Page 42 of Chasing Caine
“Someone who figured they’d target a room that hadn’t been conserved yet. Maybe the wall paintings would be loose, damaged, easy to remove.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And even in that state, incredibly valuable. Maybe more so because of it. But once you finished your conservation work, some of the cracks would be repaired, it would be stabilized, and better adhered.”
“You seem to take this personally.” His voice was soft, not an accusation or a recrimination like his earlier comments. And worse yet, he was right. I’d come here to focus on him and me together, not to go running off after stolen antiquities.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the pigments?”
“Because we’re on vacation.”
I blew out a long breath and leaned my head against him.Just tell him the truth, Sam. You want to have it all. Him and your art crime investigations.But I couldn’t. The world didn’t work that way. If I wanted to join Elliot at the FBI, I’d have to leave Antonio. It wasn’t fair. “Just an insurance adjuster, right?”
“I don’t think you’rejustanything, bella.” He squeezed my waist. “Unless you includejustbrilliant orjustbeautiful or perhaps—”
My hand snaked out of my folded arms to smack his chest. Ridiculous. Although I loved how he always started with my brain. What man had ever did that? Who would have taken me to this museum and had intelligent discussions on the pieces and their history?
Only one. Vincenzo. But I couldn’t think about him anymore.
I was there with the man I wanted to be with. The one I’d flown half-way across the world to beg his forgiveness. And I was throwing all that away because I was angry I didn’t get to carry out an investigation I really had no right to follow?
“Excusa me?” said a woman on Antonio’s other side, well-freckled with auburn hair and porcelain skin. An obvious English-speaker attempting Italian. “Photo, per favore?”
“Certainly.” Antonio separated from me and the woman’s posture immediately relaxed, no doubt from hearing English. He took the offered phone, capturing a few pictures of the woman and her young daughter. The girl was older than my niece, maybe six or seven years old. Antonio knelt in front of her. “Are you enjoying the museum?”
She nodded, her red pigtails bouncing.
“What’s your favorite part so far?”
Her hand flung out toward the model of the city.
Antonio nodded. “Like a giant doll house, sì?”
“I don’t have any dolls small enough.”
“Have you been to the real Pompeii yet?” He wanted kids. I knew that. But seeing him interact with the little girl—the way her eyes fixed on him like she was instinctively comfortable around him—made my breath catch in my throat. What kind of father would he be? He was so emotional. Would he be patient or quick to anger? Tender?
The mother put a hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “That’s tomorrow.”
Antonio stood and returned the phone. “Be sure to take her to the small theater. Sit her up high in the stands, then walk down to the stage so she can hear you speaking clearly. No need to yell. The acoustics are remarkable and she’ll be amazed.”
The woman nodded, smiling. “Thank you so much.”
She ushered her daughter away, who waved over her shoulder as they left to view the frescoes in the next room.
After he returned the wave, I slid my hand into his.
I chewed on my bottom lip and scrubbed across my face with my free hand. Family was important to him. But Nathan had concerns about his family. So did Carabiniere De Rosa. Even Antonio hadn’t seemed sure.
“Honesty and trust, Antonio,” I said, echoing the most significant words I’d said to him back home. “Why did you think your family would be implicated in the Chagall fraud?”
His thumb stroked absently along the side of my held hand. “Strange turn of subject, bella.”
“Within the last two and a half weeks, you’ve been present at an auction where a stolen painting was recovered, were involved with a million-dollar fraudulent painting, and now these two thefts and your missing equipment.” My gaze fell away from him. I was stepping over a line, but I had to know. There were too many coincidences. I’d had more art crimes to investigate over the last month than I had since abandoning the FBI Art Crimes team.
But after talking to the officer… were his implications the reason why Antonio didn’t want me to dig deeper? Was there something behind them?
His head pulled back slightly. “You’re not accusing me, surely?”