Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance (56 page)

“You still shaky from the flight?” Declan asked.

“No… I’m fine,” I replied uncertainly, trying to assess the situation further. But whatever had passed between them had evaporated like smoke. There was no trace of it.

“Then let me show you around!” he grinned. “You gotta get on the road,” he added to Jackson.

Jackson instantly stiffened. “I’m aware,” he said. His eyes flashed again as he stared Declan down. Then he came over to me, kissing my forehead while his hand slipped behind me and pulsed suggestively between my ass cheeks. I drew back, staring at him with my eyes wide.

“OK,” I choked. “Have fun, then, I guess.”

“Oh yeah, a blast,” he growled as he angled toward the door and was on his way.

I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself. Jackson’s brazen hint was so… unlike him. And sizzling hot, I had to admit.

“What was that all about?” I asked pointedly as Declan held his hand toward the opening to the next room.

“Oh, Anneka needs Jack for some paperwork. You know how he hates to sign his name. A fear of pens, or something, I don’t know,” he said dismissively, then jerked his head toward the room. “Come on, babe. Tour’s leaving.”

“Yeah OK,” I said, brushing aside my nosiness. I wanted more information but of course, if Declan knew that I would never get it anyway. Better to just bite my lip and wait for the day to unfold.

Inhaling deeply, I looked around the foyer, finally seeing it. Like everything else in the Netherlands, it looked somehow different than any house I had ever been in. The air felt different too: moist but not musty. Thick, as though saturated with plaster dust.

“This is gorgeous,” I said softly, walking toward the room Declan indicated. “This is… whoa.”

“Right?” he said, an eager sort of pride in his voice.

I walked into the long, high-ceilinged room with my mouth hanging open. Floorboards over a foot wide creaked beneath my feet and I gawked openly at the enormous chandelier over my head.

“This is… how old is this house?”

He drew himself up, his eyes twinkling. “Sixteen seventy.”

“What? No!” I breathed, following the perfectly papered walls through another set of open double doors. A grand piano was lit to blinding brilliance in the corner by a bank of stained glass windows. Every wall was panelled in some kind of deeply aged wood.

“Declan this is…”

“Magnificent,” he finished, nodding as he came up behind me. He looked around with pride, his hands hung on his hips as though he had built the place himself. “It’s one of a very few remaining in the whole country in this condition. I had to practically knock off the prior owners to get my hands on it.”

Wouldn’t put it past you, buddy,
 I said silently as I touched every surface with my fingers trembling. Years in museums had trained me not to touch things that were this obviously fine and rare. Some voracious beast in the pit of my soul wanted to lick the moulding, though, if I’m being honest.

I darted through another door to another small parlor, this one papered in a rich, hand-painted brocade. Gilded borders trimmed the upper parts of the tall walls, while panelled wainscoting in a buttery shade of yellow stretched along the bottom.

“I’ve never been in a three-hundred-fifty year-old house before,” I mused. “Boy, these people really knew how to live.”

“As do I,” Declan crowed.

I laughed, finding myself more and more eager to explore. “The staircase?” I inquired, gesturing down.

“Oh, yes, go! You’ll love it!”

Suppressing the urge to slide down the thick bannister like probably hundreds of derrieres before mine, I made my way to the lower level into a gorgeous, marble-tiled kitchen. Huge stainless steel appliances lined one wall, flanking a wide, arched fire-pit.

“Amazing,” I muttered.

“All restored where possible… Improved where prudent,” he intoned, sounding like the announcer on one of those luxury home tour shows. “Even the foundation was replaced. These canal homes require a certain amount of investment to keep them serviceable.”

“Oh sure,” I nodded. “A few hundred years of water probably does a number on the foundation.”

“But it’s fantastic for the property value. And now...” he said solemnly, his arm extended toward the glowing, glass-encased room adjoining the kitchen. “The second-best part.”

I stared at him in exaggerated awe and anticipation, then pattered over the marble slabs toward the enclosed conservatory. One of the few furnished rooms so far, it had sumptuous wicker garden furniture arranged for conversation among a half dozen lush, potted palms. Through the glass, I could see a wavy, distorted garden. I just had to see it.

I heard Declan’s appreciative noises as my fingers found the door handle and pushed open the conservatory door. A wave of humid, peaceful air surrounded me, perfumed by flowers.

“Oh my gosh,” I whispered, grinning madly. It was a perfect, pristine, precise garden. Set in terraces of carefully sculpted hedges, layers upon layers of room-like areas nested with a beautiful sculpture as the centerpiece of each. It was like a fairy tale.

“Now this is an artist’s garden,” he drawled. “Not like that mess at Giverny.”

“It really is,” I agreed breathlessly.

He winked at me, his cheeks flushed. “I just knew you would love it,” he nodded.

I nodded back, carefully saying nothing. Why did he care what I thought?

“It’s looks like every painting I ever saw,” I laughed, practically beside myself. Flowers bloomed in pots and along borders and draped over stone arches. I could have spent a week there.

“Well then let me show you the best part! Come on!” he exclaimed and I heard him turn. When I looked, I saw just the back of his shirt disappearing through the kitchen.

“Hey wait!” I laughed and ran after him. His enthusiasm was irresistible. How could someone not be excited about all this beauty?

Going just as fast as I dared on my weary wedge heels, I jogged through the kitchen and up the stairs, then back through the ground floor parlours. I heard him on the steps and ran to the foyer and up the front stairs, pausing at the landing of what looked like living quarters. But still I heard his steps above my head and ran down the hall to another stairway that climbed for a while, becoming steeper as it went. When I finally made it through the short, rustic door, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

White plaster walls stretched to the peaked ceiling, crossed and crossed again by aged timber beams. A fire crackled merrily in the center of the big wall behind an enormous spinning wheel that looked like it belonged in the Smithsonian.

“Come here!” he called from a far window. “Look!”

I spun in place, trying to absorb the entire room at once. This was the original “artist’s studio” from all the Dutch masterpieces I had ever seen. A private, rustic apartment in an attic. Even the softly filtered light from high, north-facing windows was perfect.

I jogged toward the small side room where he stood facing the windows. As I entered, I stepped past a few tall stacked crates and tried to see what he was seeing.

“Look, there,” he said. “What do you think?”

I peered over his shoulder into the garden we had just been in, far below. From this vantage point, the design of the garden made perfect sense. It was a set of interlocking geometric shapes, perfectly balanced and harmonious.

“It’s beautiful!” I agreed. “Thank you for showing it to me.”

“Well, not just that,” he persisted, walking out into the room with his hands out and making a wide, sweeping gesture.

“OK,” I said, not really getting the point but trying to follow him.

“All of this,” he said, leading me to the center of the room. I mimicked him, turning slowly and seeing it all again in more detail: the antique trestle tables, the inset shelves, the beautiful windows, and the crates and crates of…

“Declan, what is this?”

“This is yours,” he whispered dramatically, his eyes wide like he was letting me in on a triumphant secret.

“This is my what?”

He shrugged as though irritated by my slowness. “Your studio, Margot.”

I glanced again at the crates. Those were my crates, from home, now here in Amsterdam.

“OK, let’s pretend for just a second that I am like, really, really stupid…”

He quirked an eyebrow at me.

“Explain it to me like I’m five. What is going on here?”

He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Are you saying you don’t like it?”

My head started to feel overfilled and wobbly.

“There is no way in the world I could say I didn’t like it.”

“Well, then,” he grinned.

“Yeah OK… I’m going to need a little more information than that.”

“Oh, Margot,” he sighed irritably, “it’s a studio. Probably the best you’ve ever had. In fact, say the word and I will make it the best
anyone’s
 ever had.”

“This is…” I started, barely daring to even say it, “this is for me?”

“Pretty sure I just said that.”

OK, why does a conversation with this guy always feel like a wrestling match?

“Oh, my god.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

I pointed to the far wall. “So that really is my materials in those crates?”

He nodded. “And then some. Everything you could possibly need. I can have an assistant here in the morning. Actually, I can have
four
, and you can fire three just to get started.”

“No, that’s OK--”

“All right, you can fire all four,” he joked.

I swayed in place, feeling very high up and unstable like the floor was suspended on cables and moving from side to side under my feet.

“I really… I mean… I don’t want an assistant,” I stammered. “This is… oh my god wow.”

“You said that already.”

I looked around, hoping that taking another tour of the space would give me  a few minutes to clear my head. I felt like I couldn’t really understand what was going on, though the simple facts were plain: Declan just bought me a museum to live in, to work in.

Wait, did Jackson know about this?

Was this what they were silently bickering over?
 I wondered as I touched the spinning wheel lightly with my fingertips. The slight touch sent the machine into quiet, efficient life.

Jackson knew, I felt sure as I stared into the motion of the machine. This was a test, or some kind of competition between them. This was some kind of ongoing conversation, and I had just been blind to it all.

Hadn’t it always been this way?

I stretched back to the first days I knew them, then to the
very first
 day I knew them. Right there on the jet, I should have known it then. Declan had said if I couldn’t make a decision, then they would decide for me.

It had always been there, and I just didn’t see it. It was a contest, and I was the prize. I was the diamond M pendant Jackson had given me on that night at the gallery show, suspended between two lengths of a fine golden chain. I was being pulled from both sides, and someone was going to win.

It seemed preposterous. Me? Little old me? Did they realize what a ramshackle, feeble prize they were getting? I was at the bottom of a Crackerjack box.
And, oh god, Bridget was right. I’m a toy.

The question was: which one treated their toys better?

Oh shut the hell up,
 my imaginary Bridget advised me, smoking an imaginary cigarette that I had to admit smelled absolutely fucking delicious.
You’re being very dramatic.

I straightened up and flexed my shoulders, trying to stretch into a dignified posture. Then I left the hypnotizing wheel and continued my tour of the room. Declan was getting impatient, I could tell.

“It’s beautiful,” I said again, knowing I should say something.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Your furniture will be here by end of day. I’m sorry it wasn’t fully decked out when you arrived. It will be easier to visualize with the bed and wardrobes…”

“The bed?”

“Oh, yeah, gorgeous! Hand-carved in Portugal. There’s another for your other room on the second floor. You don’t have to live in a garret all the time of course.”

“Ha!” I bark-laughed. “This is hardly a garret, Declan.”

He grinned broadly.

“So does it have your approval then?”

I shrugged, turning around in the large, beautiful room. It was exactly the kind of studio I had always imagined as
 authentic
. And it didn’t have to be forever, right? I could say yes for a week, then fly back home.

“I guess I… Well how could I say no?”

He raised a clenched fist of triumph. “Yes!”

I chuckled at his eager, confident smile.

“So… there’s more furniture today? Can I open the crates while I wait?”

“Of course, you can do whatever you want,” he said grandly. “The delivery guys will be here for a while but I’ll ask them to assemble the pieces and get out of your way first before hitting the other rooms.”