Even Gods

The Sala degli Specchi smelled of linseed oil and old plaster dust, a dry, mineral scent that coated the back of my throat. Above me, the vaulted ceiling was a chaotic garden of peeling azure and gold leaf, where Venus had lost an arm and Bacchus was missing an eye. I was forty-seven, perched on the third rung of a metal scaffolding tower, balancing a palette of mixed ochres on my knee. The summer air in the villa was thick and still, pressing against the high windows that looked out over the dark, glassy surface of Lake Como.

Hugo stood on the floor below, leaning against a pillar that had once been marble and was now just expensive rock. He wore a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle and dark hair. He didn’t look at the ceiling. He looked at me. His face was sharp, all angles and shadow, with eyes the color of wet slate that tracked the movement of my hand as I mixed a shade of sky. He held a tumbler of amber whiskey, his knuckles white around the glass, a habit he’d kept for three weeks. I knew he was watching the way my braid slipped over my shoulder. I let it slide further.

The trick, I had decided, was to be useful. Useful people are busy, and busy people do not have time to notice the way a man rolls his sleeves when he thinks the room has stopped watching.