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Ronan took their bags into another room while Julia looked up at the soaring ceilings, intricate frescos painted between deep moldings that separated the ceiling into four differentpanels.
The sunlight making its way into the room from the big windows cast the pale aqua walls in a soft light, making them shimmer like the shallow waters of theCaribbean.
She peered around the heavy linen draperies to the Arno river, snaking its way through the city just a few hundred feet from the apartment, and reached for the brass fitting on the big multi-paned window. It opened outward and a breeze caressed her shoulders on its way into theroom.
“Will itdo?”
She turned to find Ronan looking at her with an expression she couldn’t define. “This belongs toMIS?”
“Technically, it belongs to me,” Ronan said. “But it’s really Nick’sdoing.”
“Nick?”
She and Ronan had flown alone on the company jet to get settled in Florence while Nick and Declan wrapped up things at home and the office. After they took Chief to stay with a friend of Ronan’s from the Navy, they would join Ronan and Julia in Florence — along with Clay — to start planning a way into Manifest’s nextparty.
“I let him manage my money,” Ronan said. “I don’t have the patience for it — or theinterest.”
“And he bought this place for you?” She was still getting her head around the scope of MIS’s business, both the work they did and the money they broughtin.
“He advised me to buyit.”
She tore her eyes from his, taking in the designer furnishings mixed with antiques that somehow looked both timeworn and fresh. She hadn’t seen the other rooms yet, but she had the sense that the apartment was large, that the rooms went on and on and that they were all decorated with as much beauty and care as this room. “It’sbeautiful.”
“Don’t give me credit for the design,” Ronan said. “I hired someone to do it. I don’t even know what some of the rooms looklike.”
She looked at him with surprise. “You don’t stay here veryoften?”
He shifted on his feet. “I’ve never stayed here. There are a lot of places I own that I’ve neverstayed.”
She caught the scent of oranges on the breeze that blew in from the open widow behind her. “Why?”
He shrugged. “When I travel for work, I’m usually in a hurry to gethome.”
There was no pity in his voice, but she understood then how lonely Ronan’s life had been. How he’d run from one job to another, keeping busy so he didn’t have to think too long about everything that was missing in hislife.
She understood because she recognized it in herself, the way she’d told herself her life was full when really she was just busy with things that didn’t matter because all the things that didn’t matter kept her from thinking about the things that did, the things she didn’thave.
The stuff she feared she’d neverhave.
She crossed the room, slid her hands up his chest, and pressed her body to his. “It will do. In fact, I may neverleave.”
“Promise?” There was humor in the way his mouth twitched, but his eyes shone with the light oftruth.
She kissed him, wanting to avoid talk of the future. Here especially, in this city where Elise would be brought for Manifest’s party, Julia didn’t want to think about anything but getting her sister backalive.
“What now?” she asked. “Want me to boot up the computers and see if there’s anything new fromhome?”
Clay was still working on the invite to the party — what it was, how it could be duplicated — along with trying to get information about the security system inside the villa. He was also crawling the TSA’s database for private charters that had filed flight plans into Florence around the date of the next party, hoping to catch unknown Manifest members in the spider’sweb.
In the meantime, Nick and Declan were spearheading deep background on all of the Whitmore Club members who had traveled to Florence on the dates of previousparties.
Ronan tightened his grip on her. “No work. Not yet. I want to take my woman to dinner inFlorence.”
She smiled up at him. “Is that what I am? Yourwoman?”
“Aren’t you?” His expression wasserious.
She kissed him again and stepped away, afraid of the words that bubbled up in herthroat.
