Casanova LLC

Episode 2

“I n my long and profligate career in which I have turned the heads of some hundreds of ladies, I have become familiar with all the methods of seduction.”

― Giacomo Casanova

Alessandro

The classic old Riva was waiting at the dock when I arrived, and so was the classic old man. He was standing on the pier talking shit with Leonardo, a water taxi driver who let us use his allotted slip when we needed it. They noticed me, and my uncle tossed his roll-your-own cigarette. I shook my head as I approached. “I saw that,” I said, in Italian.

He gave me his trademark charming shrug, mumbled something about me being a pain in his ass, then pulled me in for a hug.

He was as tall as me. And his strong arms and chest gave me the instant comfort they always had. He hadn’t changed in two short months, but whenever I saw him for the first time after any time away, I had to remember that my mental image of him, locked in from my childhood, did not reflect the man as he was now. His hair, while still full, was mostly gray; his shoulders, while still dense from work, slightly stooped; and there was a small paunch where there hadn’t been one before. It was as if, upon the moment he retired seven years ago, his brain had told his body that it could let go.

He pulled back from our embrace, clutched my arms, and looked down his Casanova nose at me. “You said you were going to stay in touch while you were home.”

“You said you were going to stop smoking.”

He chuckled and cupped my face, then used the cup to shove me away. Turned for the boat.

“Video chatting once a week with Livia and the kids wasn’t enough? How much more do you want?”

“But you see,” he deadpanned, “I am a sad, lonely relic.” He belied this statement by hopping nimbly down into the Riva. “I did nothing but wander aimlessly around the house for two months, sighing.”

“Think fast!” I threw my bag down to him.

He spun just in time to grab it. He didn’t lose a fraction of his balance. “You little shit! Untie the lines and get in.”

I did. When I jumped aboard, he gassed the engine once and we jolted forward. It took everything I had to not topple over. “You big shit!”

He enjoyed a smug laugh, and snapped my luggage under the tarp. Then we took the positions we had been taking for as many years as I could remember: Jacopo behind the wheel, me next to him. He puttered us slowly out of the marina. “Gotta say, bit disappointed you’re not picking me up in the sailboat.”

He waved a hand and cursed. “Cazzo, e cazzo. She’s not ready.”

“Well, she’s probably pissed you’re still smoking.” I said it in English, just so I could hear him reply, in English:

“Shut up your face.” Then, in Italian: “It’s the engine.”

“Jacopo Casanova. Bested by a little engine trouble.”

“It’s no trouble!” We passed the buoys and picked up speed. “She is just being coy. I will take my time and make her purr.”

I reached over, clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s my job now. You’re too old.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“You ever heard the one about the old bull and the?—”

“No! You take my house, my career, my sanity…You cannot have the joke.”

Our banter was soon swallowed by the wind as he opened the throttle and sped across the lagoon.

* * *

I loved having Jacopo living at Ca’ Casanova. Since the beginning of our family line, the agreement had been that once a new Casanova took over, the outgoing one could retire in the palazzo for the rest of his days. There was plenty of space, even if there was much to repair.

As we walked through, Jacopo was showing-and-telling what he’d fixed while I was gone. The first floor, or piano nobile, was the showstopper, as that’s where we entertained our guests. A modern kitchen, a dining room, a massive salon—or parlor, or more accurately, sala — with adjoining bedroom and bathroom. The curtains were all cleaned and rehung; the bolt on the French doors leading to the smoking balcony was no longer sticking; the rugs had been steamed. He’d cleaned the windows overlooking the Grand Canal, washed all the tile floors, had the marble ones buffed by a friend who owned the proper machine, and polished every railing. There’d been a leak in the roof last year (a repair that one of my Saudi clients had made possible), and Jacopo had redone the plasterwork on the ceiling. And repainted.

We continued up one more flight to the fully equipped guest residence: a kitchenette, comfortable sitting area with a couch and club chair, a television above it, and a simple desk next to the window seat. A nicely appointed bedroom and en suite with separate tub and shower, toilet and bidet. Everything was ready, as if it had never been used, as if only history had lived here. He showed me the new upholstery on the bench at the end of the bed. He’d over-ordered for the boat, used the extra here.

He had this unparalleled ability to bring life back to anything he put his heart and mind to. He treated things like they were people, never the other way around. A truer man of service I’d never met.

My grandfather had begun the process of modernizing the palazzo back in the 70s, flush with Iranian and American money. He got into the internals, fixed the bad wiring and outdated lead paint and plumbing. He’d made it safe, but Jacopo had made it art. When I’d asked him what he was most proud of during his “reign,” he spoke only of the house. Being good with his hands came naturally and that had translated to his clientele.

He informed me the chicken wire we’d put up in the attic the summer before had held. Nothing was roosting in there. He’d only found two mice in the traps in the androne. A first for the palazzo. He said the winter had been kind, even if it had been lonely . He sighed. Then grinned.

He invited me to have a glass of wine on the sailboat when I was settled, as he trotted back down the stairs to his apartment on the ground floor. A place I jokingly called The Dowager Cottage.

I walked up one more flight, luggage in hand, to my private residence. This I called, not jokingly, my Fortress of Solitude. Only I was allowed to set foot here. It was one long room spanning the canal-side length of the palazzo, containing a living room and kitchen, office and bedroom, art studio and gym. It was exactly as I’d left it. Jacopo had cleaned it but made sure not to move anything out of place. I opened a few of the eight-foot-high windows and unlatched the outer wooden shutters. The early evening air was sweetened with magnolia blossoms.

I turned and looked into the room.

Another season.

Sixty-five bookings, give or take.

My eye swept to the studio area, where a blank, lifeless canvas sat on the easel, collecting dust.

The past few years had been dry for me. Like paint in its tube, cap off—ready and waiting—but the longer it sat, the more unusable it became. What would it take to bring my brush back to the canvas? Would the reclaiming of my paintings do it? Or was it more than that?

The longer I stayed away from it the more I was convinced it wasn’t about my lost paintings. It was about me.

* * *

Jacopo had made surprising progress on the boat. All the cabinetry in the galley was refinished and back in place. He showed me the compound miter work he’d done and the locally sourced wood that was used to repair some of the doors. The velvet on the seats—and now in the guest residence—came from the workshop of an old friend. Mechanical troubles aside, she was done. A Venetian boat through and through, its integrity and authenticity made whole again.

Made whole again.

Which made me think of Claire. Who I had yet to hear from.

Inside the palazzo’s boat garage, or cavana, we sat on the stern, opened the sliding wood door, and looked out into the side canal while we sipped wine and caught up.

As the light of the day retreated toward evening, I watched how it played upon my uncle’s face. You’d think we would have long tired of each other, but the opposite was true. Even as a kid, when I would visit him during the summer, our time together would seem to evaporate and I’d be sent back to New York in September, counting the days until I could return. He was a good man, a great man, where my father—his brother-in-law—was a…hadn’t been.

I looked at his hands as he poured us refills from the carafe. They were rough now, calloused and nicked and cut, cuticles stained with varnish. He used to wear gloves when he worked; women liked strong hands, but rough? Only to a point. Now, his hands belonged to him.

“Retirement suits you,” I observed.

He smiled at this.

“Do you miss it?”

He laughed. He must have seen the look on my face at his laugh because he shrugged. “As careers go, there are worse.”

“I like it.” I didn’t know why it had come out defensive.

“Well, you’re better at it than I was.” I rolled my eyes. “You are. I hear things, you know. I have spies.”

There were a handful of guests we either shared or who now sent me their daughters. Jacopo had maintained genuine if arm’s-length friendships with three of them. They’d known each other for decades, after all. He’d seen them through marriages and divorces and births and deaths and…life. They may no longer fuck, but they’d never come to him solely for that anyway. They could have easily formed an attachment to him if he had allowed it.

But he controlled the outcome. Always.

Retired or not, this was who we were. This was what we had been taught to do.

We were performers. Magicians. We created an illusion that only required a suspension of disbelief. Easily done when desired. The women loved who we were because of what we did and what we did was real as far as they were concerned. But, as with all magic, they never wanted the trick revealed to them. They only wanted the magic. And we gave them that by controlling the outcome. And personal feelings could cause a slipup.

I glanced down at my phone sitting dark on the bench next to me.

Ever-observant, Jacopo raised a brow.

“Waiting for confirmation is all.” I made sure to keep my voice slightly aloof. His unwavering stare made me clarify. “If she cancels, I need to pull someone off the waitlist.”

“Is this a problem?”

I lifted my glass. “No, it’s not a—why would you ask that?”

“Why so defensive?”

I laughed him off, or at least attempted to. “Why are you using that tone?”

“Because I see.”

“Oh, yeah? Cosa vedi?”

“You want this one.” My head whipped to him. That was unnervingly astute, even for him. “You know she is bella.”

Ah. I took another sip of wine.

I decided to tell a very small, very insignificant, white lie. Hardly a lie, really. An omission. “What if she is?” He just laughed. “It’s the beginning of a new season! I’ve been babysitting for two months. So it makes me happy my first guest is attractive, cosi?”

“You feel lonely?—”

“I’m not lonely?—”

“Get a cat.”

“I’m not lonely!”

“At least a cat would help with the mice.”

I coughed a small laugh and he smiled. Gave me his I-am-but-an-old-man shrug. “A pretty woman shouldn’t matter, you know this. But. Is it nice occasionally? To us, un po’. But to the job? Never. The job is to find the beauty in all and coax it out.”

“I know.”

“This is the magic and we?—”

“Are the magician. I know.”

“This is a sacrament and we?—”

“Are the priest. I know.”

“You think a priest does not see a beautiful woman? Of course he does. But it only serves to remind him of the importance of his work. So you see, attraction might be a good thing.”

Jacopo’s innate personality was more suited to the isolation of the job than mine and he’d treated his time monastically. On his days off he worked on the palazzo. At night he read woodworking books with a glass of wine. He was chivalrous and steady and solid and a generous lover, of course, but fundamentally he had the temperament of a monk.

At first, I’d imitated him; now, I emulated him. That’s how I’d found my way. “I don’t think she’ll go through with it, anyway.” I nodded at the phone.

And it illuminated. The banner of text came across the screen. I saw everything I needed to see. And he saw everything he needed to see in my face.

He continued looking at me as we drained our glasses.

Claire

I didn’t have to wait until the following week to find Alessandro’s paintings. Caroline and I found them the following day, not in one of the myriad warehouses, but in my building’s garage when I was showing her the cars. We were looking at the Phantom and I remembered that the storage cage next to it belonged to us, too. It wasn’t even locked.

I walked in and saw remnants of my past, both with Richard and mine alone. The bike I used to ride around the city before I met him. Christmas decorations from our yearly who’s-who party. My old Art History textbooks. Random items—things, stuff—still in their original packaging; never opened, never used. And Alessandro’s paintings.

They weren’t crated. They weren’t wrapped in plastic sheeting. They weren’t cared for or cared about. They were just stacked, haphazard tiles, on the concrete floor.

“More art?” Caroline asked, sounding like someone had ordered another bottle of champagne.

If only I hadn’t come down here with her in tow. She would have never known they existed. I could have shipped them to Alessandro and been done with all of it.

Caroline had already begun unstacking them, checking for damage. Remarkably, there wasn’t any. “They’re nice. Do you know the artist?”

I shook my head. The man you drooled over two days ago didn’t seem a warranted response. Besides, let Sotheby’s do the leg work. Let them earn the ten percent commission I’d be paying to buy them back. “I’ll clear it out.” I wanted her to stop hovering over everything, over me, like a crow at a dumpster.

She went back to the cars. I could tell she enjoyed them. Opening and closing doors, sliding in and out. She took a selfie in the Lamborghini when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.

I wasn’t. My focus was on the paintings. I brought them out of the cage one by one. Lined them up against the chain-link like suspects. My phone’s flashlight trained on them, an interrogation.

God. He really was talented.

He played with perspective. That was his signature. A crystal-clear near photorealism up front that drifted slowly into an impressionistic blur. Or he would reverse it. Most of them were Venetian scenes. Bridges, cafés, gondolas, Carnival. Among the landscapes, there were two portraits. A delicate middle-aged woman asleep on a velvet chaise. And a debonair-looking man reading by a fire with a carafe of wine next to him. There was something familiar about him, as though he were about to get up and offer me a glass. Maybe it was just the way Alessandro breathed life into his subjects.

I’d first seen his work at a studio I frequented. I was friendly with the owner, Cyril, who supplied most of the Brooklyn art world with its paints. I was there, as I often was then, perusing his catalogs of color, trying to nail down the complementary palettes for my burgeoning makeup line. The line that would become Visage. I’d been looking for a particular shade of rose and Cyril had taken me around the corner to the open studio, where artists paid him a monthly fee for easel space, where one particular painting was set up and?—

It hit me, why the man in the painting was familiar. He’d been with Alessandro at the gallery that night. At my rehearsal dinner.

This was the way of my brain these days. Everything on delay and a multitude of trajectories all at once. An airport during a winter storm two days before Christmas.

Anyway. The painting on the easel: a view of the Grand Canal through a Moorish-style window at golden hour. As Cyril pointed out the rose hue of the building on the left border, I felt my entire being pulled toward the scene. Toward the feeling it evoked. A tugging. A longing.

I’d even started crying.

It hadn’t been a full-on Stendhal episode, but it was close.

I’d snapped a picture and that night, waiting for Richard at Per Se, I studied it. Zoomed in and out. I wanted to understand how he had accomplished it, the magic that overshadowed the technique.

When Richard had finally shown, I’d walked him through my, at that point, dissertation-level analysis of the work. He nodded along. Yes, the technique was good, but untested. It, and the artist, required seasoning. The thing was, I didn’t care. I’d been moved. Deeply. Intimately. Like no other painting I had ever seen. So what if it wasn’t perfect? I’d never believed in perfection anyway. That was Richard’s thing.

He shrugged that off. He told me it was old-school classical with a kitschy flair. Tons of artists would have been the creme de la creme of the Royal Academy two hundred years ago, but that wasn’t the market.

The market was what Richard knew. It was the only reason he bought. It didn’t matter how art made you feel, it didn’t even matter if you liked it. It only mattered how much it cost now and how much it would cost later.

We agreed to disagree, as usual. He knew how I felt about art; I knew how he didn’t feel about art. We’d met at a gallery, after all. When I’d been interning as the wine-and-cheese girl and he’d been the buyer everyone tiptoed around and kowtowed to and whispered about. The Kingmaker. Midas of the art world. Eventually I worked my way up and two years later I was managing the gallery. The gallery with the art I secretly hated. The gallery where I sold as much as I could just to get it out of my sight. The gallery where, eventually, I was acquired by Richard Craven, too. Where we’d had our rehearsal dinner. Where I’d met Alessandro.

I turned away from these thoughts, and back to the paintings.

To the man himself.

To his hands, his eyes, his mind. All of which had made these. Conjured them. Was this the artistry he brought to women? Did to them what he did to a blank canvas?

The tugging was back. The longing.

What do you long for? he’d asked.

When, Claire? When did you last feel longing?

Had you longed for Richard in those first heady weeks of dating? When he’d turned the vast power of his attention on you? When he’d proposed a year later? When you’d realized there wasn’t room for the both of you in the art world? When you’d decided to become a businesswoman so you wouldn’t become a trophy wife? When he put you on a shelf anyway?

Had I longed for any of that?

I thought of what Alessandro had asked me: when do you get made whole?

Before I interrupted my own thinking with yet another inbound airplane of a thought, I turned off the flashlight, and sent a text.

See you in two weeks.

Alessandro

Her connecting flight had been delayed in Paris, so I’d busied myself around the palazzo and gone to the market. I checked her flight and watched the clock and checked her flight again and, still leaving much earlier than necessary, got in the Riva and went to the airport. Idled in the lagoon until I received her text: just landed. No checked bags .

Woman after my own heart. Usually they arrived with the Louis Vuitton equivalent of a covered wagon.

I waved to Leonardo, who backed out of his spot to allow me in. Quickly tied off the line and jumped onto the pier.

I saw her, pulling her bag behind her, walking toward the vaporetto area. She scanned the docks, her pretty raven hair down and swirling in the light breeze coming off the water. I lifted my hand.

Seeing me, she smiled.

Phew.

I returned it and trotted up the dock to meet her.

She was dressed simply and it rendered her younger-looking. Black ballet flats. Black leggings and a long wool tunic that came to mid-thigh. No discernable makeup. She didn’t appear any worse for wear from the journey and that smile did to her face what a lamp did to a room. We came to a natural stop in front of each other and I waited. I wanted to see what she would do, how she’d decided to handle this once she’d made the decision to come. Without hesitation, and without touching me anywhere else, she came up on tiptoe and kissed my left cheek. My right. I followed her lead, but took the opportunity to whisper in her ear, “Welcome to Venice.” I reached for her small roller bag.

“Oh, thank you, but you don’t?—”

“You’re in my world now,” I soothed. “Allow me to be me. Sono al tuo servizio. I am at your service.”

She shrugged off her leather backpack and held it out to me. “In that case.”

On a gentle laugh, we walked toward the slip.

She slowed as we approached the boat, her face—and voice—going awestruck. “Is this yours?”

“Yes.” I left her suitcase on the dock and jumped down into the boat. “For generations now.”

“It’s gorgeous.” She paced back and forth, taking in every line of it, that collector eye of hers seeing it for the work of art that it was.

“It’s a classic. A ‘58 Riva.” I lifted her bags down into it.

“My father wanted one of these, or something like it.” I offered her my hand. Once in the boat, our faces close now, she brought her eyes to mine. “Thanks,” she murmured, then turned away and slipped between the two front seats.

I secured her bag and leather backpack under the tarp that matched the boat’s aquamarine trim, untied the line, and joined her at the front, turning the engine over. “I’ve got jackets and ponchos in case it rains but let me know if you get cold.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I gave a small wave to Leonardo as I backed out, navigated around the waiting vaporettos, and turned toward the open water. As we moved away from the docks, I sensed Claire assessing me. “One more thing.” I reached into my jacket pocket and held up a simple black hair tie.

She took it from me, our fingers brushing. “It’s like you’ve done this before.” As I maneuvered past the buoys, I glanced over and watched her pull her hair back and secure it tightly at the base of her neck. That neck with that sensitive little trigger point.

I pushed the throttle fully forward and we shot out into the lagoon. She gave a gasp that turned into a laugh and I told myself that was promising.

We took our time getting back to the palazzo. Claire was interested in everything. She stood the entire time, pointing, exclaiming, asking questions. When we saw a dolphin, she leaned so far over the side of the boat in glee that I had to grab the back of her sweater to keep her from going overboard. Which momentarily exposed her legging-covered ass.

My response to the female form, at this point in my career, was rarely, if ever, one of lust. Only assessment. Charting. By noting how a woman dressed, which parts she hid and which she flaunted, I built a strategy. A different woman, for instance, with an ass as nice as Claire’s, would have worn leggings with no sweater covering them. But Claire was not so overt. She was classy. Class ic . She covered things so that they might, given the right circumstances, be uncovered.

Just as we turned into the Grand Canal, the sky darkened with not only evening, but ponderous clouds I knew all too well. I navigated as agilely and quickly as Venetian laws allowed, but it wasn’t enough. With about a kilometer left to go, the heavens opened.

Normally, I’d pull up to the front dock entrance. It was elegant and impressive and typically Venetian. But in this weather, I swung down our side canal and used the clicker to open our ancient-looking porta d’acqua outward over the surface of the water. I steered into the Riva’s slip in the cavana and killed the engine, the boat rocking in the wake we’d created. The sound of rain battering the walls was muted by the echo of sloshing water.

Claire yanked out the hair band and bent at the waist, flipping her drenched head over and shaking her fingers through her mane. I wiped my face and ran a hand through my hair, turning to her just as she whipped herself back to standing.

She looked exhilarated, cheeks in full cherry blossom bloom. Her hair, face, and neck were dripping. Her breathing rapid. She giggled. It was fresh. It was real. Another thing I noted.

I handed her up onto the seasoned marble of the portico.

I watched as she took in the diamond pattern of the floor, the wood beams twenty feet above, the worn brick walls. I unsnapped the tarp, removed her suitcase and backpack, then hopped out of the Riva.

“Should we wipe her down?”

That she was remotely concerned with the boat was surprising. So much of her, I was realizing, came without warning. “No, no, I’ll do it later. Thanks, though.” I took her bags and walked toward the door.

But I heard her say, “Whoa,” and turned to find that she was gaping at Jacopo’s sailboat.

“My uncle’s.”

She stepped closer to it. “Extraordinary. Is it mahogany?”

“Yes, it is.”

“The mother-of-pearl inlay is exquisite. And what’s the…” She stood on tiptoe to peer down at the figure on the prow. Whatever a hood ornament for a boat was called. This was not my department. “A gryphon?”

“A gryphon, yes.”

“Bronze?”

“Copper, I think.”

A gasp. “Is that crushed turquoise embedded in the hull?”

“I believe?—”

“ I believe, I think , of course it is turquoise.” It came from the bowels of the boat. “And, sì, bronze. Never copper.”

Great.

It wasn’t the correction that irritated me. It was the fact that he was here. Not to talk, surely, but to see. I knew him too well.

“Oh!” Claire moved around the bow, toward the sound of his voice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we weren’t alone.”

“I prefer to hide.” His voice got louder as he came up the three steps and unlatched the cabin door. There was no way to prevent what was about to happen. “But you have such an eye and, may I say, faultless taste. So, for you, I must not hide. I must come to meet this rarest of creatures…”

He was in old-school Casanova mode. The charm coated his accented English like hot fudge over vanilla ice cream.

As the top of his head appeared, I braced myself.

In unison, they said, “You!” Claire’s was an excited exclamation, whereas Jacopo’s was more reserved. It had an undertow of accusation, but only enough for me to notice. Total pro that he was, his grin didn’t falter as he moved forward, his hand never wavered as it reached for hers.

“So nice to see you again!”Claire enthused.

He held her hand and kept smiling. But he did not get out of the boat. “Such a pleasure to see you again. Benvenuti a Venezia, Bella.”

The “welcome to Venice” was for her, but the “Bella” was for me. He’d now seen that she was not just generally bella, as he’d guessed two weeks ago, but a very specific Bella .

“Thank you. I mean, grazie.” She turned to look at me, smiling. “He was with you at my rehearsal dinner.”

“Good memory. This is Jacopo. My uncle. I don’t think you were properly introduced.”

“I’m afraid not.” She turned back to him. “Forgive me for not taking time that night to?—”

“No, Signora . ” He clutched his heart. “It is you who must forgive me. Such a big night for you. I was an interloper. Not even officially invited. My nephew is the one who should be scolded.” The look he flicked my way did just that.

“Well, it’s lovely to properly meet you. And your boat is truly exquisite. Where did you get it?”

Jacopo waved his finger. “Scusate, but she is made from these hands.” He held them out as if to lure her to him.

“No.”

“Sì.” Out puffed his chest. “Five years. This week, I finish.”

The nicer he was to her, the more uncomfortable I became. I knew his charm as well as my own. Hell, I’d cribbed it from him.

She scooted around to the other side of the bow, taking in more of the boat. When she disappeared from view, Jacopo took the opportunity to level a look at me. This one wasn’t a flick. This one took its time to land. And land it did. That parental glare that stops a child from doing whatever they are doing, or are about to do, or even thinking about doing.

“The brass!” she swooned. “Unbelievable. Those hands of yours are very talented.” She came back to both of us. “You’ve done to this boat what your nephew does to a canvas. Artistic ability obviously runs in the family.”

“Sì.” He chuckled, so charming. “That and stupidity, Bella.” He turned to me. “Mostly stupidity.”

I faked a chuckle of my own. “I’m going to get her settled. It’s been a long travel day.”

“Of course. Andate, andate!”

“I’d love to see the inside before I leave. If possible.”

“It would only upset me if you did not see it.” He bowed slightly, laying it on thick.

I smiled benignly at him. There was a conversation coming and we both knew it. But for now, I brought my palm to the small of her back and guided her forward, toward the door at the front of the garage that led to the androne, wheeling her bags. She exchanged a final beam and wave with Jacopo.

When I closed the door behind us, I sighed in relief and nudged her farther into the androne.

The street-side wall, straight ahead, was bricked, and a small fountain sat against it, burbling away. The doors to the left led to the Grand Canal dock and the windowed doors to the right opened onto the courtyard garden. But in the middle, the androne opened up like an atrium. A winding marble staircase spiraled upward four stories. She walked right over to it, gawking. Her head went back, dropping her jaw. After a long moment, she spun back to look at me. “How does this exist?”

Her awe felt personal to me. As if she were looking at one of my paintings. “There was a time when you couldn’t give these places away.”

“The upkeep must be—” she cut herself off, probably figuring it was gauche to speak of money. But I didn’t mind.

“A small fortune. Even when nothing goes catastrophically wrong.”

She ran a hand over the staircase’s stone banister. “I can imagine. But you don’t only live here. You get to be her guardian.”

I gave her a teasing smile. “Her? It’s a she?”

“Something you enjoy but also care for?” She shrugged coyly. “Everything you give you get back tenfold?”

I left her bags and stepped toward her.

She boldly met my gaze. “I think it’s quite a beautiful relationship, actually.”

“Do you?”

“I do.”

The want in her eyes was unmistakable. So I bent my head to hers.

And she stepped away so quickly that I found myself literally stumbling forward.

Her hand went to her mouth, her eyes wide. “Sorry! I just—I wasn’t expecting that.”

“No, I’m sorry.” I said as smoothly as possible, regathering myself. “I thought I saw an invitation in your eyes?—”

“I’m sure you did. I just… I hadn’t considered kissing.” Her hands went to her flushed cheeks. “It’s so stupid, we talked about everything else, I mean everything else, but not—I didn’t even know you did that.”

“Kissing?”

“Yeah, isn’t that, like…a no-no? In your profession?”

She was adorable. “ Pretty Woman fan?”

She gave me a shaky laugh.

“Claire? Do you not want to be kissed?”

She exhaled and her shoulders slumped. “No, I do. More than anything. I miss it so much.” My heart imperceptibly, but specifically, cracked. My hatred for Richard Craven spiked. “But it’s just…it’s so personal. So intimate.” She gestured between us. “Doesn’t it make this feel too real?”

“This is real.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do.”

She blew out a breath. “Kissing is relationship stuff. The one thing people who have been together a lifetime are still able to do. It’s sacred, somehow. ‘You may now kiss the bride.’ It’s how a lifetime together begins and how we hope it ends. You know?” She made the same gesture between us. “It’s not this.”

“This isn’t a relationship?”

“This is just three days.”

“And if your plane crashes on the way home?”

Her eyes bugged. “Okay, dark.”

“What if in three days there’s an earthquake and this palazzo crumbles into the canal? Would the centuries of love and care that you spoke of be rendered meaningless? Just because something ends doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.” I took her hand and looked at her wedding ring. I idled my thumb over it. “Relationships aren’t about longevity.” I looked back up into her eyes. “We can live a lifetime in three days.”

We stood there at the base of the staircase looking at each other. Her eyes were open. Shutters pulled back, curtains slid to the side.

For a fleeting moment, I felt haunted by the feeling I’d experienced the first time I saw her at the rehearsal dinner. The feeling that made me blow up the deal with Richard.

But I didn’t want to think about that right now.

The professional part of me acknowledged that a strong first step had been made with her. But the personal part of me admitted to myself: I had to be careful where I stepped next.

She lifted her chin. “Kiss me.”

I leaned down and hovered my lips above hers. Watched her eyes drift closed. Then, against her lips, I breathed one word: “No.” Her eyes popped open like a doll sat upright. I slung her backpack over my shoulder and carried her suitcase to the first stair and turned to look at her shocked face. Lifted a brow. “You coming?”

Suppressing a smile, she walked past me. I let my eyes rake over her as she did, relishing that pretty blush.

We passed the twelve-foot-high carved wood doors of the public rooms on the piano nobile and at the next landing, I went to the slightly shorter double doors of the guest residence and pushed them open. The hinges spoke with a five-hundred-year-old voice I loved hearing every time I opened them. I turned to Claire, but she had stopped on the top stair and was pointing upward. “What’s up there?”

“My private room is on the third floor. It’s the only part of the house that’s off-limits to you. If you need anything, just text or call me, any hour of the night, and I’ll come to you. The floor above that, though, is the roof deck, which you’re more than welcome to enjoy whenever you want.”

She sighed happily, wistfully, and, once again, I cataloged it. The things that made her sigh. I gestured her into the room and she went right to the bank of windows on the opposite side, looking out over the canal draped in impressionistic twilight. I continued past, dropped her bags off in the bedroom. When I came back, she pointed at the window seat. “I get it. I could easily spend three days right here.”

“Always an option, if it’s what you want.” I meant it. And I didn’t.

She pivoted to me with the grace of a ballerina. “Maybe some other time.”

Okay then.

I got the Wi-Fi working on her phone and then gave her a quick tour: the sitting area, how to use the TV, the well-stocked cabinets and small fridge, and finished in the bedroom and bathroom.

“Tell me, how are you feeling? Tired? A nap, perhaps?”

She shook her head and smiled. “I couldn’t. I’m too excited.”

I smiled back. “A bath?”

“Ooh, a bath.” Then she paused. “What’s the plan for the rest of the night?”

“It’s your arrival night so nothing is planned. Given the weather, I thought we might enjoy an evening in. I’ll make dinner. Which you can have up here, if you’d like.”

“Alone?”

“If you’d like.”

“What if I wouldn’t like?”

“Then we’ll eat downstairs together. Open a Barolo. Get to know each other.”

“And then?”

“Dessert.”

“And then?”

“And then, most likely, you won’t be able to keep your eyes open any longer and I will escort you back up here, tuck you in, and say good night.”

Her shoulders seemed to breathe. “I’d love that.”

I made my gaze as comforting as possible. “We will only do what you love. I make no assumptions; I have no expectations. I suggest you do the same.”

She nodded in affirmation. “Three days: no assumptions, no expectations.” She grinned. “Sounds like a toast.” She held up an empty hand.

“If only the champagne weren’t downstairs.”

She stepped into me. “Then this’ll have to do.” Her lips parted, which made mine do the same, and one breath later our lips were touching. The barest touch, the most delicate crystal. We murmured “Salute” into each other’s mouths. One more breath and she was gone, heading toward the bathroom. She stopped, turned back and lifted a brow, just as I had done, and said, just as I had said, “You coming? I’d love that bath, now.”

Okay then.

“I’ll start it for you. Make yourself comfortable.”

I went into the bathroom and turned on the water. Continued to speak to her from there. “The towel warmer is on. There’s an assortment of robes for you in the armoire.” I drizzled some bath oil into the accumulating water and imagined her stepping into it. Left it in a place of prominence on the rim. Just in case.

I came back into the bedroom and she was sitting on the bed, leaning back on her palms, wet hair swept over one shoulder, damp sweater molded to her curves. She had kicked off her flats. Her rose-tipped toes dangled above the floor. She was looking dreamily out the window.

I cleared my throat. She sat up, just slightly, and I pointed at the nightstand. “Bottled water.” Then pointed toward the kitchen. “Cold bottles in the fridge. I’ve left some grapes on the counter and there’s Amaro in the decanter on the sideboard.”

“You do think of everything.”

“How long would you like? An hour?”

“Perfect.”

“I’ll come back then. Take your time. Just text me if you want longer.”

“Thank you.” There was something behind her eyes. One of those looks I couldn’t quite parse yet.

I nodded and left the bedroom. On my way to the door, I saw the espresso machine on the counter and circled back. Where was my mind? “Can I make you an espresso before I go?”

I reentered the bedroom, and she was in the midst of lifting her sweater off. As she slid it over her head, I had the instinct to turn away, to give her privacy. But surprisingly, she didn’t yank it back down to cover herself. She finished the job, then simply let it hang from her hand. So I faced her, as if she hadn’t removed it at all.

“Sorry?”

“I asked if you’d like an espresso before I go?” My eyes snagged on a strand of hair curling at her throat, water dripping from its end down into the valley of her breasts. Breasts contained by a simple white cotton bra: another haunted memory I swept away as quickly as it came. I forced myself to look in her eyes, but I wasn’t seeing them; I was seeing the seared afterimage of damp cotton and flushed porcelain slopes.

“No, thank you.”

“Tea?”

“No, thank you.”

The image cleared. “If there’s anything you want, just text.”

“I will.” She smiled. “Was there something else?”

“No,” I said. Yes , I thought, I want to know what’s under your leggings. “Just don’t let the bath get cold.”

She gestured at her half-clothed body. “I don’t plan to.”

What if there was nothing underneath but her?

“I’ll leave you to it. Then.”

So leave. Then.

So I did.

* * *

I entered the kitchen on the piano nobile and the nice little fantasy I’d indulged in during the trip downstairs evaporated when I saw my uncle sitting at the breakfast bar. I acknowledged him with a nod, which he didn’t return. He had poured himself a glass of wine from the bottle I’d opened earlier for cooking and he brought it to his lips. And watched me.

I took the bottle and put it back by the stove. Busied myself with food preparation.

He remained silent.

So did I.

I took some garlic cloves out of a jar, peeled and chopped. Then washed my hands and brought a charcuterie platter that I’d made earlier out of the fridge. I set it on the counter.

He examined it. Moved a candied walnut back into alignment.

Silently.

I left the kitchen, went into the dining room, grabbed a bottle of champagne from the rack, and turned back to see that he’d followed me in. He was leaning against the doorframe.

Watching me.

That was it.

I held the bottle up between us like a dagger. “Don’t.”

The face of a monk. “What?” He took a sip of wine. A long sip. “What would I have to say? As if I have something to say.”

I thunked the champagne down on the dining room table. “Go ahead.”

“With what?”

I scoffed. “Just get it over with.”

“ Get it over with ? This expression, non capisco.” He tapped his head in mock confusion. “I no understand. But then, there are molte things I no understand?—”

“Don’t do the Super Mario Brothers shtick with me. Dì cosa hai bisogno di dire.”

“What do I need to say? A foolish old man, so past his prime.”

“Whatever you think is happening here, you’re wrong. It’s business. She’s just another guest.”

“Of course. Why should I think anything else?”

“Because I know you.”

“Of course,” he laughed. He lifted his glass to his mouth. “And I know you.”

I rolled my eyes, snatched up the champagne bottle, and walked out of the dining room, through the sala, and into the bedroom. He followed. Leisurely.

I went to the kitchenette and filled the standing ice bucket. Put two flutes in the freezer. He leaned against the counter, right in my path. Finally, fi-nuh-lee, he said, “Is this another one of her husband’s plans? What was his name? Robert, Ricardo?—”

“Richard. His name was Richard Craven. And he’s dead. So no it’s?—”

“Eeh!” His finger crossed between us in a single wave. “Not a word.”

“You just asked me a question?—”

“Shut up your face.” His finger came back up. “You do not talk, you listen.”

I hated when he did this. Ever since I was a kid. When I wanted to explain something—i.e., when I was going to lie about something—he always, always knew it. And I knew he knew because he wouldn’t even let me try to lie to him. The finger went up and that was that.

I took a pained breath, closed my eyes for a moment, and nodded in reluctant agreement.

“So the husband, he is dead. Perfetto. It gets worse. You see, I would not care about this. I would not care if she was just another guest, as you say. But I do care, I must care, because she is not.”

“Ancient history,” I snuck in.

“Five years is not ancient. Not in Italy.” I opened my mouth again but he kept going. “I was there. Right beside you. I saw how you look at her. I saw…the something. Something I know something about. And I told you this. I told you not to do it. So why is she upstairs now? Why are you doing it?”

“You’ll let me know when I can speak?”

“Only if you speak truth, Sandro. I mean this.”

I took a calming breath and wedged the bottle into the ice. “You were mistaken. The something you saw was attraction. Nothing more. I mean, look at her.”

“The truth.”

His tone raised my hackles again. “That is the truth!”

“It is not the whole truth. It is not the truth that I saw.”

I busied myself with straightening the bottle in the ice, making sure the label was pointed outward so she could see it later. I switched to speaking only Italian, because that was the language we used when we were being most honest. When we were done playing with each other. When we spoke to understand each other. “There’s something alluring about her. Yes. For me, personally, just my personal…thing. A purity and a longing that I don’t see in the myriad women who travel through here, through me. But you make it sound like an ember left in ashes that never went out.”

“Is this not true?”

At the pity in his eyes, the remaining truth fell out of me. “You know the deal with Craven never sat right with me and?—”

“Oh, so you are making it up to her? That’s what this is?”

“No—”

“Explain to me. How did this happen? She called you, after all these years?”

I paused. “I called her.”

He paused. “You called her?”

“Texted, actually. To get my paintings back.”

“To get your paintings back.”

“Yes! So I offered to barter?—”

“Eeh!” Again with the finger. “ You offered?!”

“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”

His tone changed. He sounded wounded. “ You offered . She did not ask, you offered?”

I held up a hand, slowing him down. “She didn’t know this is what I do, but once I told her, she…she wanted to barter. There’s a lot she wants that she doesn’t know how to ask for?—”

“Mamma mia,” he sighed, and turned away from me. I’d never heard him say Mamma mia. I didn’t even know it was possible to say unironically.

“The paintings don’t belong to her anymore,” I quickly explained. “She has to buy them back. She knew nothing of Craven’s deal. She was more of a victim than I was. I couldn’t let her pay and get nothing in return. It was the honorable thing to do.”

Jacopo looked at me in a way that I had never seen. As though he had stepped in front of an arrow aimed at me. “What?”

“You are doomed.”

That shocked a laugh out of me. “Jesus, come on.” He turned to go. “Jaco—don’t just leave. Where are you going?”

He didn’t bother to turn back. He lifted his hand, a halfhearted good-bye. “To find you a cat.”

Claire

Alessandro left the room and the tears came. Not great, heaving sobs. Just a release, like a steam valve.

You see: I was happy.

It had been so long.

Everything was magical and we hadn’t even begun.

He was thoughtful, attentive, attuned to every possible need. In truth, I’d never felt so…cared for.

Taken care of ? Sure. Richard had been good at that. But I realized now that that wasn’t the same thing as caring.

I had learned a lot over the past six months.

I was prepared to learn more this weekend.

I took off the rest of my clothes and slipped into a plum-colored silk robe, wanting to feel the liquid material on my skin. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and drank it while I quickly unpacked. The tub now full, I turned the water off and dipped my foot in. He’d made the temperature perfect. I slipped out of the robe and into the water.

I laid back and closed my eyes. That scent. I picked up the small bottle on the tub’s rim, opened it, and inhaled. Magnolia? I looked at the label. Sweet almond oil with—yes—magnolia.

I used to have friends (well, a friend group of convenience; all of us married to men who did business together; men who had spent the last five months suing me, but regardless) who loved to talk about sex. One of them constantly extolled the virtues of sweet almond oil as a lubricant. I hadn’t paid any attention to her at the time, but now… Did Alessandro know about that as well? Is that why he’d left it there?

I dabbed a bit onto my finger and lifted my hips to the waterline. I gently applied it, left my finger there, and let my hips sink back down. It felt different, especially through the water. It felt good. I was relaxed. I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything, so…well, why not?

But then my mind rolled in, a boulder that blocked the road.

Did I even know what to do anymore? What would he do? What would he think of me down there ? What did I expect from him? What assumptions had he made about me? And then I stopped. I remembered our glassless toast: “No assumptions, no expectations.”

I stood and toweled off and tried to make the process of getting ready fun. Fun! As if I were a teenager getting ready for a date. A version of a teenager I’d never been, getting ready for a date I’d never had. I tried being not the Claire I knew, but the Claire I wanted to be.

I dried my hair, twirled it up into a high bun, put on mascara, a simple pink gloss on my lips—that color that had launched my line—then debated what to wear. I’d dug through moving boxes and found a requisite little black dress and a La Perla bra and panty set. No. Too try-hard for tonight, the night that didn’t technically count.

I had two other options. One was embarrassingly nostalgic. It was what I had been wearing the night we had met: a black-and-white skirt and a white blouse. The other outfit I’d never worn. Bought on impulse one day when, for reasons now forgotten, I imagined I could be the kind of easy-peasy woman who would wear such a thing: a breezy off-the-shoulder peasant dress with a ruched bodice and knee-length hemline.

Did I want him to remember me, or did I want him to see me anew?

Claire! Stop overthinking every single little ? —

I slipped into the peasant dress, pulled on a sheer panty, and had a heretical thought: what if I didn’t wear anything underneath? I checked the clock. Ten minutes.

I tried walking around without them. My skin felt over-sensitized. Everywhere, but especially under the dress. I was being ridiculous. Once again overthinking. So I put the panties back on.

Then I sat at the window seat, waiting, and watched the rain slow to a steady drizzle, boats come and go, people pass over the bridge.

I breathed, simply breathed, deep and long.

There was a knock, light, but it still made me jump. “One second!” I called and bolted to standing. I took a step toward the door, felt the light chafe between my thighs and, without overthinking—for once—whipped off the panties. What the hell?

If I had learned anything tonight, it was that the real challenge of these next few days would not be second-guessing Alessandro. It would be not second-guessing myself.

I tossed them through the door of the bedroom, smoothed my dress down, and called out, in what I hoped was a steady voice, “Come in.”

He did.

He’d changed, too. Out of his wet clothes and into gray slacks and a navy-blue button-down, both of which fit as though they’d been poured slowly over him. Saddle-colored leather loafers, chocolate belt. Effortlessly impeccable.

His eyes trailed down my body. As if he knew what was—or wasn’t—underneath.

“Am I underdressed?” I asked.

He came over to me. “You could wear a robe and not be underdressed.” He kissed my cheek. “Or nothing at all.” He pulled back and looked down the length of my body.

“What?”

His eyes slowly lifted to mine. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“That I’ve neglected to say before now: your body is my personal version of paradise.” Then he bent his elbow in invitation. “Ready?”

No.

Maybe.

I should have left my panties on.

I curled my hand around his forearm. “Yes.”

* * *

He led me to the first floor and I stood for a moment at the bottom of the staircase, appreciating the grandeur of the hall. There were two very tall, very wide carved wooden doors directly in front of us. On each side of them, down opposite sides of the hall, were two sets of narrower doors; also tall, also beautifully carved.

Alessandro waved his hand as if it were a paintbrush. “This is the piano nobile, which used to be the public floor of the palazzo. Now it’s where you and I will spend our time.” I expected him to reach for the huge double doors, for us to make a grand entrance into the room they concealed. But instead, he led me to the smaller doors on the right.

We entered a large modern kitchen with slate countertops and a copper farm sink and old beams running the length of the ceiling. It smelled delicious.

He walked through the kitchen and opened a swinging butler’s door on the other side. He gracefully bowed, gave a tease of a smile, and swept his painter’s hand low and forward. I had an urge to brush my hip against it as I walked past but refrained.

The ornately wallpapered dining room overlooked the canal. There was a significant wine rack against one wall and a marble-topped sideboard against the other.

Alessandro spoke. “Once, this was a dining room for twenty. Now it’s only meant for two.” He tapped a finger on the intimate table that sat before a fireplace bordered by a pair of French doors. Doors that I imagined fully open on a warm spring night.

Two table settings were already perfectly laid.

It was surprising to feel such intimacy in so grand a space.

“We could eat now or continue the quick tour?” he said behind me.

I turned. He looked just as tailored and elegant as the rest of the room. “Tour, please.”

He nodded and walked to the far wall of the dining room. A chair rail ran the length of it, bisecting the stamped leather wallpaper. Alessandro placed his hand on the wall and it sprang to life, becoming a door in front of my eyes.

I grinned. “You’re good.”

“With doors. Women aren’t so easily opened.”

“Not if you know where to put your hand.”

I relished the surprise that quickly flashed over his face at my retort. He didn’t know it paled in comparison to not wearing any panties. He regained his composure, grinned at me, and led me through the door and into the main salon…

And I slowed in awe.

This was the room hiding behind the two massive doors at the foot of the stairs. It was about thirty feet by forty feet, with the longer side fronting the canal. The ceiling was easily fifteen feet high and featured a fresco that, if I had to guess, depicted the Ascension. The carved ceiling surrounding the fresco was coved and softly lit. A chandelier hung from the center and held twelve candle-taper electric bulbs amidst dripping crystal pendants. Wall sconces in the same style were also illuminated. Plus, there were some candles, both pillar and tea, on various side tables.

I walked directly into the center of the room and slowly turned.

Right in front of me, between two floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the canal, was a now-defunct marble fireplace. Inside, lit candles, set at different heights, created the illusion of a fire.

I knew enough to know fireplaces had been banned in Venice. The houses were all constructed out of wood and then bricked in; a recipe for conflagration. It’s why they’d made the glass blowers move to their own island, Murano.

The room was filled with antiques. An eighteenth-century card table with four matching chairs, sweeping bookcases with period tomes, overstuffed chaises, and leather couches. A window seat overlooked the canal, similar to the one in my room, but larger, wider, more like a daybed. And the art.

Oh, the art.

A collection of styles and periods, thoughtfully curated. No wonder Alessandro had become a painter.

Speaking of. I’d forgotten about him as I’d wandered gobsmacked through the room. He was smiling at me. “What?”

“Nothing. Just enjoying you.”

I looked at him for a moment too long. “I have…so many questions.”

He chuckled. “Of course you do.”

“I want to know everything about every single thing and every single thing about everything.”

A bigger chuckle. “I’ll do my best, given I understood what you just said.”

“I just meant?—”

“And I was just joking.” His eyes were mirthful now, not at all smoldering. Not intimidating. I liked them like this. How many people—women, I reminded myself, women—had he joked with? “Done his best” for? How many women had he magically turned a wall into a door for?

Oh, so what? Now it was my turn.

“What’s in there?” I gestured toward an open doorway across the room, opposite the dining room door through which we’d come.

He simply held up a hand, giving me permission to explore.

It was the bedroom.

Though to call it a bedroom would be limiting its scope.

There was a bed, yes. A large one. An intricately carved four-poster situation, canopied and draped with rich burgundy velvet. It sat atop a platform about eighteen inches off the ground, encircled by one continuous stair on all three sides. Horseshoed.

A bit much for me, honestly. But I’m sure it made most women feel like a princess in a fairy tale.

Not that I was thinking about other women.

More French doors led to a small smoking balcony, once again looking out over the canal. In front of the doors was a two-person soaking tub. A chair next to it. A guitar in a stand next to that.

On the wall opposite the bed, the one shared with the sala, there was a bar. A sweating champagne bucket sat on a stand, a bottle waiting.

Alessandro bent to the mini-fridge and retrieved two champagne coupes, grabbed a towel, and removed the bottle. The sound of shifting ice crackled through the room.

He made quick and quiet work of the cork and poured our glasses as I continued to look around. There was another set of double doors at the back end of the room, which I was sure led to the main hallway at the base of the stairs. And another door that led to—from what I could glimpse through its crack—an opulently-appointed bathroom.

Then there was an armoire that looked like it could break into song in a Disney movie. I assumed its regal fa?ade concealed some baser contents. Some Fifty-Shades-of-Preference-Sheet locked up inside.

My eyes landed on a massage table.

I pointed at it as he brought a glass over to me. I raised a curious eyebrow.

“I’m a licensed masseuse.”

“If you’d mentioned that, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to say yes.”

We lifted our glasses. Clinked them. “I’m glad you did.” His tone was as soft as his gaze.

But the softness was dangerous, too. Just as deadly, in its own way, as the smolder. Especially when he added, “Really glad,” and the way he said it, the particular timbre, the suggestive rumble, so unexpectedly at odds with the casually playful demeanor he’d adopted… I shifted my weight, crossed my legs, and was reminded of the lack of any barrier there.

We sipped.

Stealth. He was stealth. No matter how laid-back he seemed, I shouldn’t completely relax. It was like sharing space with a panther.

In the silence, I pointed at the animated armoire. “What’s in there?”

“Diversions. When wanted.”

I shook my head and made my way toward the bed, looking at the ceiling—more carving and coving—and the walls—plaster. “I don’t get it.”

“What?”

I stepped up onto the platform and flung a hand back at the armoire. “All that stuff. Why would anyone need…all that when they have you?”

“Well. Thank you.” He seemed confused.

So I clarified. “It seems to me the vibrators and dildos and butt plugs of the world would be most useful when you’re not around. I mean, okay, flogging requires a partner, but why do you need any of that to begin with?” I was officially rambling. So, of course, I doubled down. “Like, you have this god whose entire job is to give you pleasure, why do you also need whatever the hell is in there?”

He stared at me. Then looked at the armoire. Then back to me. Then he pointed at it. “It’s a TV.”

“Oh. When you said, ‘diversions’—”

“Movies. Reruns. Badly dubbed HGTV.”

My face heated.

Then he pointed where I was standing. “The toys are in there.”

I looked down at the step.

“It’s hinged.”

“Hinged?”

“Like a…like a chest.”

I bent down and ran my hand across the top of the step, one of those models on a game show. “Oh! Well, good to know.” I gave it a pat and stood.

He could clearly sense my awkwardness because he shrugged. “Everyone wants different things. But, in the end, it’s all about pleasure. It’s so simple. And yet I’m continually surprised at how complicated it can get.”

“Why does it have to be so complicated?” It was rhetorical. Sad, even.

“Pleasure’s not. We are.”

He grabbed the bottle from the ice and moved to me. I held up my glass and he refilled it then retreated to put the bottle back. In the meantime, I turned to the bed and took a centering breath. I ran my hand over the red velvet coverlet.

I felt him come up behind me. But he didn’t touch me. He touched the coverlet, right by my fingers. “Do you like this color?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“But do you like it?”

“Maybe it’s a bit…” I looked back at him. “Bordello?”

He laughed. “I agree. But what instead?” He studied the material, clicking into artist mode. “Black would be too severe, gold would be gaudy, pastel isn’t sexy. Silver, possibly, just not too gray. Sapphire?”

I couldn’t believe we were having a design conversation. I didn’t mind it. I actually minded it not at all.

“What about this?” I pointed to my lips.

His eyes lingered there for an extended moment. “Pink?”

I shook my head. “It’s not pink. It’s charred blush. It actually came from you. From your painting. There was a wall?—”

“Across the rio, the side canal. You can see it from my room on the fourth floor. The sun hits it late in the day and?—”

I smiled at him. “That’s the one. I’d love to see it while I’m here.”

“I’ll make a point of it.” I raised the glass to my lips, but he took it from me. He tipped it toward the light, peering at the lipstick mark on the rim. “It truly is beautiful.” He looked back toward the coverlet. “That could be just right.”

I lifted my hand to take the glass back, but he put it to his own mouth, his lips fitting perfectly over the impression of mine, and kept his eyes on me as he took the final sip from my glass.

He really just did that.

Grinning, the panther turned back to the bar. “I’ll top this off and we’ll go eat.” He tipped the rest of the bottle into them, led me out of the bedroom, and back into the salon.

We passed through the extraordinary room and silently made our way to the door of the dining room. He opened it, gesturing me in first, followed, and then blurted: “Che diavolo?”

I whipped around. “Sorry?”

“Nothing. Apologies, I just…” He looked back at the table and mumbled, “Figlio di puttana, I—would you excuse me for a moment?” Smiling tightly, he beelined for the kitchen. As he passed the table that had been set for two, I noticed a third setting had materialized. Candles had been lit in the fireplace. Alessandro arrived at the butler’s door just as it swung open, whacking into him.

Jacopo, carrying a charcuterie board and a bottle of wine, lifted them both with open arms. “Buonasera!”