her ear. “ I do.” Nudged her legs apart with my knee. “But you’ll be well-fed, too.”

“That,” she said on a sigh, “that ‘or.’ Let me just go clean up for a bit.”

I didn’t want to let her go. I aligned our bodies, pulled back to look in her eyes, and let myself harden. I didn’t grind against her. I just stared at her, watching her feel my growing desire. “Do you know how difficult it was for me to leave you last night?”

“No, actually.”

“Well, it was.” Her eyes blurred with skepticism so I felt compelled to add: “I went upstairs and fucked my hand.”

Those same eyes sharpened with lust. “You did?”

“While thinking about you.”

“What were you…thinking about?”

I would have grabbed her breast then, slipped a hand down her jeans. But she was still bundled up in her thick puffer coat from the boat ride. So I settled for running a hand through her hair and tugging her head back. I pressed slightly forward, letting my fullness find her. “I’d prefer to show you. If you’d like. Tonight?”

In answer, she pushed her lower half fully into me and, at the sudden intrusion of a sharp pain at my hip, I reared back. “Ow!” My hand went to her waist, fishing for the culprit. “What in the hell…”

She giggled. “Sorry, I forgot that was still in there.”

From her pocket, I retrieved the forcola. I held it up teasingly between us. “You could do serious damage with this. It’s ebony. One of the hardest woods in the world.”

Her eyes went to my crotch. “If it’s a competition, I think you’d win.” Cheekily, she plucked it out of my hand. “What did he say, at the shop? That each section corresponds to different parts of the human body? How the gondoliere steers by working his oar in different parts of the forcola?” She turned it over in her hand, considering it. “Hmm. We should try that.”

“Claire.” She was driving me insane. “If you want to get ready, go now.”

“Or what?”

“I will take you right here.”

A devilish grin transformed her face and she let it linger, taunting me. But she slipped out of my embrace and went to the stairs.

“When should I expect you?” I called after her.

“Couple hours?”

“Couple hours ? Claire.”

She threw a casual look over her shoulder, continuing to climb, and said, as if asking for me to pass her the salt, “Feel free to hand-fuck yourself while you wait.”

Every filthy word, coming from that ice princess mouth, sent a bolt of lightning through me.

I tried, but I couldn’t find any words. It didn’t matter. She was already gone.

* * *

I went to the kitchen, made a fresh charcuterie platter, took a homemade baked ziti out of the freezer and set it in the oven on low to defrost. Not exactly gourmet, but it was the meal I’d found women—and to be honest, I—most reliably craved after sex. That and the rest of the torta from the other night.

Then I went up to my apartment and did thirty minutes on the rower. Showered and shaved. I still had at least another hour.

I walked around my apartment, feeling like a bull waiting to enter the arena. As I air-dried with a towel around my waist, I found myself drifting over to the blank canvas sitting on my easel.

Next thing I knew I was creating a wash, mixing pink and orange and red and then diluting it with water and brushing it over the canvas with wide, messy strokes until the white was entirely covered. I ran a paper towel over it, blending it in, wiping away the brush lines.

Before the thin wash had even dried, I was outlining. A fine brush dipped in gray, rapidly made straight lines. My hand moved as if it had never stopped. It was alive again, steady and strong and purposeful.

I didn’t do figurative. Had only done two before, one of my uncle and one of my mother. I’d abandoned it early on for landscapes, where I felt I had more room to interpret, to say what I wanted to say. People were complicated.

But now, an outline of a left hand materialized within the rose color. As did a small band across the ring finger. Then an arm. A shoulder. A breast. A face in profile, hair flowing out behind. I filled in the brow, the line above her pert little nose, the fullness of her lips, and height of her cheekbones. I unzipped her coat in my mind, saw her collarbone, and it appeared on the canvas. I felt like a child discovering ice cream for the first time—no, better. It was a rediscovery. That something you’d loved could be even better than you remembered.

There was a knock on the door.

I blinked at the canvas, coming out of a trance.

Annoyance washed over me. Seriously? Again?

I strode to the door, jerking it open. “Che cosa?”

But it wasn’t Jacopo. My entire being rebooted. “I thought you—I’m sorry, I’m not?—”

The woman I had parted with an hour ago was not the one standing before me.

She was in the short plum silk robe, hair was still wet from a shower, and she was barefoot, and shaking, and she looked like she’d just scented the sulfur of the devil himself.

“The deal’s off.”