lets me go. “So good to see you.”
“You sound surprised.”
She pinches my cheek. “I am a bit. The last time you were here, I thought you might drink yourself to death. Or fall in the canal and take a shortcut there.” She looks at my cast. “And I see you might have a head start on this trip too.”
Felix laughs, and she looks at him with her warm, bright eyes, the sun playing on her dark hair. “And who have you brought me, Max?”
I reach out and drag Felix against me, unable to stop the claiming gesture. “This is Felix,” I say proudly.
“Felix?” she says loudly. “This is Felix?” She looks startled, and well she should, because I have spent many hours talking her ear off about my lost love. I narrow my eyes pleadingly at her, and she recovers herself quickly. “What a lovely name,” she cries. “You don’t meet many Felixes.”
“I suppose not,” Felix says doubtfully.
She smiles at him, taking his arm and drawing him after her, leaving me to trail happily after them while the porter brings the luggage.
They talk and laugh as she signs us in, but as Felix wanders over to the bank of lifts that Giulia points out, she grabs my arm. “You look good, Max,” she whispers, her eyes warm. “Is that for him?”
“To some extent,” I say quietly. “I needed to get better, and I need him, so the two things are mutually inclusive to me.”
“I’m glad to see it, my friend. He’s lovely.”
She looks over at Felix, who is staring at an old oil painting. He’s slim and lithe, his skin pale and his hair a mess of dark waves. I remember strolling through the Louvre once, killing time before I had to meet a contact. In a quiet corner of one of the museum’s less-travelled galleries, I’d found a painting of an Italian count who was lounging against a tree. I was fascinated by his slumberous eyes with their winged eyebrows, and the silky hair that was as dark and shiny as a blackbird’s wing. I’d lingered over that painting far longer than I should, caught by the image. Looking at Felix now, I realise how much he looks like that long-ago young nobleman.
He glances back at us and smiles. I catch my breath because it’s the smile he used to flash at me so often—full and wide, with a wicked edge.
“He’s very beautiful,” Giulia murmurs. “And sharp. But fragile too. It’s there under the pretty exterior. Be careful with that boy, Max, or you’ll lose him completely.”
It had taken her only a few minutes to see him clearly, and I’m jealous of her talent. I’d been dazzled by his sparkling exterior and sharp tongue and recognised his layer of fragility far too late.
“I will,” I vow. “I’m getting him back, Giulia. This is my chance.”
“Yes, I think you will too,” she says. There’s more hope than certainty in her voice, but I can work with both.
She hands me the room key. “Two bedrooms, Max? You’re losing your touch.”
“Thank God for that,” I mutter. “If I’d touched many more men, I’d have been in danger of losing the skin on my fingertips.”
She laughs and turns to deal with another customer, and I gesture to Felix to join me at the lifts.
“She seems nice,” he says as the doors open, and we get in.
“She’s lovely. She and her husband have run this place for twenty years. They restored the building from scratch, as it was falling down. Their sons do a lot of the work now, but she still likes to keep her hand in.”
The lift pings and Felix follows me out and into a corridor carpeted with a gorgeous blue-and-gold oriental runner. “She seems to know you well.”
“I’ve been coming here for years. It’s a home away from home.”
He smirks. “Only you would call a fifteenth-century palazzo a home.”
I search my pockets for the key to our room. “I’m at home anywhere. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an expensive hotel or a tent in Afghanistan.” I pause. “Although I have to say, I prefer a hotel. Hot water and a nice bed should never be taken for granted.”
He leans against the wall. “I have to say it’s one of your best qualities,” he says in a contemplative fashion.
I’m startled, and I must show it. “I’m astonished that you think I’ve got one good quality, let alone a few.”
He walks into the room as I gesture him in. “You have many