“I am one of the few who can confirm its 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.