Italian Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story Part 24

Feeling the way I did, the artwork within took on an ethereal quality.

The happier I became, the happier Liam became. We rushed through the wings of the museum, both of us desperate to see everything, to take everything in at once.

We ran up a grand staircase, the rails on either side broader than both of my hands set side by side and polished to a high smoothness. At the top of these stairs the busts of many ancient figures watched us impa.s.sively.

"You have to wonder what they've seen with the pa.s.sing of the centuries," Liam said, catching me up before I could go any further. He didn't look at any face but mine, however.

"And what is it you see?" I said, noticing my reflection in his eyes.

"Exactly what I've been looking for my whole life."

He kissed me at the top of the stairs, other museum patrons having to walk around us.

Soon we came to the paintings. So many of them, all masterpieces. They had Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi, as well as Da Vinci's painting of the same name.

There were Rembrandts, t.i.tians, Caravaggios. Those and more. All original. I could have died happy there that day.

The paintings seemed like living things, the colors vibrant, the characters depicted in them in momentary pauses. As though as soon as I looked away they might begin to move.

I'd never experienced the pa.s.sion that must have gone into their creation as viscerally as I did that day, there with Liam. At its root, pa.s.sion means suffering. And a great deal of suffering must have gone into making them.

That must also have been why it hurt, deep inside, to be there with Liam. Love hurt. It hurt so good I hoped to never be without that particular pain.

"Everything okay?" Liam said. We stood in front of a roped off Da Vinci sketch depicting a flying machine, and it made me remember that day Liam had taken me floating over Rome in a hot air balloon.

"Better than okay. So much better," I replied. "I guess I keep thinking about how if I hadn't met you that night, I'd probably be back home in St. Louis right now, completely unaware of what I was missing here. Or maybe being aware of it and not caring." That seemed the bigger crime to me, knowing that these things were here to see and choosing to not see them, even though I'd been so close.

"I'd be in an office," Liam said, "New York, maybe. Or London. Thinking about how even though it looked like I have everything that it still felt like I had nothing. It's funny how lonely it can be."

"Then I suppose it's a good thing we b.u.mped into each other that night. It looks like we both needed some saving," I said. If I closed my eyes I could recall the wind moving through my hair and how the city had lit up beneath the basket of the balloon as the sun dipped.

"No argument from me," Liam replied.

"It was like we were both blind," I said, leaning over the ropes to get a better look at the sketching technique Da Vinci used, "So much happening right in front of our eyes that we just couldn't see."

Despite how much we both wanted to stay, eventually we had to move on. The outside world began pressing in.

It happened when I saw a painting by Giulio Romano. That reminded me of the essay I'd written, which knocked over the dominoes of my memory in quick succession. The essay. The awful grade. Dr. Aretino, the reason for the awful grade.

"Can we go?" I said, turning away from the painting.

"Yes, of course," he replied.

He took me from the Uffizi, and I started moving towards the street to flag down a cab when he stopped me, clutching my elbow so that I couldn't get away. "What is it?"

"Over there," he said. Then he took me over to one of those partially closed in walkways at the ground level of the Uffizi.

A young Italian man sat on a three-legged stool, an easel with a large sketchpad attached to it in front of him, easily the size of a modest painting canva.s.s. He had an intense look on his narrow face, and dark pencil dust smudged every one of his fingers.

A small, hand painted sign leaned against the easel. In Italian, it read Portraits 20 Euros.

"It'll be fun," Liam said, "A nice memento."

He pulled a Euro note from his wallet and handed it to the errant artist.

The boy squinted at me, then told me to go stand over by the nearest column.

"What about you?" I said, seeing that Liam meant for him to sketch me only.

"No, I wouldn't want to ruin it. I'm not very photogenic. Go, it's okay."

That was a lie, of course. The pictures of him all over the internet belied what he said. But he seemed adamant about it, so I went and stood by the column while he stood beside the sitting artist.

The young man glanced at me again, then rolled up his s.h.i.+rtsleeves and got to work.

I'd never been anyone's art subject before, and I actually felt quite self-conscious, wis.h.i.+ng that maybe I'd have chosen better clothes, or done my hair differently.

However, Liam's smiling face gave me all the rea.s.surance I needed. He watched the young man's sketch take shape, the small smile on his face growing.

The artist glanced quickly from me to the sketch, then back again. He picked up different size pencils and then attacked the canva.s.s with them. He'd drop the pencil and then smudge at the lines with his thumbs.

The whole process took about fifteen minutes. By then, nearly a dozen more pedestrians had come over to watch the piece of art come to life.

Then he finished with a great heave of his shoulders, as though un-shouldering the burden of his art. The gathered crowd clapped, and I heard people telling each other how beautiful it looked, how it captured me perfectly.

Liam took out another bill (I couldn't tell the denomination) and forced it into the young man's hands.

"Can I see?" I said, antic.i.p.ation and wonder spilling over inside me. I wasn't that pretty. The young man had to have really cleaned me up, used his artistic license, that sort of thing.

Except Liam wouldn't let me. He took the paper from the artist and rolled it up, carefully but quickly so that I could only glance quickly. I didn't see anything.

"Hey! Let me take a look," I said, pawing at it. He held it out of reach, grinning so that dimples formed in his cheeks.

"Nope. Not yet," he said.

"I thought it was supposed to be a memento?" I said, incredulous.

He shrugged as he walked towards the curb, me following in his wake. He waved at a pa.s.sing taxi, which split from the rest of the traffic along the river to pull up near us.

"I didn't say it was a memento for you," Liam replied as he held the door for me.

"You will let me see, though, won't you?"

Another shrug, this one accompanied by a lopsided smile and a glint in his eye. "Maybe once we're on the train. Ask me then. Not another word about it until then, though. Or you'll never get to see. Gives me time to think of where I want to display it."

"You wouldn't!" I said as the cab lurched away from the curb. It was one thing to have it, to look at it privately. Another thing entirely to put it where others might see it. No artist could possibly make me look interesting enough for that.

Something about that pulled at my mind, but in my excitement I ignored it.

I hadn't felt like I did in that cab since probably preschool. Christmas Eve. Wondering what Santa had bought me. Wondering what lay hidden beneath the s.h.i.+ny wrapping paper.

The suspense nearly killed me, which Liam noticed and made no effort to hide that he enjoyed it.

Then we sat down in our seats on the train. I hardly noticed how comfy they felt. I didn't care about the legroom. I hardly even realized that the usher had come and gone after offering us papers and drinks.

I only wanted to know what that guy had drawn.

Liam ignored me studiously, leaning back in his chair. He'd booked out the entire block of four again, and the rolled up sketch sat beside him. Its own tension began unfurling it, and I could see a few tantalizing graphite lines.

I could reach out and grab it away if I wanted to. However, I thought that Liam expected that, and waited for it.

He flipped through a magazine on his lap one handed, the other first pressing against his cheek in mock boredom.

The train began moving again with that surprisingly gentle acceleration, turning Florence into a grayish-brown blur in my peripheral vision.

"So how long are we going to play the waiting game?" I said.

He glanced away from an Italian advertis.e.m.e.nt for a tiny Fiat coupe. "As long as I enjoy it, obviously. It looks like you're about ready to vibrate out of your skin, by the way."

"Hmph," I said, crossing my arms tightly and squeezing my ribs. I looked steadily out the window, trying to catch individual trees and buildings with my eyes so that the resolved into semi-normal shapes.

All the while Liam watched me, amus.e.m.e.nt laughing in his eyes. And then he grabbed the rolled up sketch and pulled it flat between his hands, examining it himself.

I did my best to keep my own eyes on the window.

"He really did capture you perfectly. This is exactly how I see you. Exactly," Liam said, I ignored him. It was the hardest thing I'd done since my aborted attempt to leave the country.

The large rectangle of paper rustled while he turned it around in his hands. "I'll stop torturing you now. You can look."

"Maybe I don't want to anymore." A muscle in my neck began twitching. I wanted to look so badly.

"Fine. I guess I'll roll it up..." The rustling noises began again.

"No!" I said, facing forward. "Oh..." quickly followed.

It was a beautiful drawing. The image of me had a faraway, dreamy look in her eyes, a touch of a smile on her lips that seemed both happy and a little bit sad.

There were similarities to the woman I saw in the mirror. The cheeks, the eyes, the lips. But this woman in the sketch looked far more beautiful than I'd ever considered myself.

"That's not me," I said, "He must have seen someone else wandering by with a pa.s.sing resemblance and sketched her instead."

"He never looked anywhere but you and the canva.s.s. I watched. This is you, trust me. Just as I see you. Do you think he takes bigger commissions? I'd like this same one, but a little smaller. Say, small enough for a frame for my desk."

"Stop," I said, blus.h.i.+ng.

"No, seriously. I'd love to have this on my desk."

I couldn't help smiling at that. He wanted to be able to see me even when I wasn't there. Maybe show the picture and brag about it. Face it towards visitors.

"Oh my G.o.d!" I said, nearly pus.h.i.+ng myself out of my chair.

"Glad to oblige," Liam said.

"No, no, not that. I know just what to do. I know how to get Dr. Aretino to back down."

"Tell me."

The idea came to me wholesale, my mind making connections faster than I could track. And it had all started when Liam had mentioned having a picture on his desk. Sort of like a certain professor and something I'd seen in his office.

Chapter 20.

The fundraiser was only three days out, and I don't think I'd ever been so nervous for anything in my life.

Though Liam kept a.s.suring me that it was a good plan.

I kept insisting that it was so simple that it couldn't possibly work. It didn't involve flowcharts or super secret spy gadgets. Mostly it revolved around Dr. Aretino being the arrogant man he was.

It didn't help that in addition to setting that scheme in motion I had four end of term a.s.signments to finish as well as exams to study for. Exams I wouldn't be taking if this didn't go as planned.

"Are you sure it will work?" I said to Liam, who sat across from me at our table in Fratelli's Confectionary. The gelato tasted just as good as the first time, but I couldn't enjoy it to its full potential. "There's no way it's going to work. He's going to see right through it."

Liam stabbed his plastic spoon into what remained of his scoops. "Simple is better, Emma. A plan doesn't need to be complicated or complex to succeed. In fact, a simple plan tends to succeed more because there's not as much that could go wrong."

I nodded, taking that in. It didn't convince me entirely, though. "That's true. But then isn't a simple plan more vulnerable than a complex one? Since there are so few things involved, if even one of them doesn't go my way, the whole thing might veer off track."

It was in my nature to worry, to expect the worst of anything and anyone. What made it worse was that even though I expected good old Murphy's Law to come into play, it always surprised me, always got to me. Cognitive dissonance at its best, I guess.

"One thing I've learned," Liam said, stirring his gelato in idle thoughtfulness, "Is that you have to have a little faith in yourself, a little belief that things will turn out. You have to be willing to start something even if you don't feel completely ready for it. Take the risk. You can plan every detail of something, but if you miss your moment then it was all for nothing."

"And you're certain that you can do your part?" I said.

He c.o.c.ked his head at me, "Yes. I'll make sure Dr. Aretino's wife shows up at the fundraiser."

His wife was one side of the equation.

"Good," I said. I couldn't have made my plan work without Liam's help. And I also admitted that it was actually fun to scheme with him like this, to have his apparently unconditional support.

I drew a lot of strength and confidence from him. I never could have even so much as come up with this plan if I hadn't met Liam.

And I also couldn't escape the symmetry of the plan, either. Liam had set this course of events off when he'd swept me off my feet (literally and figuratively) at that first fundraiser. That it would all end at another fundraiser satisfied my need for artistic balance nicely.