Chapter 1
They say marriage can change you.
Just not for the better.
The thought had sweat breaking out in the small of Rowan Mitchell’s back as he strode down the gilded corridor of Boston’s opulent Grand Hotel. The carpeting beneath his dress shoes muffled his footsteps, the hushed rhythm echoing over the pounding of his pulse in his ears.
He hitched his chin up a notch, angry words and accusations screaming in his mind, waiting to be launched in attack. Those words had been living in his head for so long, Rowan had become used to their voices like a man haunted by spirits, damned and cursed.
Hell, maybe I am damned.
At least it had always seemed that way. A vision appeared in his mind unbidden, his parents’ minivan sliding silently across an icy intersection and into the path of an oncoming truck. Marlene and Jack Mitchell had been killed instantly, the lives of their children forever altered.
Rowan hadn’t been there when it happened, but he had carried the image with him since childhood, so clear in its detail that he often wondered if it was something he had really seen on the news or a product of his then-young imagination.
He and his younger brother Colin had gone to live with their grandmother after that, and Dorothy Mitchell had done everything she could to give the boys a loving home. But there was a hole inside Rowan that refused to heal, a wound so deep that it lay forever at the edge of his consciousness.
It was his weak spot, his Achilles’ heel, the place where he would forever be the most vulnerable. For having learned what it was to lose his parents, he would never willingly allow a child of his to suffer a similar fate.
He reached up and wiped a thin film of sweat from his brow. His tuxedo was hot, his skin hotter. Rounding a corner, the hallway stretched out in two-point perspective, Tamra’s suite at the end.
Only the best for his wife.
They’d met in this hotel just a year and a half ago, at a reception for the Marquis de Brigit. The Marquis was loaning his extensive collection of paintings to The Museum of Fine Arts, an extremely valuable assemblage of masterpieces that warranted a great deal of fanfare.
Rowan had noticed Tamra immediately, her graceful form draped in a dress of liquid copper, dark curls artfully swept atop her head.
She laughed, her head lifting to reveal the curve of her neck, and Rowan felt his blood begin to heat.
Their eyes met across the room, each appraising, each liking what they saw.
She raised her wine glass and dipped her chin ever so slightly.
She was flirting with him, making him excited.
He took a deliberate step forward and one side of her mouth slid into a smile.
A man intercepted his path to the beauty. “Mitchell. I didn’t know if you’d make it.”
Rowan turned begrudgingly to greet Enzo de Toffoli.
Business before pleasure.
He reached out to shake the ambassador’s hand. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. There are three Gauguins in this lot.” That wasn’t his real reason for coming, but the truth was none of the other man’s business.
Rowan’s eyes returned to where the brunette had been standing, but the beautiful woman who’d stoked the fire in his gut was nowhere to be found.
Enzo chuckled. “I’m here for the Agotsi.”
The hair on Rowan’s arms stood up and he met Enzo’s eyes with a questioning look.
The only Agotsi in the Marquis’ collection had been stolen several months ago.
The crime was the stuff of movies, with an extensive alarm system that miraculously failed to sound and security recordings showing no one.
The art world was full of conjecture and theories about the perpetrators, with Rowan more interested than most. “The Agotsi?”
“But of course. Isn’t that why we’re all really here? To see if the ghost who stole the Agotsi will materialize out of thin air, perhaps tell us what he found beneath its aged canvas?”
The legend of Agotsi’s works—that the artist supposedly hid valuable clues to untold treasures beneath their layers—was as old as the paintings themselves.
A series of riddles implied that each of his famous works held something deeper.
The verse that was most associated with Rowan’s favorite Agotsi now rang through his mind.
The crown of the babe shall reveal its worth, in layers given to the earth. Greater riches shall be found beneath the ground than in her arms, the treasure bound.
It was believed to have been Agotsi’s lover who circulated his riddles shortly after his death in Paris in 1781.
One by one Agotsi’s pieces were disappearing, with four paintings stolen in the last three years alone. The remaining works were being scrupulously guarded by both Interpol and the FBI’s Art Crimes Division, which was the real reason for Rowan’s attendance at tonight’s event.
“I suppose we are.”
Enzo’s dark eyes were amused. “Good boy.”
Rowan narrowed his eyes. “Pardon me?”
The brunette appeared, taking a place beside the men as she brazenly met Rowan’s hungry eyes. Her scent was light and clean with just a hint of the exotic, and Rowan longed to lean in and gobble her up.
“Ah, Tamra,” said Enzo. “I wondered where you’d gotten to. Rowan Mitchell, this is my daughter, Tamra de Toffoli.”
Oh, shit.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mitchell,” she said in a cultured Italian accent, her eyes full of amusement.
“And you, Ms. de Toffoli.”
“I’ve been anxious to speak with you.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I’m a curator for the Uffizi. I have a few things I was hoping you could help me with.”
Rowan raised his brows. The Uffizi was a fine art museum in Florence, which meant Tamra de Toffoli was someone in her own right. “I don’t know much about Italian art, I’m focused more on French.”
“Ah, but some things in life are not specific to a particular country, no?” Her stare fell to his lips.
Enzo patted Rowan’s back. “I’ll leave you two to talk business. It was good to see you, old friend.” He disappeared into the crowd.
“My father likes you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
She smiled. “I like you.”
He stepped closer. “Now that, I can believe.”
Rowan stopped moving in front of the presidential suite, his past and present colliding in his consciousness. He had made love to Tamra in this room that first night, spent hours the next day wrapped in her arms. The sex had been incredible.
Her finest performance to-date.
He rapped soundly on the door and waited, his mind continuing to flip through history.
Tamra had gone back to Italy with a kiss and barely a glance over her shoulder.
They had shared two days of mindless physical pleasure without promises of love or happily ever after, which suited him just fine. He never expected to see her again.
The door opened and his wife’s patrician chin notched instantly higher. Tamra was as beautiful as she had been that first night he met her, but now all Rowan could see was ugliness.
He wasn’t the same man he was when he married her. Anger had become a part of him, like a bone nestled deep inside his body, or a cancer, thick like syrup.
This was his wife. A woman who hated him, a woman he himself had grown to hate.
I’m pregnant, Rowan. You’re going to be a father.
He thought they’d been careful.
Of course, now he knew that they had.
How could she do it? Play with another person’s emotions like that? It was as if she had known his weakness, the fastest way to bring him to his knees. Make him believe he was a father, that Anthony was his son, and Rowan would do anything.
He could see the boy’s chubby arms and legs, softer than he could have imagined, smell the baby’s unique and oh-so-sweet scent, hear the playful giggle that filled Rowan’s heart with happiness.
He married Tamra inside of a week, surprised at her easy agreement.
He had tried to get to know her, learn what made her special, how to make her happy.
But there was only so much you could do when someone rebuked your every effort at conversation.
It quickly became clear Tamra didn’t share Rowan’s vision of wedded bliss.
Then Anthony was born and Rowan became a father.
Any joy he had known up until that moment paled in comparison to this.
Rowan made a deal with himself that day, that he would protect his family and work to bring Anthony and Tamra happiness all the rest of his days, no matter his true feelings for his wife.
And now you’re going to tear that family apart.
The walls on either side of him tilted at an uncomfortable angle. There wasn’t enough air, wasn’t enough time, wasn’t enough anything.
Tamra was dressed in a rose-colored evening gown that swept to her feet in a flourish. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Where have you been?”
“My room.”
“You got your own room?”
“Yes.” He stepped past her, his eyes taking in the expansive suite, the mess of luggage and toiletries, a small easel and a metal chest Rowan knew held an extensive selection of oil paints. There were toys, one of Anthony’s blankets. “Where’s the baby?”
“With Carmella.” The nanny was a fixture in their household, a plump girl with pocked skin and uncertain eyes. “Why the hell did you get your own room?”
“I’m not coming back to Italy with you,” he said. The words lingered between them, seeming to echo in his ears.
She walked by him and reached for a bracelet off the dresser. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m divorcing you.”
Her lips opened into a cupid’s bow. “Why?”
“Because I hate you almost as much as you hate me.”
She sat down on a Victorian chair, her eyes staring away from him. “What about Anthony?”
“What about him?”
“How can you be so cold?”
“Cold? You cry pregnant and get me to marry you…”
She scoffed. “Cry pregnant…”
“I cut ties to my whole life in the States, then come to Florence and find out I get my very own room with a view, just as long as I don’t try to touch you.” He took a step toward her. “You let me raise another man’s son as my own for eight months.”
Tamra’s eyes opened wide.
“Oh yes, I know about that, how you let me believe I’m a father when you were lying to me the entire time. I’ve had enough of your bullshit. I want to salvage some kind of life for myself, if that’s even possible at this point.”
She stared at him and Rowan felt his hand twitch, the tension in his muscles seeming to hum like a motor.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said quietly.
“Fuck you.”
“You have a right to be angry.”
“Angry? You think I’m angry?” He put his hands in his pockets. “Honey, angry doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling right now. Murderous. Let’s go with murderous.”
A knock at the door had Tamra out of her seat in an instant. “That’s Daddy. Please don’t tell him. Not tonight.”
“You don’t want him to know his little princess was sleeping around?”
“We just have to get through this thing at the Gardner, then you can tell him anything you want tomorrow, okay?”
Rowan had waited months to confront Tamra with what he knew, just so he could be here to deliver the Madonna Fornirà to the Gardner personally. This evening was important to him as well. His release from prison, the end of this horrible chapter in his life. Another knock sounded at the door.
“Please, Rowan.”
“Fine.”
She stood and quickly opened the door. Enzo stood on the other side, his tuxedo immaculate. “What the hell’s taking you two so long?”
“Nothing, Daddy.” She smiled brilliantly, as if nothing were amiss. “We’ll be right down.”
“Are you ready for your speech, sweetie?”
“I am, but I have index cards just in case.” Tamra picked up a stack from the table.
“Better to ad lib than read from a stack of cards.”
She put them down. “All right, then.”
He put out his elbow. “Time to go.”
“Of course.”