The Butterfly and the Violin (24 page)

It was a quiet, lovely spot.

He must have noticed the tranquility of the surroundings, because he too glanced around and smiled. “It’s nice. Not exactly what I’m used to in Manhattan,” he admitted, the smile turning into a welcoming grin.

“Good or bad?”

“No, good. Definitely good.”

She unfolded her napkin, then dropped it into her lap. “Been to New York much?”

“Yeah, a few times. But I rarely left the hotel except for meetings in stuffy offices.” He shrugged. “All business. No gallery stops or Little Italy with art dealers.”

“So what kind of business brought you here?” she asked, then immediately thought to backtrack. Not good to corner him into answering the question, though she was dying for an answer. “I don’t really know what it is that you do. For work, I mean.”

“I manage the family business in my father’s absence—I think that’s enough for right now. It’s all purchases and restructuring of companies. We buy real estate to invest, then sell off to make a profit. Let’s say it puts Paul in his leather jackets and keeps my mother as the top banana at her country club,” he said, then leaned back to allow the waitress to place water glasses in front of them. She set two small plates and a bread basket on the table with a quick smile, then left them alone again.

“You don’t sound enthused.”

He surprised her by nodding. “Maybe that’s because I’m not.”

“But I thought . . .” Sera couldn’t get that first picture of him out of her mind—the man who had entered the office in his California estate had been all bristle and brash. If he wasn’t happy with his place as head of the family business, he wore the mask well enough to hide it from her. She wondered if anyone else in the family knew.

“You thought I was a suit, and that’s it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

William shook his head. “No. It’s okay. Most people do. I know I come off as hard-nosed,” he said, making her knees shake when his blue eyes stared back at her. “But I don’t have a choice. I have to keep this business going mostly on my own, so that doesn’t leave me time for much else. Except for gardening, that is.”

Sera laughed, remembering how they first met. “All right,” she conceded, laughing in between bites of bread from the basket in front of her. “I admit it. It was an original way to meet a new client. But why the façade? Even with the painting. You were pretty guarded when you walked in the office that first day, but
it doesn’t seem to be who you really are. Is it deliberate, to appear more rigid than you really are?”

“No. I think I may have some . . . trust issues.” He grinned.

“Sounds familiar.” Sera smiled. “In business or in your personal life?”

William paused and tilted his chin to one side as if he’d figured something out. “Which William do you really want to know, Sera? The one who wants to get to know you, or the one you’re sure is only here for the painting?”

Though she’d averted her eyes from his, she knew he was watching her, waiting for a response. But how could she say it? How could she explain that she did want to know more about him, but that her heart was locked tighter than the front door of the gallery they’d left behind? And then, in a moment of sheer horror, she found herself blurting out the truth before she could stop it.

“I was engaged,” she spat out, the words feeling like fire in their effort to fly off her tongue. “Two years ago. He left me at the altar.”

And that should do it. He knows the whole story and that I’m still
not over it. He’ll see I’m damaged goods. That I’m not ready for this . . .
He’ll catch the next flight back to California where he belongs.

Sera picked up her handbag, even pushed back on her chair ever so slightly, fully expecting to flee when he ended the date right then and there. But if he was shocked, it didn’t show.

Instead, William reached across the table and, as gently as one might approach a skittish horse, took the purse from her hand. He placed it on the other side of the table and, with a loud scrape of his chair against the concrete, nudged his up closer to her.

Sera’s gaze was redirected to her lap. The humiliation was too great to look him in the eye. Here he was, a gorgeous man with everything going for him, and he was playing nursemaid to an emotionally frazzled art historian who hadn’t anything but a small apartment and a broken heart as her list of notable
possessions. She was sure he could have any woman who caught his eye. So why was he being so nice to her?

“William, I like you but—” She couldn’t continue, afraid that the emotion welling up would humiliate her further by generating waterworks from her eyes. But she felt the surprising warmth of his hand even before she could get her next words out. His thumb brushed the inside of her palm, then his fingers wrapped around the side of the hand she’d dropped in her lap.

“What a relief.” His voice was soft, whispered even, and almost carried out on the breeze around them. He leaned in closer as the trees rustled overhead. “I had the most terrible feeling that this whole thing might have been one-sided.”

“But after what I’ve just said, how can you be sure you even want to—”

“I’m a businessman, Sera. I’m used to contracts and paperwork. But I assure you that no one is asking you to sign anything here. We’re just two people getting to know each other.” He took his thumb and nudged her chin up, until they were once again staring eye to eye. “Talk to me.”

Sera had tripped over her words enough in front of him. She’d meant that there was already a combustible situation to contend with. Who knew what would happen with the painting and the inheritance?

Was it smart to get involved?

“Sera, we’re both looking for the owner of this painting. And since you showed up on my doorstep, we’re joined by this mystery of Adele and Vladimir. I understand that there’s a lot riding on this. You don’t need to tell me that my family has skin in the game here to the tune of everything we own.” His hand reached up to calm a long lock of her hair that had danced out on a soft breeze. He tucked it back against the side of her face. Her cheekbone tingled with the touch. “What I’m trying to say is, I want to talk—to
you
.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I flew here all the way from California to do so.”

Sera nodded softly.

So she’d guessed right. Work was work, but he was in New York to see her. “But what if it doesn’t work out? I can’t lead you to the painting only to find that you’re serving its owner with a court summons at the end of it all. I can’t bring myself to do it, no matter how much I want that painting.”

“You can’t trust me?”

There was no point in beating around the bush. She’d already laid her cards out on the table when she’d mentioned Michael. “I’m not sure I can.”

He seemed to be considering what she’d said, for he brought his hands behind his head and stretched out in his chair in a casual manner.

“So, what you’re saying is that I can ask you out again for roughly the price tag of a hundred million dollars?”

Sera closed her eyes on instinct, her heart sinking. That was how she’d said it, wasn’t it?

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I accept.” His interruption was easy. “Or I should say—I’m asking. If you agree to dinner with me tomorrow night, I won’t pursue legal action until I’ve spoken with you about it. We’ll find the painting together, and I promise to consult with you before any further steps are taken. Agreed?”

She looked up at him, eyes searching every corner of his face for any indication of manipulation. “So you’ll make me a full partner in this.”

“Yes. I’ll up your fee.”

“I don’t care about my fee,” she admitted, waving him off. “I probably shouldn’t mention it to a client, but for this painting, I’d pay you.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“So we decide what the next steps are, together.” She paused, then said, “And I have your word on that?”

William smiled, easily it seemed, and nodded. “You have my word, Sera.”

Sera smiled and for the first time in a long while felt a genuine release of a fear that had been walled up in her heart. A fragrance-laden breeze sailed in then, rustling the hair on his forehead. He leaned in and opened his hand palm up on the table, offering it to her.

She accepted it, lacing her fingers with the warmth of his.

“How long are you planning to stay in New York?”

“I don’t know, Sera. You tell me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

June 22, 1940

A
dele had traveled to Germany with her parents on multiple occasions. They’d gone on holiday several summers ago. She’d even played in Berlin a time or two. But this trip with the troupe of musicians from her college made her feel far more grown up. It was the first time she’d left her home behind and had toured without her parents’ watchful eyes glued to her.

She adored the new traveling suit her mother had bought for her. It was one of the only outfits that actually fit both of their tastes. Wearing the black-and-white hat with the bright red poppy and the tailored pin-striping down the length of the fabric, she felt fashionable and older than her eighteen years. Margie must have felt the same, for she’d also donned her best dress in a deep jade and a new black-feathered hat for their dinner in the city.

“Isn’t it exciting, Adele?” Margie’s usual bubbly enthusiasm couldn’t be contained. She glanced around like a child on Christmas morning, her eyes popping at the bustle and color of the city outside the car windows. “Look at him,” she whispered, playfully nudging Adele in the side when a rather dashing suited officer walked past their car. He tipped his hat to them in respectful greeting. “Wouldn’t your mother be happy if you met someone like him?”

Adele forced a smile at the sight of the German officer, likely on furlough for the weekend. He was handsome, to be sure, and tall and catching every woman’s eye as he crossed the street—except hers.

Margie sighed next to her. “In dreams, right, Adele?”

“No. My dreams are different.”

It was true.

She wanted nothing more than to walk across the street on Vladimir’s arm, but that dream had been snuffed out. The night he’d walked her home from the dance hall the previous September had been the last time she’d entertained the thought of actually having a future with him.

She recalled the horrified look on her mother’s face when she waltzed through the front door, feeling like she was dancing on air, though the world was in chaos around them. Vladimir Nicolai had been every bit the gentleman on their walk home, of course, but something stirred in her heart that his affections had indeed been turned toward her on that night.

Adele had twirled around the dark entryway, unaware that her mother watched from the second-story landing, ready to pounce on her hope of seeing more of the dashing cellist.

But it wasn’t to be.

Both her father and mother had taken it upon themselves to smother her from that moment on. She was escorted nearly everywhere. As her father was in active duty for the empire, her mother had taken the primary role in her surveillance. She’d been escorted by her mother or a carefully selected driver assigned to report everything back to the Von Brons personally. There was no way she could meet Vladimir at college, a dance hall, or anywhere in between without them hearing about it.

So they’d taken to meeting in secret, in their garden before performances, up until that summer at least. For some reason, he’d been avoiding her. He hadn’t shown up in their garden for
weeks, though she waited for him before each performance. The only time she’d seen him had been onstage, and even then he’d avoided making any eye contact with her.

She felt the sting of tears weighting her eyelashes and turned away, gazing out the window as the flash of city lights passed by.

“You’re thinking of him again.” Margie broke into her thoughts with the knowing comment. “Aren’t you?”

Startled from the memory, Adele raised a gloved hand and smoothed the curls beneath her hat. “Who?”

“Vladimir. You’re here in beautiful Munich, surrounded by nearly every handsome man in Germany, and all you can think about is that merchant’s son.”

Defensive at once, she scolded, “Don’t call him the merchant’s son!”

“I meant no offense, Adele. I merely thought to bring up the fact that you’re blind to anything or anyone outside of him, though I can’t think why.”

The merchant’s son? Adele hated that nearly everyone had taken to referring to him in such a manner, as if he couldn’t have any worth because of it. Her mother had labeled him so with a revolted sigh and an upturned lip, as if the very manner of his existence disgusted her. Her father, always distant and authoritarian, had forbade the mention of his name in their home, expecting that his every order was to be explicitly followed. And after Vladimir had severed association with her weeks before, Adele’s friends had jumped on the defense and no longer thought him to be quite as dashing as he’d once seemed. To them, he amounted to the number of coins in his pocket and nothing more.

“There is more to him than his station, or his father’s pile of money.”

Margie scoffed in a silly, flippant manner. “Or lack thereof?”