The Truth About Harry

Sebastian had long ago learned to accept the notion that he was destined to be an outsider, no matter how much he adapted. He had left Italy as a child. The land of Valentino and Visconti had grown and altered, and so had he. There was no way it could ever be home again.

Nor could Alabama be, either. His family had moved to the deep South. Their strange accent was noticeable—their ignorance of the great god Bear Bryant even more egregious. Sebastian had arrived having never thrown a baseball and never eaten fried chicken. He immediately devoted himself to becoming the most American of Americans. Ah, the fervor of a convert.

But never mind that he played tight end in high school and dated a cheerleader. He was still different, never fully accepted. His mother made sure of the latter—having run off with the rival high school’s football coach when he just started junior high.

Still, he couldn’t blame all of his sense of alienation on his mother. He had never completely fit in because, well, he just never had. No amount of time could erase the moments when he yearned to bite into crusty Italian bread instead of eating hush puppies, when he would have given anything for a bowl of creamy risotto instead of gravy on mashed potatoes.

But the anxiety of being an outsider that had so plagued him during his teenage years had gradually subsided. Now it was something he actually cultivated like a protective cloak, a cloak that even extended to his place of residence.

Besides his farm in the country, miles from anyone else, he had a small but tasteful townhouse in Georgetown. His neighbors were diplomats—strangers in a strange land.

But Sebastian was home. And he wasn’t.

But a place to plant roots wasn’t the issue at hand—it was getting a handle on a possible lead. He smiled in a way that he knew left women and thieves feeling both intrigued and slightly uneasy. And if his hunch was right in this case, the two might just turn out to be mutually inclusive. “Please, why don’t you go in first?” he offered, forcing Lauren to ease by him.

Strange, but in all the editorial meetings she had attended in this space, Lauren had never experienced the entryway as being too narrow for comfort. She eased her way through. “So you’re from Italy originally?”

“I was born in Italy, but my parents moved here when I was ten,” he said, following her into the room. He motioned to the chairs pushed into the long table. “Have a seat,” he said, and she nodded, slipping into one on the opposite side. “My father was an aerospace engineer, and he worked for the government in Huntsville, Alabama.” He waited for her to sit before unbuttoning the front of his suit jacket and lowering himself into a seat.

Lauren decided to let Sebastian be the one to dispense with the usual small talk and move on to the subject of Harry Nord. Playing the waiting game, she contented herself with looking at his large hands spread calmly on the surface of the table. Contented probably wasn’t the right word.

Sinews formed ridges on his tanned skin, and his nails were bluntly cut, attesting to strength born of outdoor activity. He wore a small, gold signet ring on his left hand, nothing effeminate—no, not by a long shot—just kind of classy, understatedly sophisticated. She had an almost irresistible urge to touch him and feel the contrast between the smooth ring and the rugged power of the muscles in his hands.

Lauren cleared her throat. “That explains your accent and your command of English,” she said and tucked her hands in her lap under the table. She didn’t feel like having him stare at her chewed nails. Strange, but their gnawed appearance had never worried her when she’d been engaged. That should have been a tip-off right there.

“Yes, well, even before we moved to the States, my mother insisted I learn English.” He coughed softly and covered his mouth. Then he lowered his hand again and drummed lightly on the table.

Maybe not so relaxed, after all.

“She was enamored of all things American—cheeseburgers, skyscrapers, baseball, Harrison Ford,” he said.

“How unItalian of her—except for the Harrison Ford part, that is.”

“Her enthusiasm was so great I can safely say I was the only kid in Poggibonsi whose mother asked him to turn the radio up when it was playing American music.”

Lauren looked at him askance. “Really? Somehow I can’t picture you humming along to Metallica.”

“You’d be surprised.” He rubbed his chin, his finger passing over the little cleft.

No, she guessed she wasn’t surprised at all. There was something dangerous about him. She instinctively knew he was bad for her health, but somehow she was drawn perversely closer. It was like succumbing to eating that second donut. No, she corrected herself, it was potentially far worse than several hundred empty calories.

“But not you?”

Lauren blinked. “Me?”

“You weren’t a heavy metal fan?”

She held up a hand in confession. “Strictly Motown. The Four Tops. The Supremes. Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ was my personal anthem.”

He studied her. “I can see you standing on top of your bed, belting out ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.’”

“Actually, it was mostly in the bathroom, with my toothbrush as a microphone and my brother Carl pounding on the door to get in.”

Sebastian grinned, and his eyes opened wide, making the contrast between the milky whites and the dark, rich irises all the more pronounced, like chocolate Hostess cupcakes with a vanilla crème center—only in reverse. Ah, she really had empty calories on the brain. No, she knew she had other things on the brain.

“You know,” he said, still smiling and looking so, so appealing, “if you tell me stories like that, I’m almost inclined to believe you’re innocent.”

3

“BUT I AM INNOCENT,” she protested. I may be lusting in my heart, she thought, but I am innocent. “Well, in a fashion,” she amended.

Sebastian leaned closer and reached out. He gently cupped her hand in his and let his fingertips—with their rough calluses, Lauren couldn’t help noticing—brush her palm. “We all know there’s no such thing as innocent.” He studied her closely. “Though heaven knows if anyone is, it could possibly be you.”

The pulse in her wrist throbbed with an aching urgency. “It’s the lip gloss,” Lauren mumbled.

“Lip gloss?”

“It’s pink. You see?” She raised her other hand and rested her index finger on her lower lip.

He stared. At her hand. At her extended finger. At her cherry-blossom-stained lips.

And she gazed at his chest. Time became measured by the rise and fall of his pectorals.

And then he turned his gaze and let go of her hand.

Lauren stared at the table and rapidly pulled her hand back into her lap. “Well, if nobody’s innocent in your book, doesn’t that mean you’re not innocent, either?” she asked. She looked up defiantly.

He played with a gold cuff link.

And then it hit her. “Hey, if you’re here to bilk the paper with some kind of con, you’re talking to the wrong person. The Sentinel might be a two-bit rag, and Ray is a scumbag in every sense of the word, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to help you commit a crime. In fact, I’ve pretty much decided the only honorable thing to do about this mess is to own up to the fact that I concocted the whole thing—Harry’s childhood, his war record, the philanthropy. True, it was meant to be a little joke—”

Sebastian looked at her askance.

“All right, more than a joke. I was pissed at Ray, but then that’s another story.” She waved her hand. “In any case, I never meant for the story to go to print. But seeing as it did, I think it’s only fair that I take responsibility.”

He sat up straight. “I don’t think so.”

That stopped Lauren. “You don’t think so?” She narrowed her eyes. He was deadly serious. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m an investigator for the European division of the World Organization for Retrieving Stolen Art. It’s an international registry of looted works of art.” Sebastian slipped a picture ID from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

Lauren quickly scanned the card. She shook her head. “I’m still not clear about what you do.”

“I recover stolen art. The commission has an Internet site that lists items of cultural value taken by thieves. Publishing this information as widely as possible gets the public involved and helps us retrieve the items. It’s been very successful. Since 1999, we’ve recovered roughly four hundred and twenty works of art, and we have over seven thousand cases under investigation. At the moment, I’m working with the Italian Carabinieri Unit for the Defense of the Cultural Heritage, in the hopes of lowering that figure by four.”

“Looted art? Italian police?” She held up both hands as if to motion stop. “What does this all have to do with me?”

“Possibly a great deal.” He reached into the same pocket and pulled out a wallet-size photograph. He slid it across the table toward Lauren.