Lucia sighed.
“Getting cold feet?” Skye asked before turning to Francesca. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea to send her in. She might be a decent forger, but the exchange requires finesse and—”
“Sheis right here,” Lucia ground out.
“That’s enough,” Francesca’s tone hard, brokering no disagreement. “Lucia is an excellent forger, but her talents don’t end there. And Skye, I appreciate your protectiveness, but let this one go.”
“Fine. What about Blackwell, though? Don’t you think it’s odd she handed out her cell like that?”
“I’m charming.”
Skye snorted.
“We will keep an eye on her, but our research indicates Blackwell to be a strait-laced, hard-working career-focused woman,” Francesca said.
“Nothing in her past that could give us trouble? No secret lover stalking her?” Skye caught Lucia’s gaze. “No drowning in debt to fund a secret gambling addiction?”
“She seems solid,” Lucia said.
“Is she pretty?”
Lucia’s cheeks heated. “That’s irrelevant.”
“Right,” Skye drawled.
“You guys are impossible,” Francesca said. “We will be prepared. We have three months before the ball, so both of you better get to the listed tasks on the last sheet.” She rose. “I’ll be right back.”
Lucia longed to just get up and return home, but she couldn’t. She turned another page, blueprints, then a staff roster, reading for a moment before Skye spoke.
“This is important. Just…watch yourself.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She’d heard the woes of the lostMadonnafrom the moment Francesca took her in. Back then, she’d been a half-feral teenager on the street, ready to give up on ever belonging anywhere until Francesca offered solace and a sanctuary.
“Perhaps, but you have the tendency to get in over your pretty little head, Gracie.”
Lucia narrowed her eyes. “Better than getting stuck in yours.”
Skye smirked, and as much as she exasperated Lucia, that expression still got to her, drawing her back a decade when she thought Skye intriguing and charming. She must’ve been high on paint fumes and espresso. Francesca returned, and so both women fell quiet.
“Uh, I think I’m heading back home,” Lucia said. “Lots left to do.”
“Oh, OK. I thought we could order food and just…spend some time together.”
Francesca’s hopeful lilt tore at Lucia, and even though she had zero interest in spending more time with Skye, she shrugged and stuffed her hands into her pants pockets. “Sure. Why not? I could eat.”
“Great. Let me grab the take-out menus.” And with that, she disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving Lucia once more alone with Skye and the loaded silence that liked to spread between them when they weren’t bickering.
~ ~ ~
The next evening, Lucia sat curled sideways on her worn couch, hoodie sleeves pushed to her elbows, one leg tucked under her. A blank spiral sketchpad lay open on her lap, pencil already in hand. Her fingers kept twitching to move, but her brain wasn’t cooperating.
With a sigh, she grabbed her phone and tapped the screen. Blackwell answered on the third ring.
“Yes?”
“Hi, this is Lucia Rossi. We met at your lecture the other day, at the Meridian. You gave me your number, and I left two paintings with you.”
“Yes, of course. Hello, Lucia. How are you?”
