Page 27 of Casanova LLC

I paused. “I called her.”

He paused. “You called her?”

“Texted, actually. To get my paintings back.”

“To get your paintings back.”

“Yes! So I offered to barter?—”

“Eeh!” Again with the finger. “You offered?!”

“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”

His tone changed. He sounded wounded. “You offered. She did not ask, you offered?”

I held up a hand, slowing him down. “She didn’t know this is what I do, but once I told her, she…she wanted to barter. There’s a lot she wants that she doesn’t know how to ask for?—”

“Mamma mia,” he sighed, and turned away from me. I’d never heard him say Mamma mia. I didn’t even know it was possible to say unironically.

“The paintings don’t belong to her anymore,” I quickly explained. “She has to buy them back. She knew nothing of Craven’s deal. She was more of a victim than I was. I couldn’t let her pay and get nothing in return. It was the honorable thing to do.”

Jacopo looked at me in a way that I had never seen. As though he had stepped in front of an arrow aimed at me. “What?”

“You are doomed.”

That shocked a laugh out of me. “Jesus, come on.” He turned to go. “Jaco—don’t just leave. Where are you going?”

He didn’t bother to turn back. He lifted his hand, a halfhearted good-bye. “To find you a cat.”

Claire

Alessandro left the room and the tears came. Not great, heaving sobs. Just a release, like a steam valve.

You see: I was happy.

It had been so long.

Everything was magical and we hadn’t even begun.

He was thoughtful, attentive, attuned to every possible need. In truth, I’d never felt so…cared for.

Taken care of? Sure. Richard had been good at that. But I realized now that that wasn’t the same thing as caring.

I had learned a lot over the past six months.

I was prepared to learn more this weekend.

I took off the rest of my clothes and slipped into a plum-colored silk robe, wanting to feel the liquid material on my skin. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and drank it while I quickly unpacked. The tub now full, I turned the water off and dipped my foot in. He’d made the temperature perfect. I slipped out of the robe and into the water.

I laid back and closed my eyes. That scent. I picked up the small bottle on the tub’s rim, opened it, and inhaled. Magnolia? I looked at the label. Sweet almond oil with—yes—magnolia.

I used to have friends (well, a friend group of convenience; all of us married to men who did business together; men who had spent the last five months suing me, but regardless) who loved to talk about sex. One of them constantly extolled the virtues of sweet almond oil as a lubricant. I hadn’t paid any attention to her at the time, but now… Did Alessandro know about that as well? Is that why he’d left it there?

I dabbed a bit onto my finger and lifted my hips to the waterline. I gently applied it, left my finger there, and let my hips sink back down. It felt different, especially through the water. It felt good. I was relaxed. I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything, so…well, why not?

But then my mind rolled in, a boulder that blocked the road.

Did I even know what to do anymore? What would he do? What would he think of me down there? What did I expect from him? What assumptions had he made about me? And then I stopped. I remembered our glassless toast: “No assumptions, no expectations.”

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