The Case of the Missing Botticelli, page 10
“Let’s talk about this at home.” Hadley put the ring back in the box and returned it to him for the time being.
The other diners groaned, looked disappointed, and went back to their food. They probably thought she was a bitch. Maybe she was.
When they got to her apartment, she turned on the lights. They were both a little drunk, and she was exhausted.
“Well, I’m going to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“Hadley, I didn’t come all the way over here to sleep on the couch. I miss you. I miss being with you.”
Hadley swayed on her feet. She didn’t even remember what it was like to be with Charles. But if she was ever going to commit to him, she may as well sleep with him to see if they were even still compatible. Did that make her a slut? She was too inebriated to care.
“Okay, but just for tonight,” she agreed.
He removed the ring from the box in his jacket pocket.
“And wear this,” Charles said.
“I’m not ready to make a commitment.”
“Well, then, just while you’re thinking about it. I want to see how it looks on you.”
Hadley caved. “Just this one night.”
“And for the time I’m here.”
Hadley shrugged and he slipped on the ring.
“Now we’re engaged,” Charles announced.
“Temporarily,” Hadley countered.
Charles hugged her and hurried her into the bedroom. He removed her clothes and his and tossed them on the floor. This was beginning to feel familiar. He would satisfy her, and then they’d have sex, and then he’d fall asleep the minute his head hit the pillow. It was all over in a minute. One and done.
“That was great,” he said, and true to form, or maybe it was due to jet lag, he nodded off.
With Charles, there was a little foreplay, and she had an orgasm but not during sex. When Luca entered her, she climaxed while he was inside her, making each thrust count. That had never happened with Charles in all the years they had been together. And when she fell asleep, spooned in Luca’s arms, they remained cuddled up all night. King Charles was definitely not a cuddler.
With Charles, the act was rote. Perhaps it was because she and King Charles had been dating for four years and it was like she was part of an old married couple. Whereas with Luca, the experience was new and exciting. With Luca, she felt cherished, like they were really making love. He could communicate well enough in English, but she preferred to listen to him speak Italian.
But Luca was out of the picture. He had obviously made his choice. Isabella was beautiful. She would turn any man’s head.
She fell asleep turned away from Charles. She was restless and kept waking up. She was—less than satisfied.
The next morning, Charles was up ahead of her and had taken a run along the Arno. He brought her breakfast from a local café.
“What do you want to do today?” he asked.
“Well, I’m off of work this week, so do you want to go sightseeing?”
“Sure.”
Should she tell him now that it wasn’t going to work out between them? What would a few days of sightseeing prove? But he had come all this way. And he had bought her a ring.
Maybe after they were together for a few more days, they’d settle back into their old habit. But that was the problem. She didn’t want to settle. Was she giving him a chance because she no longer had a chance with Luca?
Chapter Sixteen
She and Charles spent the next few days touring Italy on day trips from Florence. A grueling twelve-hour day trip to Cinque Terre, a wine-tasting experience and a cooking class in the Tuscan countryside, a trip to the Leaning Tower in Pisa. At night, they dined out at restaurants and talked. Hadley found that they didn’t have much to say to each other, and when Charles intimated he wanted sex, she feigned exhaustion.
“Listen, I need to take care of something at the office tomorrow morning, so you can sleep late.”
She wasn’t even sure Charles had heard her. He had already dozed off.
When she’d asked Charles to come to Europe, she had planned a fabulous month of travel for the two of them during her summer break. When he didn’t come, she went off with some friends. It was a missed experience they could never recover. It left a lingering bitter taste of regret in her heart.
She got dressed and walked to her office.
“So you’re back,” Gerda said.
“Not yet. Just checking in. Charles is leaving tomorrow. He has to get back to classes. Is the Signore in?”
“Still in Venice. I don’t expect him back until next week. He’s supervising the return of the paintings to Florence where you and he can properly catalog them before they’re turned over to the authorities. How are you enjoying your vacation?”
Hadley thrust her left hand into the pocket of her sweater, but nothing got past Gerda.
“Wait, is that an engagement ring?”
She removed her hand, and Gerda grabbed it and examined the ring.
“Oh, this. I forgot to take it off.”
“Are you engaged?”
“Not really. I’m planning to give it back to Charles before he leaves.”
“The Poor Rachmanus. Where do things stand with Luca? He’s stopped in, and he’s been calling every day. I told him you were traveling with a friend. He insisted on knowing if it was a female friend or a male friend.”
“What did you tell him?”
“As little as possible, but he suspects.”
“I don’t know why he came by. We’re not together anymore.”
“That’s not how it seemed to me. He was very anxious to talk to you. Why did you come in this morning? You could have called.”
“Mainly to get away from Charles and put off the uncomfortable talk we’re going to have to have.”
“What about Luca?”
“What about him?”
Gerda turned toward the office entrance. “Speaking of Luca, that good-looking devil is standing outside the door.”
Hadley turned and started to run back into the Signore’s office.
“Tell him I’m not here.”
“He’s already seen you, the Poor Rachmanus. Looks like you’re going to have another uncomfortable talk.”
Luca stormed in. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve been calling you and you won’t answer your cell phone. When I got back from the police station, you had left the villa to go back to Florence. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“Let’s go into the Signore’s office,” Hadley suggested. She walked into Massimo’s office. Luca followed and slammed the door.
Hadley turned on him. “You were occupied with Isabella. You didn’t seem to care what happened to me. You were all about protecting her.”
“She needed protection. Her brother was threatening to kill her. You didn’t need protection. You can handle yourself.”
Hadley pursed her lips. “It’s obvious you prefer her. She’s beautiful and helpless, two qualities you can’t seem to resist.”
“All I did was verify that Isabella’s attack on her brother was self-defense. As soon as I got her to press charges against Matteo, I asked if she had a friend she could stay with, and Cara, she doesn’t even have a single friend in the world. I couldn’t just leave her there in that empty villa, the only home she’s ever known and that she will probably lose. I had to get her settled into a battered woman’s shelter. She and Matteo have a legal right to the villa, but that will most likely be overturned in the courts by Ingrid. Matteo will be locked up for a long time. Then I left her and came back to you as soon as I could, but you were gone. And when I got back to Florence, Gerda said you were traveling with a friend. A friend or a boyfriend?”
Luca caught the glint of the diamond on her ring finger and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Is that an engagement ring? Hadley, are you engaged?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean, not exactly?”
“Look, I’m sorry I never mentioned this before, but I had a boyfriend back home. We’d been dating for four years. He didn’t want me to come to Florence, but I came anyway. He just flew in while we were in Venice. I had no idea he was coming. I couldn’t just leave him here alone.”
“But you could leave me alone? So you got engaged?”
“He proposed and wanted me to try on the ring.”
“I thought that we…”
“Luca, I can’t spend my life looking over my shoulder at every pretty girl that catches your eye or that you want to rescue. Worrying that I’m somehow not enough. You can’t help yourself. That’s the Italian way.”
“That’s not my way,” he said angrily. “Cara, you are being ridiculous. I only have eyes for you. How can you not know that I love you? Haven’t I shown you how I feel in every way?”
“You never actually said the words,” Hadley said stubbornly.
“What good is saying the words if you don’t trust me? Where is the boyfriend now?”
“At my apartment.”
“And have you slept with him?”
Hadley frowned but didn’t respond.
“I guess I have my answer, then. Goodbye, Hadley.” With Luca, it was always open and shut, black and white, right and wrong. He turned on his heels, opened the door, and rushed out into the Florence sunshine.
Tears pooled in her eyes. She should have stopped him. But she had betrayed him. She had only herself to blame. She walked out to Gerda’s desk.
“Go after him,” Gerda urged, handing Hadley a tissue.
“It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late.” After a brief silence, Gerda asked, “What are you going to do?”
“Go home.” Did she mean home, as in home, back to Florida? Or home to her apartment to a man she was no longer in love with? As she wandered the streets of her adopted city, Hadley realized she was already home.
Chapter Seventeen
Hadley walked into her apartment. Charles was out on the balcony, enjoying the view.
“I’ll miss this place when I’m gone,” Charles said, “but we can come back on our honeymoon, do the European tour thing like you wanted.”
“I wish you had come sooner.” Hadley sighed. Before she had met Luca.
“Well, I’m here now. So did you give your notice?”
“Give my notice?”
“Yes, I thought that’s why you were going in to the office. You need to start packing if we’re going to make the flight tomorrow.”
“What flight?” said Hadley, puzzled.
“I booked you a ticket on my flight so we could fly home together and announce the good news.”
Hadley shook her head. “What gave you the idea I was going home?”
“You’re still wearing my ring. You said you missed home. I just thought—”
This was worse than she’d thought.
Hadley removed the ring from her left hand and closed her right fist around it.
“Charles,” she began. “I love my job. And now, more than ever, some exciting things are starting to happen. We found a cache of stolen art looted by the Nazis, and we’re about to announce it to the world. The repercussions will be monumental.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“It has to do with me, Charles. I’m exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do.”
“Playing around with a bunch of ancient paintings?”
“They’re not ancient, they’re from the Renaissance period—the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, to be exact.”
Charles frowned. “I don’t care what century they’re from. We’re getting married, so you need to come home and forget about your job. All you do is look at pictures.”
“Is that what you think I do?”
“You can do that anywhere. You can always get another job.”
“In Tallahassee, Florida?”
“Sure, they have the Museum of Florida History and the Antique Car Museum and the Florida Historic Capital Museum—”
“Charles, are you listening to yourself? I’m an art history major. There’s no better place on earth for me than Florence, Italy. This city has everything I want and need.”
“But I’m not here.”
That about summed it up. Hadley walked out on the balcony and sat beside Charles. She opened his hand, placed the ring in it, then closed it gently around the stone.
“What are you doing?”
“This isn’t going to work.”
“Is this about Luca? I forgave you for that.”
Hadley was losing patience.
“I did nothing to be forgiven for. We were on a break, and we both had agreed to date other people. I didn’t go looking for anyone. It just happened. And anyway, we’re not together anymore. I just broke up with him.”
“Well, then, why can’t you be with me?”
“Charles, we haven’t seen each other in a year. We’ve grown apart. We’re not the same people anymore. I want a career, this career in this city. I don’t want to sit at home in Tallahassee, Florida, and regret not staying here for the rest of my life.”
“I thought you loved me.”
“I did love you. But I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m sorry.”
“What do you want me to do? Quit school, come and live over here, and do nothing?”
“Exactly. You do understand. You don’t want to give up the things you love, and neither do I.”
Charles’s face crumpled. “You can’t give us another chance?”
“The bottom line is that I don’t want to marry you.”
As the truth started to sink in, Charles became angry, pocketed the ring, and stood up abruptly.
“I’ll go pack my things and stay at a hotel tonight, unless I can catch an earlier flight.”
“You don’t have to do that. We’re friends. You’re welcome to stay here.”
Charles scowled. “I don’t want to be just friends with you, Hadley. I asked you to marry me.”
“And I’m flattered. Last year, before I left, I would have been over the moon if you had proposed. I wouldn’t have gone overseas. But you didn’t ask. You couldn’t make a commitment, and you wouldn’t even take off a few weeks to visit me. In hindsight, if we had gotten married, it wouldn’t have worked out. We don’t want the same things.”
“How do you know that?”
Hadley exhaled. She hadn’t wanted to hurt Charles’s feelings. But she knew her own mind.
“Because now I know what real love is. I tossed it away, but I won’t settle for anything less.” There, she’d finally given voice to her true feelings. She was in love with Luca Ferrari. Despite the language barrier, despite the cultural barrier, she felt more at home in Italy with Luca than she ever did with King Charles. For all the good that would do her now.
Sulking, Charles strode into the bedroom and began slamming doors and drawers.
Jeesh, Hadley thought. That was a close call. King Charles had become a royal pain in the ass. It was past time to depose the monarch and send him back to America.
Chapter Eighteen
After King Charles left, Hadley threw herself into her work with a frenzy, putting in long hours, nights, and weekends. That left no time to think about Luca and imagining what he and Isabella were up to.
She and Massimo went over to the storage unit every day to catalog the looted works, held meetings with government agencies, museum representatives, and others who could help them trace the provenance of the paintings so they could be returned to their proper owners. Some victims of the Holocaust were no longer alive and had no heirs. That represented a different set of challenges.
Hadley had been deposed by attorneys in the Amore case and had turned over Karrissa’s diary to Ingrid’s lawyer. She and Isabella, who had authenticated the diary and had also provided the records her grandfather had kept and the paperwork Matteo had kept documenting the sale of the paintings, had testified remotely in a court case. She hadn’t spoken to Isabella since the trip to Venice. If she and Luca were together now, she didn’t want to know.
She had to admit that Isabella did need protection from someone. She had probably been abused by her brother throughout her young life or at the very least terrorized since her mother had died. On top of that, she was most likely going to lose her home. She had no friends, to speak of. Matteo was her only contact with the outside world, and he was truly a monster. And the fact that Luca had come to her rescue was one of the things she loved most about her former lover. If she couldn’t get past the fact that Isabella was so beautiful, that was her problem, her insecurity. But given the choice, any man would have chosen Isabella. So that was that.
The German government had intervened, demanding that Amore be sent back to Berlin and housed in The Gemäldegalerie with the rest of the European masterpieces. It was an uphill battle but, in the end, justice was served.
The remainder of the looted art stored in the villa had to be dealt with, and that could take years to process.
One day Gerda shook her awake after she’d fallen asleep at her desk.
“Hadley, go home. Massimo is taking his wife out to lunch, and then he’s taking the rest of the day off. He told me to tell you to leave early.”
“But isn’t it Friday?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t he with whatever-her-name-is?”
“That affair is over. Massimo is devoted to his wife. He’s too busy to cheat.”
“It’s about time.”
“You’ve been working too hard. You need to go home, get an early start on the weekend. Have you heard anything from King Charles?”
Groggy, Hadley reached in the drawer and grabbed her purse. “Word on the street is he’s engaged to my best friend. And he’s given her the same ring he gave me.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Relieved. Now I don’t have to feel guilty about ruining his life. Frankly, I don’t feel anything for him and even less for her.”
“Well, go home and get some rest. And, oh, before you get there, could you do me a favor and cut across the park and stop by that little leather boutique on the corner? I ordered a gift for Massimo’s wife, and I want to give it to Massimo when he comes in Monday. It’s already paid for.”
