“And this is why...” she breathed. “This is why we search for the truth. There’s nothing... There is nothing filthy about this. Nothing wrong with it.”
“I’m inclined to agree. But then, I am a fan of the female form.”
She turned to look at Alex. “I only mean that the media made it sound as though revealing this photo would be detrimental to my grandmother’s reputation. Certainly...” She looked back at the painting. “Certainly, it suggests that she was intimate with the painter. It is not a standard sort of portrait that one might sit for. And someone in her position was hardly ever going to pose nude. Plus... There’s something... There’s something more here than you see in a portrait that simply contains a model. The painter was not detached from the subject. I can feel it in every brushstroke. There’s so much passion.”
Her fingers reached out to the corner of the painting, where the artist’s initials, B.A., were faintly painted.
“Or,” Alex said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, “he was a very good painter.”
“It was more than that, Alex.”
“It makes no difference to me. My job is simply to bring the painting to my grandfather.”
Gabriella frowned. “Why does your grandfather have more of a claim to this than my grandmother? It’s her in the painting.”
“Yes, it is. But my grandfather owned this painting at one time. He will be willing to pay whatever price is fair. It was not your grandmother’s dying request, but it is his.”
“We will bring it back to Aceena. She wants to see it. At least give her that.”
“I can’t be away from work indefinitely, Princess,” he said.
She looked at him, unable to make out the finer points of his expression behind the mask. “Please. Let’s bring it back to her.”
He regarded her closely for a moment. Then he nodded slowly, moving over to where the painting was, extending his hand and brushing his thumb along the edge of the canvas. “It is very beautiful. In fact,” he said, looking away from the painting and back at Gabriella. “It reminds me a bit of you.”
Her face heated. “I don’t look anything like that.”
“You certainly do. Beautiful. Lush.”
“I don’t.”
“This painting is not the view of the subject. It’s the vision of her admirer,” he said, his dark eyes locked on to hers. “For that reason, I would say that I’m in a much better position to evaluate it than you.”
“You’re not my lover,” she said, the word sweet and thick like honey on her tongue.
“No,” he said, his tone taking on a wistful quality. “I’m not.”
“How are we going to get this back to our room?”
“Very quickly,” he said.
He took the portrait out, covered it with the burlap again and quickly closed the original painting.
She moved forward and pressed her necklace deeply into the notch again to lock it just as before.
“If he truly had no idea this painting was here, he will have no reason to believe it isn’t mine,” Alex said. “Of course, carrying a rather large canvas through the house may arouse suspicion. I doubt I could convince him I was simply taking the painting out for a walk.”
“Then we had better hurry,” Gabriella said. “Everyone else is still occupied in the ballroom.”
“And thank God for Prime Minister Colletti’s devotion to having a good time.”
They walked to the double doors that led back to the corridor. Alex opened the first one slightly, peering out into the hall to see if anyone was there. “It looks clear,” he said.
She nodded, and they both slipped through the outside, closing the gallery door tightly shut behind.
It was ridiculous. Alex was wearing a suit that was rather disheveled, they were both masked and now Alex was also carrying a piece of art.
If anyone saw them, they would likely imagine they had simply had too much to drink.
They walked down the hall quickly, then they rounded to the left and froze. Up against the wall was another couple engaged in the very thing Alex had wanted the rest of the party to believe they were engaged in. The man had the woman pressed tightly against the wall, her hands held over her head while he kissed her again, his other hand roaming over her curves.
A flash of heat wound itself around Gabriella, her entire body ready to go up in flames at the sight of it.
What would it be like to have Alex unleash his passion on her like that? To have him press her up against the wall. To have him touch her like that.
The scene before them highlighted just how circumspect he had been.
For some reason, she was disappointed.
“Quietly,” Alex whispered as the two of them continued behind the amorous couple. The woman’s eyes were closed, the man’s back to them, and they were able to walk along behind them without detection. They hurried through the halls, the rest of which they found empty. Not stopping until they reached their rooms.
“Excellent,” Alex said, closing the door tightly behind them. “I will pack this away, and if anyone looks through my suitcase I will say that I acquired it elsewhere during our travels. There is no reason for them to think otherwise.”
Gabriella shook her head, laughing—a husky sound. “I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be involved in an art heist.”
“Does it not belong to your family, Gabriella?”
“I feel it does,” she said.
“Then it’s hardly a heist.”
“Still. I’ve done quite a lot today that I never imagined I would.”
Dancing with him. Kissing him. Being called beautiful. Now it was ending. This was the end of it all. She didn’t care about stealing the painting. She cared about the mission being over.
“I have to say the same, Gabby, and I did not think that was possible.”
She wasn’t even irritated this time when he called her Gabby. No one else called her that. It was a name that only came from Alex. And she decided that there was something she quite liked about that. Whether it was because it kept this entire event separate from her real life, or because it made all of this feel special.
She was desperate to feel like it was special to him.
“I’m glad you found it diverting.”
He laughed. “Oh, I found it more than that.”
He took his mask off then, reached up and loosened his black tie. There was something about that look. That rakish, disheveled look that made her heart beat faster. That made her limbs feel weak. That made her stomach tighten.
Of course, it was the same when he was perfectly pressed, the same when he had a mask over his face. It was the same no matter what.
“We will leave tomorrow,” he said.
“What reason will we give?”
“I will tell him that urgent business has come up in the States. I think I have done enough to secure a deal with the prime minister, and I managed to get what I came for. All in all, quite a successful trip.”
Gabriella couldn’t help but laugh. “Almost too successful. I keep expecting guards and hounds to descend upon us.”
“Nothing like that, I think. I’m not sure this painting