“Exactly.”
“And then you opened this shop a few months ago?”
“Yeah…” I had nothing to do with it. Bones made the leap for me. He believed in me so much that he laid the foundation for my future for me. He got me a great gallery, a great apartment, and a car. He established the rest of my life, giving me the independence I’d always wanted.
Antonio seemed to catch my look of sadness because it mirrored my own. “Where were you before this?”
I decided to skip my time in the countryside with Bones. It didn’t seem like a story I could appropriately slip into the conversation. “I was actually going to university in Milan. I was studying fine art.”
“Did you graduate?”
“No…I dropped out.”
He grinned, like that impressed him. “You made the right decision. There was nothing more you needed to learn.”
It was a quite a compliment coming from someone like him, a man who’d made a living as an artist for over a decade. When I looked into his work, I saw his expert craftsmanship. He was brilliant with the paintbrush, constructing beauty from just his mind.
“There are techniques we all need to learn, but art isn’t something that can be taught. It’s something that you’re born with, something that you feel. Paying someone to teach their opinion on the matter isn’t the best way to spend your time. You should spend your time painting—only painting.”
“Yeah. I think I made the right decision.”
“Yes. You did.”
“What about you?” I asked. “How did it happen for you?” Now that the conversation was going, I didn’t feel so uncomfortable being this close to him. It seemed to feel natural. A relationship based on more than deep attraction and connection began to form.
“I’d always known I wanted to be a painter from a young age. I was a teenager when I got serious about it. By the time I was an adult, I’d sold a few paintings. Things fell into place then, and I never looked back. I started my own gallery when I was twenty, took out a loan from the bank, and once I found success, I kept going. It’s been a great ten years.”
“Wow…that’s amazing. Your family must be proud.”
“My mother always was. My father was angry about it for a long time. He’s a businessman, operating a few restaurants. He wanted me to get into business or finance, something steady. He never thought I wasn’t good enough to be an artist, but he didn’t think it was appropriate to pursue. But once I opened my third shop and proved my success, he finally came around.”
My parents would never act that way. Whatever I wanted to do, they would always be supportive. When Conway wanted to be a lingerie designer, they were supportive of that too. There was nothing we could do or say to make them disapprove of us. Then I remembered the one thing they could never accept…the one person they could never approve. It was the only instance when my parents didn’t give me what I wanted. It was too difficult for them to look past. “You proved him wrong a million times over…”
He nodded, still smiling. “Yeah, I did. And it felt good.” His collared shirt fit across his chest nicely, stretching over the muscles of his upper body. He was lean, but it was clear he was strong. I’d seen his sculpted arms before, and it seemed like everything else under his linen shirt was the same. “Can I ask you about the painting you bought from me?”
I had it hanging in my living room, a perfect picture of Tuscany. I could talk about artwork forever, so the question didn’t bother me. “Of course.”
“What made you love it so much? Don’t worry, my ego isn’t fishing for compliments. But, you know, one or two wouldn’t hurt.”
He made me smile against my will. Even a small chuckle escaped my chest. “I really loved the colors. It was painted in the morning, right?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“I grew up in Tuscany, spending my time at the winery with my parents and looking out my bedroom window to the vineyards beyond. Whether it’s sunrise or sunset, the place is so beautiful. It’s so simple. When I looked at your painting, my childhood flashed before my eyes. I’d painted a similar image many times, but your work spoke to my heart. I had to hang it in my living room. I had to see it every single day.”
His smile faded away, a softness in his eyes. “That’s quite a compliment.”
“You’re quite an artist.”
“Never realized how much until right now. It’s one thing to create something that someone loves, but it’s another to capture something that someone has experienced a hundred times…but it somehow makes them feel something new. That’s the purpose of art, to make people feel something when they look at it. That’s what I love about my work, and hearing you say all those things…makes me very happy.”