Page 7 of Casanova LLC

“Claire—”

She spun around, her eyes firing. “I gotta hand it to you, I have spent the last five months making a lot of deals and I can unequivocally tell you, Mr. Vianello, you missed your true calling. You would have made a helluva financial fraud attorney.” She stabbed a finger into her chest. “But this stone? There’s no more blood to be squeezed?—”

“I can see that.”

“Oh, can you?”

“Yes. In your eyes.”

“My eyes.”

“Yes, they’re soulless.” Her mouth dropped all the way open at that. “But I can change that.”

She shook a bewildered head and stormed over to the far corner of the balcony. I assessed her from behind. The baggy black pants were wind-whipped against her hips. Narrower than I remembered. I could see the outline of her shoulder blades under her white cashmere turtleneck.

She inhaled and turned back to me. “And how long would this take? For you to, you know, transform my soulless eyes with your doing of me?”

Undaunted, I held up a finger. “A pleasurable, professional, trained, expert doing of you.”

She crossed her arms. “Define professional.”

“It is my profession.”

In the silence, the sound of a drill came from inside. I don’t think she heard it, she was so locked into my eyes, understanding filling hers. “You’re a gigolo.”

“Gigolos are imitators. Substitute teachers who have read the books.” I crossed my arms, too. “I wrote them.”

She mumbled, on a laugh, “The arrogance is just—okay, again: how long until I graduate? With my soul diploma?”

“Three nights. I don’t work longer than that. Women get attached.”

“Of course. And where would we engage in this metamorphosis?” She gestured at the flagstone. “Do we just throw a blanket down on the floor or?—”

“Venice.”

She blinked. “Italy?”

“I have a home there. It’s my ancestral palazzo. Where the men of my family have studied women for two hundred twenty-five years.”

She stopped blinking. “Studied?”

“Learned.” I uncrossed my arms. “Become fully versed in all that is female and feminine pleasure.” I stepped toward her. “And how it gets entangled with the pleasure of a man.”

Now her eyes went wide. “And women pay you to untangle this?”

“Barter. In your case, for my paintings.”

She sighed, her ire replaced, once again, by weary resignation. “That’s right. You’re a painter. I forgot.” She slumped against the railing. Then regarded me from the upper corner of her eye, a suspicious cant. “This isn’t real.”

“Would you like to talk to some clients?”

“I absolutely would not.”

“You know many of them. They run in your set.”

“My old set. How did I not know about this?”

“Forgive me, but it seems there was a lot that went on that you didn’t know about.”

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