Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
JO
The vault is quiet, almost reverent, except for the ever-present low hum of the climate control system keeping the air at the perfect temperature and humidity.
I take a step back from the painting I’ve just finished and stand staring at it.
It looks perfect. I eye it critically, but I already know I haven’t missed anything.
Satisfied, I sink into the padded stool in front of it, admiring the vibrant colors I’ve exposed.
I love the way the light now dances across the surface just as it must have when the artist first completed it.
My chest swells with satisfaction, and I allow myself to smile.
This is why I do what I do. This bringing life back to centuries old painting is the kind of work that makes every dawn waking and every meticulous hour spent on it, so worth it.
I glance at the clock on the far wall. It’s already late afternoon, and it’s probably not worth starting a new painting now.
I decide to call it a day. But first, I want to, at least, have a peek at the next painting, and maybe prepare the loom by stretching some Belgium linen over the wooden frame.
The painting is still wrapped, carefully shrouded in a protective cloth, lying on the custom stand that I know is meant to cradle it.
I pull back the cloth slowly, almost ceremoniously.
I reveal the painting in all of its glory.
It’s a 300-year-old Thomas Gainsborough.
I stand back to drink it in and appreciate every little detail of such a masterpiece, but suddenly my stomach drops.
What?
I frown.
Something isn’t right.
I tilt my head to one side as I study the painting more closely.
The surface gleams with dull light. There’s a tension in the brush work that I would expect from a Gainsborough, but something is definitely off.
The pigments, the way the layers interact, the shading, it’s too precise, too calculated.
I peer closely at it. And it’s too perfectly preserved.
I lay the painting flat on my workstation, pick up my loupes from the bench, and begin a more meticulous inspection.
The blue cup in the painting catches my attention first. The shade isn’t quite right. It’s too bright, too smooth. My heart hammers as I check the chemical composition in my mind, the known pigment tables, and the materials available in the eighteenth century.
No. It can’t be.
I adjust the loupes and tilt my desk light to illuminate the painting even more, and then I examine every brushstroke, every inch of the canvas.
I so want to be wrong, but the closer I look, the more I know I am not wrong.
The blue pigment used here was not produced in that period.
This supposedly priceless painting… is a fake.
I sit down, stunned, and the loupes fall into my lap.
I can feel a flush creeping up my neck and across my cheeks, a mixture of disbelief at the situation and horror at what my own eyes have shown me.
A fake. In my father’s collection. The real painting must have cost many millions. How could this have happened?
I know the protocols, and I am certain someone of my father’s reputation and fortune would have had the best art dealer in the world sourcing his stuff for him and they likely would have known protocols even I don’t know.
So many experts would have been consulted before a purchase is actually made.
From what I know of Joseph, he would never have bought a reproduction intentionally either, and even if he had, it would have been hung on a wall somewhere, not stored in his vault.
So, what does that mean? How did this reproduction come to be part of his collection?
I don’t know, but I can think of one person who might have a clue.
My legs tremble slightly as I get up and walk out of the vault, the echo of my heels harsh on the polished marble floor of the corridor.
I need to call Gavin. I need someone official.
Someone who can confirm what my eyes are telling me and shed some light on how and why that painting is in Joseph’s vault.
I have only one theory, and I really don’t like it.
What if my father or Gavin, or someone else, planted the fake as a test for me to see if I was experienced enough to notice it?
I reach the foyer where there is a phone, but I decide the landline there is too public and I will go up to my suite to make the call. As I sprint up the stairs, my mind is reeling. I reach the top of the stairs when a voice stops me.
“Whoa! Where’s the fire?” Axel asks, his voice a mixture of amusement and curiosity.
I stop and whirl around, and I see him coming towards me from the opposite end of the landing, his dark hair just slightly tousled, his green eyes assessing, unreadable.
When he gets closer, I can smell his scent.
He smells like wood smoke and that gorgeous cologne.
He is calm and composed, but there’s a sharpness in his gaze that immediately makes me conscious of how flustered I am.
“Jo?” he says when I don’t respond. “Are you ok?”
Is that concern I hear in his voice?
I don’t know, and now isn’t the time to get into a debate with myself about Axel’s tone of voice.
I can’t tell him about this until I have spoken to Gavin.
I mean, Axel hates me; if anyone is testing me, he would be the prime suspect, surely.
Despite that being logically true, something tells me the covert nature of this ‘test’ isn’t Axel’s style.
Besides, he might hate me, but he loved my father, and he wouldn’t do anything to risk making it look as though he had been fooled.
Once I decide this isn’t Axel’s doing, I can’t stop the words from rushing out.
“I need to call Gavin. There’s a problem with the next painting. It’s a fake.”
He stills, and I see the disbelief flash in his eyes. He definitely hasn’t set this up to test me. His reaction is too immediate, too real.
“That’s impossible. You must be mistaken,” he says.
“No,” I say firmly. “I’m not.” I am confident in my work, and while I might not know how or why that painting is there, I do know it’s a fake.
“I checked the pigments, the brush work, everything. They used a shade of blue that wasn’t available in the eighteenth century when this painting was created. I’m not wrong.”
His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t argue further. “Show me.”
I know I should call Gavin, but what can it harm having someone else to look at my evidence?
It’s not like another ten minutes is going to make a difference.
I find myself agreeing, and we walk back to the vault.
I can’t help but glance surreptitiously at Axel as we walk.
The air of authority in his stride is impossible to ignore – and yes, it’s as sexy as all hell.
My pulse has picked up again, and the adrenaline starts buzzing under my skin, but this time, it has nothing to do with any painting, fake or otherwise.
We go into the vault, and Axel crosses the floor to my workstation, where the painting remains laid out.
He stops in front of the painting, and I point to the blue cup, then to a few of the brush strokes that betray the modern hand, explaining what gives them away as fake.
He leans in closer, and his hand brushes mine as he gestures towards a spot near the cup.
Electricity shoots through my entire body, and I experience an involuntary jolt.
My breath catches. I know, instinctively, that he feels it too, because his frown deepens, and he steps back.
The faintest edge of tension now hangs between us, the air silent but charged.
“Are you certain?” he asks, voice clipped but careful.
“Yes,” I say, a little shakily. “It’s a very good fake, but it’s a fake. I’ve never been wrong about something like this before.”
He studies me for a long moment, and I force myself to hold his gaze without blinking. Finally, he looks away, walks around it, then lets out a low sound of acknowledgment.
“I believe you.”
The weight of the discovery was heavy, but there’s a shift in the atmosphere, and I feel like part of the weight has been lifted from me now that Axel knows about this situation and believes it.
I sense him calculating what should happen next, weighing the implications, thinking through the possibilities.
“Don’t call Gavin yet,” he says finally. “We’ll figure this out ourselves.”
I blink at him, surprised. “You mean just the two of us?”
“Yes,” he says. His green eyes meet mine, unwavering. “We’ll handle this. Carefully. Professionally. Quietly. Do you think you can do that?”
I nod. “I think I’ll manage. Actually, I have a theory.
What if someone is testing me? Maybe Gavin, and that’s why I wanted to call him.
You know, to see if I would notice a fake, and prove if I am the real deal.
I know it would be tempting to use the first painting for that, but they might have thought that was too obvious, that I would be extra vigilant with the first one. ”
“It’s not about you,” Axel shoots back immediately. “Gavin would never dare to show up Joseph’s daughter. Not in a million years. Not his style.”
I feel a flush of embarrassment creeping over me.
He’s right. Gavin is too subtle, too professional to be so sneaky.
Now Axel has pointed that out, I think he’s probably right about the motive too.
This isn’t about me. My mind automatically flips through the other possibilities.
However unlikely it is that Joseph was duped, it has to be considered at least.
“Do we have records of who Joseph bought this painting from?” I ask.
Axel leans against the table edge. “Of course, provenance is everything in this business, but that won’t help.
It’s impossible that he bought a fake. Your father had no interest in stolen stuff, where there are a lot of fakes going around.
No, he always used a respected art dealer to buy or bid for him.
One of the best. She has a team of experts who would have spotted it. ”
I swallow, nodding my head as Axel confirms my earlier thoughts. “So how is it here then?”
His frown deepens. “Because it’s been switched. This isn’t the painting Joseph originally bought.”
I am impressed at how Axel is seeing the problem almost instinctively. There’s a weight in his words, a certainty that I can’t help but respect.
“You’re probably right,” I say softly. It’s the only other explanation.
I glance at him, for the first time noticing more than the brooding, impossible good looks and the clipped sentences.
There’s a sharp intelligence here, a subtle appreciation of process, of understanding human nature.
He’s more than his arrogant surface, more than the dismissive expression he usually wears.
He tilts his head slightly. “We should discuss this further. Away from the vault. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere we can think.”
I don’t hesitate. If he suggests going to the moon to talk, I’m in. “Where?”
“Meet me in the dining room. We’ll talk over dinner. An hour from now.”
I nod, my throat dry and my mind already racing through possibilities. “An hour is good because I’ll need to change first,” I say, gesturing to my stained overalls.
“Alright,” he says, his voice low, but with that edge that keeps me alert. “See you there.”
With that, he pushes himself up off the table and leaves.
I look back over the painting one last time, lingering over the clever brush work, the subtle genius of the forgery.
It is a real mystery. Who did it? Then, I step out of the vault too, already thinking about what to change into, how to prepare myself, not for dinner exactly, but for the discussion with Axel.
And somewhere deep inside, I feel like it’s possible the dinner will also be something more.
Because Axel can act like he hates me all he likes, but under all the snapping and biting, all the distance, all the carefully maintained control, there is something more there, and whatever this is between us, whatever simmering, silent tension exists, I already feel it pulling me forward.
I know it’s a bad idea. But despite that, I don’t know if I will even try to fight it.