Page 22 of Vienna Bargain

“I hope she made you pay a fair price.”

“She was 11, and I’ve gone up against teams of corporate lawyers and consultants who were less skilled negotiators. I paid her two thousand that day, and put ten into a trust which she can access for school.”

“Where is she now?” Alena asked softly.

“I’m not sure. My solicitor in Chisinau oversees the trust.”

Silence fell, and Alena wondered if he kept a count in his head, an hourly allocation of words and once he hit the limit he couldn’t speak again until the hour was up.

That thought made her smile. “The mental image of you being fleeced by an eleven-year-old girl is one I will treasure.”

Alexander harrumphed, but he was smiling.

“You bought everything in here on your own?” She made sure the question, and her posture, were both casual.

“Yes.”

“So what does your curator think about them?”

“He asked me if I wanted them insured.”

Don’t react. “Rather mercenary, for an art curator.”

Alexander shrugged. “He does his job.”

“I took several art history classes in college.” That much, at least, was not a lie, though it wasn’t the fullness of the truth either. “I loved the idea of going out and buying art I liked, creating exhibits based on emotions. A gallery filled with paintings and sculptures I thought represented true love.” She’d said more than she meant to and she had to stop herself and carefully compose her next words. “I was very disappointed when I realized museum curators didn’t get to travel the world buying art.”

Alexander was silent for long enough that she was mentally rephrasing her statement so she could repeat it, hoping she could prod him to say something.

“Museum curators don’t. My curator does.”

Alena held very still so she wouldn’t shatter this pivotal moment. “He buys paintings from new artists?”

“Sometimes. Mostly known pieces. Rembrandts, a Van Gogh, da Vinci. They’re investments.”

“You own a da Vinci?” No amount of self-control in the world could have kept the shock out of her voice.

Alexander grimaced. “I don’t like to think about how much I paid for that one. It’s in a museum, of course.”

The most expensive painting ever sold was an oil painting of Christ attributed to da Vinci. It had been heavily damaged and restored, was thought to be a copy of a lost original…

And the sucker sold for 450 million dollars to an anonymous buyer.

She stared at Alexander. She was about to ask—actually she wanted to grab him and demand to know if he’d purchased Salvator Mundi—but changed her mind. That would reveal more about her than was safe.

“In college,” Alexander said softly. “You studied art history.”

“Among other things,” she said slowly.

“Where?”

“Where what?”

He frowned. “Where did you go to college?”

“Does it matter?”

“My people said Magdalena Moreau never went to college.”

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