Page 34 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

He cleared his throat, glancing upward at the ceiling. “And which room did he prefer? Or, which one did they use, so I can avoid that?”

“Well, Corrado hasn’t been here in more than a decade, Gian. And those items are long gone.”

Gian didn’t appear to care. “Which one?”

“The only one without a balcony,” Derek replied quickly. “Louise didn’t like heights.”

“Great. I have your phone number if we need anything, so …”

Derek and the maid seemed to catch on to Gian’s unspoken words quickly enough, and made themselves scarce. Cara only heard the quiet click of the front door closing before she turned back to Gian.

He had walked forward, further into the penthouse, toward a row of windows that still had wooden frames, and could be opened from the inside. He crossed his arms, staring out the windows at the old buildings across the way.

“Your grandfather hasn’t been here in ten years, but kept a maid on a three-day-a-week schedule?” Cara asked, confused.

“And Derek is on call, too, as he’s the building’s … well, like a consigliere, of sorts. This is one of the only suites in this building that hasn’t been renovated or updated in some way over the years. They would greatly like me to keep it that way, as it increases the value of the building as a whole, to say the original owner’s penthouse is in mint condition from when it was built fifty years ago.”

“But you don’t want to,” Cara assumed.

She hadn’t realized it was more than the penthouse that he owned.

“I didn’t want this place,” Gian muttered heavily. Sighing, he turned to face her again. “Would you mind exploring on your own for a bit? I have a call to make, and I’ll order us some food, too.”

“Sure,” Cara said.

She could tell something else was on his mind.

Gian was good at hiding it, but she saw it.

Whatever it was.

Cara figured it wasn’t her place to push. She hadn’t come with him for the weekend to pry into his personal life. She had come because, like him, a break from life was just what she needed.

And who the hell said she couldn’t have fun while she did it?

“Is this your grandmother?” Cara held out a black and white glamor shot of a beautiful woman, as Gian walked into the bedroom without a balcony.

“No, that isn’t Aurora. And my grandmother died two years ago. Heart attack.”

Cara’s brow furrowed, as she took in the dozen and one other framed photos on the old armoire. Most held the woman, but a few had children, and some, an older gentleman that looked a hell of a lot like Gian, if he were in his forties or fifties.

“Then who is it? Oh, Louise, right?”

Gian stared at Cara, not saying anything.

“What?”

It took her far too long to realize what he wasn’t saying. A woman named Louise had lived here, and she was not his grandmother. A woman who, guessing by the photos and the statements made about the bedroom, had been involved in a romantic relationship with Corrado Guzzi for years.

The photos of the children caught her attention again.

Decades, actually.

“Oh,” Cara said quietly, carefully putting the photo back. “Well, then.”

Gian shrugged one shoulder, but didn’t move further into the room to join her. “Louise died a decade ago, about the time my grandfather stopped coming for his weekend visits. Apparently, he didn’t want much to do with the place when she wasn’t here, but he also didn’t want to sell it.”

Cara glanced back at the old photos of the children. “What about their kids?”