Elusive as the Unicorn
Giovanni chuckled. “No. Nothing of the kind. I’m looking for The Lost Love.”
Alex frowned. “My art history is a little bit faint at my advanced age, but the name does sound familiar.”
“It should. What do you know about the disgraced royal family of Isolo D’Oro?”
“Had I known there would be a test, I would have studied before your arrival.”
“You were given a very expensive education at a very high-end boarding school. I would hate to think my money was wasted.”
Alex shifted, his hands still curled around the paperweight. “A school filled with teenage boys halfway across the world from their parents and very near a school filled entirely with teenage girls in the same situation. What is it you think we were studying?”
“This subject would have been related to your particular field of study. The Lost Love is a very scandalous piece of royal history. Though it was only a rumor. No one has ever seen it.”
“Except for you, I take it.”
“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 partier, 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. 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, 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.”