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too big for her space. And the fourth artist was charming, but she disliked his work immediately. She told him kindly that she couldn't do him justice, and their gallery wasn't worthy of his work. She liked letting people down gently. There was no point hurting their feelings, or crushing them with unkind rejection. As Liam watched and listened, he liked how she did things. She was a good person and a nice woman, and he loved sharing what she did.

They went to Bologna and Arezzo, spent a week in Umbria, driving through the country and staying in small inns. A few days in Rome. A visit to an artist on the Adriatic Coast, near Bari, and they spent the last days of the trip in Naples, visiting an artist whom Sasha had warned him was utterly insane, but she was also very charming, had six children, cooked them a fabulous dinner, and Sasha adored her work, as did Liam. She did enormous paintings in vibrant colors, which would be a nightmare to ship. But by the time Liam and Sasha left her, they were all in love with each other, including the artist's Chinese lover of twenty years who was the father of her six kids. They were beautiful children. And it was a fabulous trip, for both of them.

They spent their last weekend in Capri, in a small romantic hotel. They were both sad at the prospect of going back to real life, and their own worlds. She loved waking up with him in the morning, going to sleep in his arms at night, discovering things together, meeting people, and sometimes just walking around while they shared pieces of their history, or laughed. They had both had difficult, somewhat lonely childhoods. He because he had been a talented artistic misfit in a supremely conservative and unimaginative family, and she because her father had been a cold taskmaster much of the time, although he loved her very much. It was only once she was an adult that he had come to respect her, and her opinions. Liam's family never had, and he still paid a high price for the ridicule and rejection he had suffered at their hands. They had both been shortchanged by not having their mothers present as they grew up. Liam remembered his as a warm, wonderful woman who adored him, and in whose eyes he could do no wrong. He was still looking for the unconditional love he had gotten from her and no one else, and sometimes Sasha felt that he expected her to mother him now. That kind of unconditional love was a lot to expect from anyone who had entered his life later on. Love between adults and lovers was always somewhat conditional, and often fell short of expectations, particularly when not all needs were reciprocally met. She had similar memories of her own mother, and she sometimes wondered if people always believed that those who had died had loved unconditionally. Perhaps they hadn't, or wouldn't have later on. But her memories of her mother were as sweet and gentle as his recollections of his. She wondered sometimes what it would be like if her mother were alive now, although she would have been very elderly, eighty-eight years old. Sasha had turned forty-nine on their trip. Liam had woken her up that morning singing happy birthday to her, and she groaned thinking of it. He had given her a simple gold bracelet he had bought for her in Florence. She never took it off once he put it on her wrist, and knew she never would.

The age difference between them still bothered her at times. There was no avoiding it. They seemed to have more in common than she once thought, the loss of their mothers, their passion for art, the things they enjoyed doing when they were relaxed and had more time. Galleries, museums, churches, shops. When removed from daily stresses, they were both fairly easygoing, loved traveling together, and were curious about life. They were drawn to different kinds of people. She gravitated toward venerable elders, perhaps because of her much older father and the people she'd been exposed to with him all her life. She was impressed by reputations and education, as well as talent. Liam was instantly attracted to all things different, unusual, new, and young. She liked innovation and eccentricity in art, but not in people. When they sat in a café, she watched older people. Liam