Page 32 of Enduring Caine

“Awesome. I guess I’ll go sit in my room like a good little girl. Maybe stare out my tower window and sing to the birds.”

I released her hand and cupped her jaw. “I’ll see you at—”

Gravel crunched underfoot behind me, and Giovanni arrived next to us. “Samantha, I was going to take Antonio to the game room and show him some floor plans I want his input on. It won’t be particularly interesting, but if you’d like to join us, you’re welcome.”

“Floor plans?” She produced her professional smile for him and snaked her arm around the crook of my elbow. “With the Ferraro men? There’s nothing I’d enjoy more.”

Chapter 15

Antonio

Weallstoodarounda carom table—Samantha, Zio Giovanni, Cristian, the horrific Leonardo, and the German bodyguard Johann—with large sheets of vellum paper covering the table. Two copies of the floor plan, along with plumbing, electrical, and a project plan. The company he’d contracted had done an excellent job.

While my profession in America and the training I received from my father was in art conservation, my schooling focused on architecture and then on architectural restoration. Reviewing the blueprints for a conservation studio combined two of my passions.

“You’re missing a meeting room,” I said.

Giovanni frowned at the sheet in front of us. “To meet with whom? The workers can just talk to each other—it’s a large, open space.”

“To meet with clients.”

“I can do that here.” Gio shook his head as though it were an obvious answer to a silly question. He was too accustomed to the way he’d been doing things with his less than legal pursuits.

“No, when you’re working with clients, they’ll expect to meet with you in your office. It’s the professional way to do it.”

My uncle leaned his hands on the table and stared at the plan. Cristian pulled closer to Samantha, looking at the sheet in front of her. Leo and Johann drifted off to the darts board. As much as Leo attempted to seem like he was crucial to Gio’s operation, he remained a bodyguard in the end. Even if he was the head of security, he’d looked bored the entire time.

It may have been a step too far, but I appealed to Gio’s past. At least, to the past I was told he had. “Do you remember when you worked for the International Monetary Fund? You would have had a space to do your work and if you had meetings, there was separate room for that, sì?”

He hesitated but nodded. “There was.”

“Similar to that, you’ll need an office manager who schedules the pieces that will come in, discusses price and handles contracts—”

Samantha added, “That’s what Sofia does in Brenton. I deal almost exclusively with her.”

Giovanni finally looked up. “You work with the family company?”

Samantha’s eyes flicked to me in question. I nodded, and she continued. “Sometimes I handle artwork claims for the insurance company. Ferraro’s is the first place we go for everything like that.”

I smiled at her, remembering the first time she’d come into my office. It was only two days after we’d made a toast to go out if we saw each other again within a month. “That’s how we met. She had a ruined Chagall.”

She smiled back, giving me the slow blink again. TheI love youblink, which likely held a hint ofIt wasn’t a real Chagall, but we probably shouldn’t say that around Giovanni. “I also suspect the storage area is too small. This studio is larger than the Brenton office, but the storage is a hair smaller.”

I’d only shown her the storage room once, but it shouldn’t have surprised me she’d know its exact dimensions. “Excellent point.”

A dart hit the board at the end of the room, and Leonardo said, “You seem to know a lot for someone who only deals with the office manager.”

Samantha turned to look at him, and she lifted one hand to drag it over her mouth. There was a battle raging inside her, one that demanded she snap back at him, but she held her tongue.

“Samantha’s worked for insurance companies around the country, which included claims for large galleries that have their own conservators,” I said. How much of that was true? I didn’t know, but she didn’t contradict me, and it would keep Leo’s accusations at bay. “I also took her to the research lab in Pompeii a few times, which operates differently. So she has a great deal of experience.”

Leo frowned and threw another dart. Why was he so focused on her? Cristian had asked me several times late last summer, when she was visiting, whether or not she was with the authorities. Had he shared those concerns with Leonardo? Had Leo been the one to search out information on her in the first place?

A door by the dart board opened, and Henri appeared. “Dinner will be served soon.”

Cristian nodded, waving a hand at the chef.

Henri approached the table, leaning over to look at the plans. “Making changes?”