LITMIR.BIZ

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existence.”

      “You are ever a man of unfathomable depths.”

      Giovanni chuckled, inclining his head. “I am, it’s true. But then, that should be a perk of living a life as long as mine. You ought to have depths and secret scandalous paintings in your past, don’t you think?”

      “I wouldn’t know. My life primarily consists of long hours in the office.”

      “A waste of youth and virility in my opinion.”

      It was Alex’s turn to laugh. “Right. Because you did not spend your thirties deeply entrenched in building your fortune.”

      “It is a privilege of the elderly to see things in hindsight no one can see in the present, and attempt to educate the young with that hindsight.”

      “I imagine it’s the privilege of the young to ignore that advice?”

      “Perhaps. But in this, you will listen to me. I want that painting. It is my last Lost Mistress. My lost love.”

      Alex looked at the old man, the only father figure he’d ever truly possessed. Giovanni had been the one to instill in Alex a true sense of work ethic. Of pride. Giovanni had raised him and his siblings differently than their parents had. After their deaths he had taken them in, had given them so much more than a life of instability and neglect. He had taught them to take pride in their family name, to take nothing for granted.

      His son might have been a useless, debauched partyer, but Giovanni had more than made up for mistakes he made with him when he had assumed the job of raising his grandchildren.

      “And you intend to send me after it?”

      “Yes. I do. You spend too much time at work. Think of it as a boy’s adventure. A quest to retrieve a lost treasure.”

      Alex picked up the paperweight again. It hovered an inch or so off the desk before he set it back down with an indelicate click. “I should think of it as what it is. A business transaction. You have been very good to me. Without your influence in my life I would likely be completely derelict. Or worse, some sort of social climber working his way through champagne and sunless tanner in South Beach.”

      “Dear God, what a nightmarish prospect.”

      “Especially as, by extension, I would be doing it with your money.”

      “Your point is made. I am a steadying and magnificent influence.” The ghost of a smile that played across his grandfather’s ancient features pleased him. “I need you to retrieve the painting for me. It took all of my strength to put my socks on and come down here today. I can hardly track across the Mediterranean to Aceena to retrieve the painting myself.”

      “Aceena?” Alex asked, thinking of what little he knew about the small island. With its white sand beaches and jewel-bright water, it was famous the world over.

      “Yes, boy. Honestly, now I want a refund from that boarding school.”

      “I know where and what Aceena is, Nonno. But as far as I’m aware their primary attraction is alcohol and their chief import is university students on spring break.”

      “Yes. A hazardous side effect of beachfront property, I suppose. But also, it is where the D’Oro family has spent their banishment.”

      “On spring break?”

      “In an estate, I’m told. Though I fear Queen Lucia’s children have been on perpetual spring break ever since carving a swath of scandal through Europe. The queen lives there with her granddaughter. She was the rumored subject of the painting—” his grandfather paused “—and the last person to have it. So I’ve heard.”

      Alex wasn’t a fool, and he didn’t appreciate that the old man was playing him for one. Giovanni wouldn’t send him off to Aceena because of half-heard rumors. And he would know full well who the subject of that painting was, had it been in his possession.

      Leave it to Giovanni to have a portrait of a disgraced queen in his collection of lost treasures.

      “You seem to know a great deal about the royal family,” Alex said.

      “I have some ties to Isolo D’Oro. I...visited for a time. There are...fond memories for me there and I carry the history with me.”

      “Fascinating.”

      “You don’t have to be fascinated, Alessandro, you have to do my bidding.”

      Of course, if Giovanni asked, Alex had to comply. He owed him. Giovanni had raised Alex after the death of his parents. Had given him a job, instilled in him the work ethic that had made him so successful.

      Without Giovanni, Alex was nothing.

      And if his grandfather’s dream was to see his Lost Mistresses reunited, then Alex would be damned if he was the weak link in the chain.

      Enough suffering in his family was tied to his pigheadedness. He would not add this to the list.

      “As you wish,” Alex said.

      “You’re turning this into a clichéd movie, Alessandro.”

      “A quest for a hidden painting secreted away on an island by disgraced royals? I think we were already there.”

       CHAPTER TWO

      “THERE IS A man at the door, here to see Queen Lucia.”

      Princess Gabriella looked up from the book she was reading and frowned. She was in the library, perched on a velvet chair that she privately thought of as a tuffet, because it was overstuffed, with little buttons spaced evenly over the cushion, and it just looked like the word sounded.

      She hadn’t expected an interruption. Most of the household staff knew to leave her be when she was in the library.

      She pulled her glasses off and rubbed her eyes, untucking her legs out from underneath her bottom and stretching them out in front of her. “I see. And why exactly does this man think he can show up unannounced and gain an audience with the queen?”

      She slipped her glasses back onto her face and planted her feet firmly on the ground, her hands resting on her knees as she waited for a response.

      “He is Alessandro Di Sione. An American businessman. And he says he is here to see about...to see about The Lost Love.”

      Gabriella shot to her feet, all of the blood rushing to her head. She pitched sideways, then steadied herself, waiting for the room to stop spinning.

      “Are you all right, ma’am?” asked the servant, Lani.

      “Fine,” Gabriella said, waving her hand. “The Lost Love? He’s looking for the painting?”

      “I don’t know anything about a painting, Princess.”

      “I do,” Gabriella said, wishing she had her journal on hand so she could leaf through it. “I know plenty about it. Except for whether or not it actually exists.”

      She had never outright asked her grandmother about it. The older woman was loving, but reserved, and the rumors about the painting were anything but. She could hardly imagine her grandmother engaging in the scandalous behavior required for The Lost Love to exist...and yet. And yet she had always wondered.

      “Forgive me, but it seems as though knowing whether or not something exists would be the most essential piece of information to have on it.”

      “Not in my world.”

      When it came to researching genealogical mysteries, Gabriella knew that the possibility of something was extremely important. It was the starting point. Sometimes, collecting information through legend was the key to discovering whether or not something was real. And often times, confirming the existence of something was the final step in the process, not the first.

      When

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