chapter one
1488 Words
The gallery was quieter than Elena had expected.
She stood a few feet away from her largest painting, pretending to examine the frame while secretly watching the people gathered around it.
The painting showed a woman standing beneath a gray sky, surrounded by dozens of unfinished flowers. Some flowers were bright and open; others were only faint outlines, as though the artist had changed her mind halfway through creating them.
Elena had called it Unfinished Things.
She had spent three weeks painting it.
And now she was terrified someone would hate it.
“Stop staring at your painting.”
Elena glanced sideways.
Sofia was standing beside her with a glass of sparkling water in one hand and an expression of complete amusement on her face.
“I’m not staring.”
“You've been staring at it for ten minutes.”
“I’m observing.”
“You're panicking.”
Elena sighed. “Maybe a little.”
Sofia laughed. “Elena, it's beautiful. Stop looking like you're waiting for someone to walk over and announce that you've committed an artistic crime.”
Elena smiled despite herself.
“I just want people to understand it.”
“They don't have to understand it.”
“They do.”
“Why?”
Elena looked back at the painting.
“Because it means something.”
Her voice softened.
“Everyone has unfinished things. Words they never said. Dreams they abandoned. People they never got to say goodbye to. I wanted the painting to feel like that.”
Sofia's teasing expression disappeared.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “That was actually deep.”
Elena laughed.
“You're impossible.”
“And you're dramatic.”
“I'm an artist.”
“Same thing.”
Elena rolled her eyes.
The gallery was filled with soft music and warm lights. Paintings covered almost every wall, each one competing for the attention of visitors dressed in elegant clothes. Elena should have been enjoying herself.
Instead, she kept thinking about the same thing.
Her own gallery.
One day, she wanted a place where artists could display work without having to beg for attention. A place with tall windows, white walls, natural light and enough space for people to stand quietly in front of a painting and feel something.
She had already chosen the name.
She just didn't have the money.
Yet.
“I've been looking at locations again,” Elena said.
Sofia raised an eyebrow. “Again?”
“There’s a small building near the city center.”
“How small?”
“Small.”
“That means tiny.”
“It has potential.”
“That means it's falling apart.”
Elena laughed.
“It's affordable.”
Sofia shook her head. “You know what? One day you're actually going to do this.”
Elena smiled.
“One day.”
She looked toward the entrance.
And then she saw him.
She didn't know his name yet.
The first thing she noticed was how still he was.
The room was full of people moving from one painting to another, talking, laughing and exchanging greetings. Yet he stood near the entrance as though he had no reason to hurry.
He wore a dark suit that fitted him perfectly, without a single unnecessary detail. His dark hair was neatly styled, and his expression was unreadable.
He wasn't smiling.
He wasn't talking.
He was simply observing.
Elena looked away.
Then looked back.
Sofia noticed.
“Oh.”
Elena frowned. “What?”
“You're staring.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“Who is he?”
Sofia followed her gaze.
Her expression changed immediately.
“Lorenzo Angelino.”
The name meant nothing to Elena.
“Who?”
Sofia lowered her voice.
“You really don't know?”
“Should I?”
Sofia glanced toward him again.
“Maybe not.”
Elena gave her a suspicious look.
“That sounds ominous.”
“There are rumors about his family.”
“What kind of rumors?”
Sofia hesitated.
“His father died a few years ago.”
“And?”
“People said Lorenzo killed him.”
Elena's eyes widened slightly.
“What?”
“He was taken to court. He was found not guilty, but people still talk.”
Elena looked toward Lorenzo again.
He didn't look like someone who cared what people thought.
Perhaps that was why everyone seemed to instinctively give him space.
“Maybe people are just gossiping,” Elena said.
Sofia shrugged.
“Maybe.”
Before Elena could answer, a voice beside her interrupted them.
“People usually are.”
Elena turned.
Lorenzo stood a short distance away.
Sofia immediately became quiet.
Elena, however, looked directly at him.
He glanced at the painting.
“That's yours?”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
His attention returned to the painting.
“Why unfinished?”
Elena blinked.
Most people had commented on the colors or the composition.
Nobody had asked that.
“Because some things stay unfinished.”
He looked at her.
For a second, Elena felt as though he was studying her rather than the painting.
“That's a convenient answer,” he said.
She smiled slightly.
“It's an honest one.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Not quite a smile.
But almost.
“You're the artist?”
“Yes.”
“Do you always paint things you don't understand?”
Elena frowned.
“No.”
“Then you understand unfinished things?”
“Some of them.”
He looked back at the painting.
“And the rest?”
“I paint them until I do.”
There was a brief silence.
Lorenzo nodded once.
“Interesting.”
Elena couldn't help smiling.
“You don't sound very impressed.”
“I didn't say I wasn't.”
Sofia looked between them, clearly trying to understand what was happening.
Elena folded her arms.
“So, do you actually like the painting?”
“I wouldn't have stopped if I didn't.”
That answer caught her off guard.
“That's fair.”
Lorenzo looked at her again.
“What is your name?”
“Elena.”
“Elena…”
“Rossi.”
He repeated it quietly.
“Elena Rossi.”
Something about the way he said her name made her strangely aware of the silence between them.
“And you already know my name,” he added.
She smiled.
“Apparently, you're famous.”
“Apparently?”
“I had to ask my friend who you were.”
For the first time, there was a definite change in his expression.
Amusement.
“You weren't supposed to know who I was?”
“I don't spend my time memorizing wealthy men's names.”
Sofia covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.
Lorenzo looked at Elena for several seconds.
Most people, he had learned, behaved differently around him once they knew his name.
They became nervous.
Careful.
Polite in ways that felt rehearsed.
Elena didn't.
She simply stood there, looking at him as though he were another guest at an art exhibition.
It was unexpected.
And Lorenzo disliked unexpected things.
Usually.
“I'll remember that,” he said.
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“Was that a threat?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He looked at the painting one last time.
“Keep working on your gallery.”
Elena stared at him.
“How did you—?”
“You mentioned it to your friend.”
She glanced at Sofia.
Sofia looked guilty.
“You were listening?”
“I hear more than people think.”
Before Elena could respond, Lorenzo stepped away.
She watched him disappear into the crowd.
Sofia immediately leaned closer.
“Okay.”
Elena turned toward her.
“What?”
“That was weird.”
“What was?”
“The way he was looking at you.”
Elena laughed.
“You're imagining things.”
“Maybe.”
Sofia took a sip of her drink.
“But I don't think he was.”
Across the gallery, Lorenzo stopped beside another painting.
He should have been paying attention to the exhibition.
He wasn't.
His eyes found Elena again.
She was laughing at something Sofia had said, completely unaware that he was watching.
He didn't know why he had remembered her face so quickly.
He didn't know why her answer about unfinished things had stayed in his mind.
And he certainly didn't know why, after years of training himself not to be interested in people, he found himself wondering what kind of person she was when nobody was watching.
Lorenzo turned away.
It was nothing.
A conversation.
A painting.
A name.
Nothing more.
At least, that was what he told himself.
And Elena, meanwhile, had already returned to her painting.
To her, Lorenzo Angelino was simply a strange, intimidating man with an unsettling reputation.
She had no idea that their brief conversation had been the beginning of something neither of them was prepared for.
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