Page 77 of The Thief

Do you really have a choice?

No, I don’t. I’m way past that point. I’m too invested. Even if I broke things off with Antonio this very second, even if I never set eyes on him again, it’s too late.

I’ve done the thing I warned myself against.

I’ve fallen in love with Antonio Moretti.

Antonio clears his throat. “You’re giving me a very strange look, Lucia. If you’re starting to think that I’m some kind of hero, let me dispel that notion. I’ve found myself quite attached to the painting you left me as a replacement.”

He’s full of crap. The painting I bought at the antique market is fantastic, but it’s no Titian.

But I’m on the verge of tears, so I let the lie stand.

40

ANTONIO

We reach the storage facility. There’s nobody there apart from the proprietor, which is a nice touch I hadn’t asked for but appreciate, nonetheless. This is an emotional process for Lucia, and I want to give her all the privacy she needs.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” I ask outside the storage unit. “I don’t have to if you’d prefer to be alone.”

“That’s the last thing I want.”

The unit is packed so tight with her parents’ possessions that there’s no room to enter. I glance at Goran, and he and Omar move forward and start hauling out boxes.

“I don’t really know what’s in any of these,” Lucia confesses. “I just ran away from everything. Signora Zanotti arranged for their belongings to be packed up and stored.” She glances at a box labeled ‘Teresa clothes.’ “It looks like they did a good job.”

Once the boxes have been removed, the furniture comes into view. Lucia wanders through the unit, her expression pensive yet nostalgic. She runs her hands over a battered wooden table. “I love this table. Valentina and I did our homework on it every day after school while my mom painted.”

I like my dining table a lot. It’s beautiful teak wood, hard carved in Myanmar, and yet I take one look at Lucia’s expression and mentally toss it in the trash. If this is the table Lucia wants, this is the table we’ll have.

You’re getting ahead of yourself.

“She was a painter?”

She nods. “Yeah, she was pretty good. She could have probably earned a living at it if she’d wanted, but she didn’t want to force her creativity. She liked painting brightly colored flowers.”

I put two and two together. “Is the painting in my bedroom one of hers?”

“No, but I thought it was. I bought it because it reminded me of her work.” Her expression brightens up as she shifts a pair of armchairs aside and sees a stack of canvases behind them. “Ah, here are some of them.”

There are dozens of oil paintings, cheerful and sunny. Happy paintings, painted by a happy woman whose life was tragically cut short. Lucia lingers over them, her fingers tracing the brush strokes, her expression lost in the past. “I want these,” she announces finally. “I can’t make a decision about furniture today, but I definitely want to hang some of these paintings on the wall. Can we bring them back with us?”

I’m delighted by her request. Her contract at the Palazzo Ducale ends in a month or two, and even though there are only a few short weeks left until she’s done there, she still wants to hang paintings on her walls. Call me hopeful, but it seems like a really good sign.

“Of course,” I reply. “That’s why we’re here. We can bring them all if that’s what you want.”

“No, there’s a lot here. I’m going to pick my favorites.” She rifles through the artwork. “Antonio, look.” She shows me a painting of a bunch of purple and pink lilacs in a blue and white vase. “This hung in my bedroom all through my childhood,” she says, a note of wonder in her voice. “I’d forgotten all about it, but that’s why I was drawn to your vase. It reminded me of home.” She stands on tiptoe and kisses me. “Thank you for making me do this. And thank you for being here with me today.”

Coming with her to the storage facility is one of the easiest things I’ve done, but she’s looking at me with shining eyes, and I experience a moment of pure joy. I did this; I put this look on her face, and I would doanythingto keep it there forever.

Back at Lucia’s apartment, I ruthlessly rope Goran and Omar into helping us hang the paintings on the wall, and the work goes quickly with their help.

And with the transformation of the apartment, Lucia, too, is transformed. Her smile grows wider as each painting goes up, and when we’re done, she looks so delighted, so vibrant, that my heart feels like it’s going to burst.

She gives me a long hug. “Thank you,” she says again.

“It was nothing, tesoro.” Hanging a few paintings is nothing—I would burn the world down for her.

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