Chapter 38: Twisted Lies: Chapter 38

Italy was as incredible as I’d imagined. The food, the beauty, the culture…everything lived up to my expectations and more.

Granted, part of that had to do with Christian getting us VIP access everywhere so we could avoid the crowds and explore at our leisure, but it wasn’t just that. There was something magical in the air that melted my stress and turned my worries into distant memories.

Unlike Hawaii, which had a work element despite the dreamy second half of the trip, Italy was pure escapism.

I took videos and photos, but they were for memories more than for social media.

I couldn’t share that I was currently in Italy, anyway, so I’d been posting old photos.

Other than that, there was no work, no cameras, just us.

In Italy, I wasn’t a brand ambassador or a content creator chasing the perfect photo. I was just a girl on vacation with her boyfriend.

It was liberating…

said boyfriend wasn’t being a jerk about my driving skills.

“It’s a Vespa. How hard can it be?” I planted my hands on my hips and leveled Christian with an insulted glare.

“I’m not saying it’s hard. I’m saying there are a lot of pedestrians you can run over in the city.” His mouth twitched at my gasp.

“I am going to run over anyone. I have zero vehicular deaths on my watch, thank you very much.”

“What about near deaths?”

I didn’t dignify that with a response.

It was our first full day in Rome and our second week in Italy. We’d flown into Milan, made our way down to Florence, and arrived in Rome yesterday evening.

We had a full day of activities ahead of us, and I’d insisted on using Vespas to get around.

It might be cliche, but could one say they’ve visited Rome without riding a Vespa at least once?

Unfortunately, Christian and I had different opinions on how many we should rent. I thought it would be fun if we each had our own while he was convinced I would kill someone if left to my own devices.

Apparently, he wasn’t over the ATV incident in Hawaii. It hadn’t been my fault; I’d merely been rusty. I rarely needed to drive a car in D.C. when the Metro and buses were right there.

He sighed when he saw I wasn’t backing down.

“Let’s compromise. You let me teach you how to operate one, and if you pass the test, you can get your own.”

“What is this, the DMV?” I grumbled, but I agreed.

Secretly, I was glad he’d offered to teach me because I had no clue how to operate a Vespa. It couldn’t be that different from riding a bicycle, right? The only difference was it had an engine.

We’d rented our scooters from our hotel, and we stayed in the courtyard while Christian walked me through the proper procedure.

“Sit straighter and bend your elbows a little…a little more. Like this.” Christian adjusted my position until I sat properly on the Vespa. “Now find your balance by shifting your body to the left and the right.”

I followed his instructions until he declared me ready for the test.

“Don’t look so nervous,” I said as he tightened my helmet. “I’ll be . I’m literally driving around the courtyard.”

“Hmm.”

I did not appreciate the amount of skepticism imbued in that one noise.

I switched on the bike and sped off.

See? This wasn’t so bad. I was doing great. The cobblestones were a hard to navigate, but I could—

“Shit!”

I’d turned too late and sideswiped one of the giant flower pots bordering the hotel’s outdoor cafe.

I stuttered to a stop and cut off the engine while Christian came up beside me.

We stared at the giant crack in the terracotta urn. Luckily, it was so early the cafe hadn’t opened yet, but the gardener working nearby saw the whole thing.

He shook his head. I thought I heard a faint before he returned to his pruning duties.

I got off the Vespa and wordlessly handed Christian the keys.

My little Vespa incident aside, our Rome stop went as smoothly as possible until our second to last day, when Christian and I visited one of the city’s top art museums.

I’d been hesitant about putting so many museums on our itinerary since he wasn’t an art fan at all, but he’d insisted we go to as many as I wanted.

To his credit, Christian hid his distaste well. If I hadn’t known about his aversion to art beforehand, I would’ve thought he the exhibitions.

“There’s way that is a person.” I stopped in front of a painting that’d caught my eye and tried to parse out what, exactly, it depicted. “Did optical illusions exist in the eighteenth century?”

One second, it looked like a portrait of a nobleman. The next, it looked like a lurid table display of fruit.

It was unsettling but also kind of genius.

“Christian?” I turned at his odd lack of response and found him staring at something on the other end of the gallery.

I followed his gaze to where a young boy stood in the corner. He tugged insistently on what I assumed was his mother’s sleeve, but the woman was too busy fawning over the paintings and taking pictures to pay him any attention.

The boy’s chin wobbled, but instead of crying, he set his jaw and glared down the length of the gallery.

His eyes met Christian’s, who stared back with what almost looked like a sympathetic expression.

I placed a hand on his arm. “Christian,” I said, my voice softer. “Are you okay?”

He broke eye contact and turned his attention back to me. Tension poured off him in waves, and the set of his shoulders was visibly tighter than when we’d arrived.

“Yes.” His smile didn’t fool me for a second. “I’m fine.”

“Do you know him?” I gestured subtly in the boy’s direction, but when I looked again, he and his mother were gone.

“No. He…” Christian rubbed a hand over his jaw. “He reminded me of someone. That’s all.”

I had an inkling I knew who that was.

“Let’s get a drink,” I said. “I’ve seen all I wanted to see here.”

He didn’t argue.

We left the museum and made our way to a nearby cafe. Tucked on a quiet side street away from tourists, it was blessedly empty save for an older couple and a stunningly chic woman with a sleek black bob.

Christian and I took a seat in the corner of the outdoor dining area. The other customers were so far away we might as well be alone.

I waited until the server set our drinks on the table and disappeared into the kitchen before I spoke.

“The person that boy reminded you of. Was it you?” I kept my voice gentle. I didn’t want Christian to feel like I was ambushing him, but we’d dated long enough that I wasn’t as wary about broaching his past as I used to be.

He was naturally guarded, and I understood that. I didn’t go around sharing details about my personal life with anyone who would listen either. But if we were going to make our relationship work, he needed to feel as comfortable opening up to me as I did with him.

I thought Christian might brush off my question the way he always did, but he surprised me with an eventual nod.

“Before you ask, I wasn’t neglected as a child,” he said. “Not in the way you think. My parents weren’t abusive. Like I said, they were the quintessential American family, except…”

I waited, not wanting to push him.

“I told you my father was a software engineer. What I didn’t tell you was what he moonlighted as.” Christian leaned back in his chair. “Have you ever heard of the art thief, The Ghost?”

My eyes widened with surprise at the seemingly sudden shift in topic, but I nodded.

I’d learned about him in my art crime and law class at Thayer. The Ghost, so named because he’d stolen dozens of priceless artworks without leaving a trace of evidence behind, was one of the most notorious art thieves of the late twentieth century. He’d operated for almost a decade before the police finally caught him and shot him when he tried to flee.

The details of his death were murky, and the stolen artworks were never recovered.

Christian’s words replayed in my head, and my breath caught in my throat.

“Your father. He was…”

“Yes.”

The quiet word landed with the force of a nuclear bomb.

The Ghost’s identity had been publicly revealed, not even after his death. No one knew why, but rumors abounded. Some said he had a powerful family who paid off the authorities, others said his real persona was so ordinary that the authorities were embarrassed they hadn’t caught him before.

In the space of five seconds, Christian had just answered one of the biggest mysteries in the art world.

I was still wrapping my head around this explosive new piece of information when Christian continued.

“Ironically, he wasn’t the big art lover in the family. My mother was. He claimed he stole the paintings as proof of his love for her. His willingness to risk everything just to make her happy. You’d think she would try to talk him out of it, but she encouraged it. Sometimes, she even joined him. She loved the thrill and the idea that he would go to such extremes for her. They tried to hide what they were doing from me when I was younger, but I eventually caught on. There were too many coincidences between my father’s mysterious and the dates the stolen art were reported on the news. When I confronted my father about it, he confessed.”

Christian gave me a hard smile. “Even as a child, I wasn’t the type to share the dirty details of my life with anyone. He knew he could trust me not to share his secret.”

My chest clenched at the thought of a young Christian being burdened with such a big secret.

Maybe his parents hadn’t been physically abusive, but it sounded like they hadn’t cared about his emotional or mental well-being at all.

“When I was thirteen, he went on another heist. Instead of a museum, he tried to rob some wealthy businessman’s house. The businessman had famously acquired a big art piece at auction, and my mom was desperate to have it. My father almost got away with it, but he tripped an alarm and got caught on his way out. He refused to surrender, and the police shot him when he tried to steal a gun off an officer and make another run for it. He died on the spot.”

“My mom lost it when she heard the news. Two days after my father died, she decided she couldn’t live without him and put a bullet in her own head. I’d been at school. My aunt came, called me into the principal’s office, and told me.” Another, more bitter smile cut across Christian’s face. “It’s like a fucked-up suburban version of Romeo and Juliet. Romantic, isn’t it?”

A deep, painful ache unfurled behind my ribs.

I couldn’t imagine what it was like to grow up in the family he’d grown up in, or to lose both parents at such a young age. I didn’t have the best relationship with mine, but at least they were alive.

“My mother would rather die than live without my father, but she was perfectly fine leaving her only son behind.” Christian’s caustic laugh singed my lungs. “A mother’s love is the greatest love of all, right? That’s bullshit.”

The ache spread burned behind my eyes.

I tentatively reached for his hand and curled mine over it.

“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly. I didn’t know what else to say.

I wished there were magic words I could utter that would make him feel better. But nothing could change the past, and people had to deal with their trauma in their own time.

Christian had been holding onto his for decades. It would take more than a few nice words to heal it.

The best thing I could do was be there for him when he was finally ready to confront it.

“I’ve never told anyone that before.” The haunted expression lingered in his eyes for a moment longer before it disappeared.

“Now that I’ve ruined a beautiful Italian afternoon with my poor little sob story, we should go.” Christian rose, his face an impassive mask once again. “We have lunch reservations in half an hour.”

“You didn’t ruin it.” I squeezed his hand. “I care more about you than any fancy meal or museum outing.”

Christian’s jaw flexed. His gaze held mine for a brief, burning moment before he turned away.

“We should go,” he repeated, his voice rough with emotion.

I let the moment pass. I sensed he’d reached his limit for personal introspection today.

We paid and left the cafe, but when we neared the main street, he paused. “Stella.”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you for listening.”

The ache returned in full force. “Thank you for telling me.”

Christian thought he’d ruined our afternoon when, in fact, he’d made it. Not because I enjoyed hearing the heartbreaking details of his childhood, but because he’d finally let me in.

No more hiding behind his walls.

Despite all the luxury hotels we’d stayed at, the gourmet meals we’d eaten, and the extravagant activities we’d done, that was the best part of our trip so far.

As dreamy as our vacation was, I loved it not because I was in Italy but because I was in Italy with .

And that made all the difference in the world.