by Nichole Van
I managed to drag myself home on the Tube and stumbled into our Kensington flat. Only to find Pierce cuddled up with his father’s assistant, Heather. (Literature grad. Slutty. Desperate.)
So yeah. The entire world knows the rest of the story.
Part of me felt that if Dante hadn’t negated my appraisal of the Pittoni, I wouldn’t have gotten drunk and might have reacted more calmly to walking in on Pierce and Heather.
The rational part of my brain recognized I could hardly blame Dante D’Angelo for Pierce’s infidelity and subsequent cruelty in filming and posting that video. From Dante’s point of view, he had just been doing his job.
But that didn’t stop me from disliking him. I disliked that my pulse rose when he came into the room. Disliked that I wanted to watch him, follow him with my eyes, study him in his natural habitat . . .
Stop!
Not. Attractive.
I refused to be another one of his fangirls.
I dug my fingernails into my palm.
In my peripheral vision, I noted Dante angle his head, keeping his dark eyes firmly fixed on me.
What? Was this part of his alpha posturing?
“Now, we begin.” The Colonel placed his hands, palms down, on the table. “I thank you all for being here today. As you can see, I’m an old man—”
“I’ve always said you only get better with age, Colonel,” Pierce said.
“Stuff it, boy. You’ll have plenty of time to suck up to me later.” The Colonel shot Pierce a warning glance.
Wow. Not much love there. My flame of hope burned brighter.
“As I was saying,” the Colonel continued, “I am not getting much younger. Though some might argue, I am becoming more eccentric. As you all probably know, I am the sole heir to two old family lines. I have vaults of unknown . . . stuff, I guess I’ll call it. I’ve been meaning for years to hire someone to assess and catalog it. But I want to make sure I hire the right person. I originally signed a contract with Mr. Whitman and Ms. Raythorn of Whitman Auction Services to do just that. However, with the changes in WAS staffing, I pulled out of the project to let things simmer down a bit.”
Translation: My mega-viral, mojito-infused rampage gave him cold feet.
“But I’m back in the game.” The Colonel cleared his throat. “Or, rather, I have decided it’s ‘game on.’ Which is why you all are here. Despite any personal differences, the three of you are some of the best in the business.”
Dante continued to stare at me.
Did I exude man-hating pheromones? I had plenty of reasons to be annoyed with him. But why the reverse?
Or was he like Pierce? Just trying to get under my skin. Rattle me. This meeting was high-stakes for us all.
“It goes like this,” the Colonel was saying. “You are each auditioning for the job of curating my collection of art and antiques. This would be a permanent, salaried position based here in Florence, as you have seen from the preliminary paperwork I sent out.”
Yeah. My jaw had hit the floor when I saw how much he was offering to pay. It was nearly four times the amount I had been earning with WAS. Being paid an exorbitant salary to curate a billionaire’s private art collection while living in my favorite boyfriend-city . . . sheesh, it was every appraiser’s dream. Career-saving employment for sure.
I yearned for this job with frightening ferocity.
Dante was still staring at me.
I shot him my firmest down-boy look.
He just narrowed his eyes. Unfazed.
Pierce noticed Dante’s noticing.
He shot a look back and forth between us, eyes speculative.
Done. With. Men.
Four
Dante
I still couldn’t see her.
Correction. I obviously could see Claire just fine, even with back-lit sun rimming her in golden light.
Close-up, she was shockingly pretty.
The kind of woman a guy slaps a ‘trophy’ sticker on and fist-bumps his buddies as she walks by.
Not that I was that kind of guy . . .
She met my gaze with large, winter-blue eyes. Blond hair framing her face. High cheekbones. Heart-shaped upper lip. Defined chin.
Grace Kelly reborn.
But I couldn’t see her.
No shadows. No figures. Nothing.
She was absolutely blank.
I leaned to the right, casually resting on the carved arm of my chair, getting a different angle. Sometimes backlight could make seeing difficult, and she had been at a distance earlier . . .
I narrowed my eyes, trying to force her into focus.
Nothing.
I let out a stuttering breath. Swallowed. Adjusted my tie, loosening it a bit.
This was . . . not good. Unprecedented. I was in uncharted territory.
Claire arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow, coolly meeting my eyes. Every line of her telling me to Knock. It. Off.
Fine.
The Colonel opened a folder and shuffled through some papers. As usual, silvery forms gathered behind him. Like a repeating shadow, some clearer than others.
A young man in a pale Edwardian suit.
A grizzled Confederate soldier.
A stern man sporting a Pilgrim’s hat.
The typical shapes of who the Colonel had been in lives past.
But in between the figures, the air wavered. Like static noise made visible.
Odd.
Usually, the shadows were clean and methodical.
But at least the Colonel had shadows.
Pierce was much the same.
A man in a Nazi uniform.
A primped courtier in a powdered wig and embroidered frock coat.
A Scottish laird in a belted great kilt with a sword in hand.
But that visual static sputtered in and out around the figures.
Again . . . not good.
I shifted my gaze back to Claire.
Still nothing. No shadows. No figures. No static. Just empty sun-filled air behind her.
This had never happened before. Strangers were rarely staticky. And no one outside of my closest loved ones were blank.
What did this mean? Were things changing? Evolving?
Why couldn’t I see her?
I resisted scrubbing a hand over my face in frustration. Now I had to talk with Branwell and Tennyson about it.
We all hated talking about our GUTs—the Grossly Unusual Talents we got from our father. Yeah, kinda cutesy acronym but we’re guys. What else would we call our ‘gifts’?
If my GUT was having problems, what did it mean for my brothers? Were things fracturing further for all of us?
Would more and more people start to be blank to me? Or was there something unique about this situation?
I angled further back into my chair, tamping down my twitching anxiety. Or at least relegating it to a bouncing foot and drumming fingers.
There was nothing I could do about Claire’s missing shadows right now. I needed to focus on the Colonel. My family was depending on me to nail this meeting.
“Here’s how this is going to go down.” The Colonel gestured for some papers from Natalia. “There’s a work of art I found in my family vaults. Who knows how long it’s been there. I can’t find any record of it, and I want to know what I have. So, you will each be tasked with individually assessing it.”
“Just a regular assessment?” Pierce asked.
“Yep. Starting today, you will have no more than one month to complete the appraisal. You will have all resources at your disposal, as if you were already my employee. I will also pay your salary for that month. At the end of the month—or sooner if you can—you will present me with your findings and the reasons behind them.”
“So how will you decide who to hire?” Pierce again.
He was the kid sitting on the front row of class. Hand popping up to answer every question.
I had never liked that guy.
“Well, that depends on several factors.” The Col
onel ticked off on his fingers. “Am I impressed by your appraisal and expert knowledge? Did you display professional behavior throughout? At the end of the day, I will hire the person who I feel will get the job done.”
I nodded, my pulse beating in excitement as I tugged on the arms of my suitcoat. Given the little I understood of the Colonel’s family history, there were likely undiscovered gems in his collection.
Branwell and I were perfect fits for the Colonel. Between our industry connections and, uh, GUTs, we would be able to easily assess and organize his collection.
I needed this job. Business had been slow, and I could see the writing on the wall. Either things picked up here or I was going to have to move D’Angelo headquarters to a larger city, like Paris or New York.
I really didn’t want to move. Florence was home, and my family needed me here. Just the thought of leaving my mom and grandma alone to care for my brothers and their issues—
I swallowed. Adjusted my tie again. Not going to happen. This job would be mine.
“So here are the contracts.” The Colonel slid a folder down the table to each of us. “Whitman Auction Services has already signed the contract, so you’ll find an addendum in yours, Mr. Whitman.”
Pierce flipped his folder open, scanned the paper inside. Scowled.
“You’ve added a Nuisance Clause?” His snooty British accent ratcheted up a notch.
I opened my own folder, rubbing a hand against the back of my neck. Sure enough.
At no time will any job applicant harass, interfere with, hamper and/or plagiarize the efforts of another job applicant. Evidence of this behavior will result in immediate dismissal.
“I prefer to call it my Sandbox Rule,” the Colonel said. “Basically, you all will play nice in my sandbox. Keep your hands and feet to yourself, and no stealing others’ toys.”
“This is patently ridiculous.” Pierce grunted in disgust. “We’re all adults here—”
“The jury is still out on that one, son.”
“—so there’s no need to treat us like children.”
“Then don’t act like one, and I won’t have to,” the Colonel said.
I kept my mouth shut, suppressing a grin. Pierce was doing an admirable job of digging his own grave.
“I’m not a babysitter, and I’ve got no patience for anyone who makes trouble,” the Colonel continued. “Any employee of mine will act professionally at all times.”
“Seems only fair.” Claire leveled a laser-eye look at Pierce. “I, for one, want to be hired on my own merits and abilities, not because I cheated my way to the top.”
Claire had one of those silky female voices—urbane and smooth—but threaded with the faintest tang of New England.
I liked it a lot more than I should.
Everyone in the industry had been surprised when Claire became involved with Pierce Whitman. Pierce with his hang-dog, nerdy vibe and Claire with her tall, elegant . . . presence. I remember seeing a photo of them together. Her in high heels, towering a good four inches over him. A supermodel with her accountant boyfriend.
“I assume you are going to tell us about the object we are here to assess?” Pierce asked as we signed the documents. Again, the kid at the front of the class who thought he was so astute but was mostly an annoying kiss-up.
I sat back. Still keeping my mouth shut. I crossed an ankle over my knee, foot bouncing.
“How much do you know about the Battle of Cascina?” the Colonel asked, steepling his fingers.
A thrill chased my spine.
Given how fast Claire’s eyebrows went up, she had a similar reaction.
“The actual fourteenth century battle between Florence and Pisa?” Claire paused. “Or Michelangelo’s lost masterpiece?”
The Colonel’s tight smile said it all.
Madonna mia. Did the old man actually have a lost Michelangelo? My mind spun with possibilities.
The Colonel rolled his hand at Claire. Go on.
Eyes wide, she swallowed.
“I’ll have to do a little research about the actual battle itself, but early on in his career, Michelangelo was hired to paint a fresco of the Battle of Cascina on the western wall of the Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio. The much older Leonardo da Vinci was hired to paint another battle on the wall opposite. Both paintings were to be monumental in scope, around thirty feet long and twenty feet high. It’s also the only time the two Renaissance masters worked together on a project.”
“Wonderful!” The Colonel’s expression seemed nearly parental-proud.
Hmm, was someone already the teacher’s pet? And what did that mean for Branwell and I?
“According to history, Michelangelo never actually painted it,” Claire continued. “He did complete a full-scale cartoon which hung in situ in the Palazzo Vecchio for several years, but he never transferred the drawing from the cartoon to the wall. Of course, that didn’t stop other artists from making copies of it. The most notable copy is that of Sangallo, a student of Michelangelo’s—”
“Sangallo’s drawing is currently owned by the Earl of Leicester, I believe,” Pierce said, metaphorical hand up, jumping into the conversation.
Claire nodded. “The original cartoon was lost at some point after Sangallo made his copy. It’s unclear what happened to it exactly. Given its massive size and the fragile nature of fresco cartoons—”
I snorted. That was an understatement.
Or maybe I just didn’t like being left out of the conversation either.
Every eye turned toward me.
“Sorry. Just agreeing with Claire.” I folded my arms feeling my suitcoat pull through my shoulders. “In Italian, the original word is cartone, a mix of carta meaning paper and the suffix -one, which means big.” I pronounced -one, sounding out each letter, as Italian is wont to do—OWN-ay. “So a Renaissance cartoon was just a big paper. Or rather, scores of smaller pieces of paper taped together with a flour and water paste to make an enormous sheet the size of a modern billboard. Not exactly the most stable medium. I can’t imagine any significant portion of Michelangelo’s original drawing surviving.”
Claire shot me an annoyed are-you-done-stealing-my-thunder look.
Got the memo. Clearly not a fan.
The next month promised to be a dog-eat-dog free-for-all between Claire, Pierce and myself. Sandbox Rule or no.
“Let me show you kids what I got.”
The Colonel motioned to Natalia, who pulled several large photographs out of another folder and passed them down the table. I leaned forward and snagged one.
It was a photograph of a drawing of Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina.
I stared at the image and whistled, pulse thumping.
How do you represent a medieval battle?
Michelangelo’s chose to draw the very beginning. The battle occurred on a hot day in July and, according to legend, many of the Florentine mercenaries had been swimming in the River Arno when the horns called them to arms. Michelangelo captured that panicked moment when the naked men scrambled ashore, some struggling to get dressed, while others engaged Pisan forces in the background.
It was a brilliant tour de force allowing Michelangelo to showcase his understanding of anatomy with the twisting, turning naked figures. The composition pulsed with energy and movement.
“So this is . . .?” Pierce’s voice trailed off.
“Not the original cartoon, I imagine. What are its dimensions?” That was Claire.
I set my photo down on the table. Propped my foot over my knee again.
“The drawing is a single sheet measuring approximately three feet wide by two feet high—”
“Way too small. The original cartoon would have been ten times that size,” Claire murmured, head down.
The Colonel nodded.
Pierce pulled out a jewelers loupe and studied his photo. “The detail is amazing, even in the photograph.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Claire didn’t look up.
Pierce
. “Is this another unknown copy?”
Claire. “Or an original Michelangelo sketch?”
“We’ll need to compare it against Sangallo’s drawing—”
“That means contacting the conservator at Holkham Hall in Norfolk.”
“Do we still have contacts up there?”
“Probably.”
“Uh-mmm.” Pierce adjusted the loupe.
I raised an eyebrow, catching the Colonel’s gaze. Both of us surprised by the sudden harmony in the Land of Pierce and Claire.
Did they even realize they had slid into an easy, working relationship?
“I’m sure they could email us some scans for comparison,” Claire said.
“Exactly.” Pierce nodded. “I’ll call and get Heather right on it.”
He might as well have doused Claire with cold water.
Her head snapped up so hard I winced.
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
Pierce lost his nerdy facade for a brief moment. An ugly smile tugged at his lips.
That last comment of his had been deliberate. I tamped down a sudden urge to rearrange his smile with my fist. What an absolute douchebag.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Claire Raythorn. But no one deserved what Pierce had done to her.
A bright flush crept across Claire’s cheeks, and she sucked in her bottom lip, nostrils flaring. Cracks appeared in her composure.
Within her eyes, I caught a glimpse of something so broken, so alone . . . jagged fragments of soul . . .
My heart gave an unwanted lurch.
The Colonel stepped into the tense moment.
“I’ve already contacted Lord Leicester’s estate, and I have an excellent copy of Sangallo’s drawing on hand. There is no need to involve any of your staff.” He shot a quelling look at Pierce.
Claire cleared her throat. “A mass spectrometry analysis would tell us quite a bit, particularly age. We would only need a tiny amount of material from the edge of document. Is that agreeable to you, Colonel?”
“Of course. As long as you don’t damage the sketch. I want to know what I have in my possession.”
I nodded my head. Assuming nothing was amiss with Branwell or myself, it shouldn’t be too hard to get to the bottom of the mysterious drawing. Our abilities being what they were.
Pierce started in about sample collection and scheduling. Apparently he wanted first crack at the drawing. No surprise there.