Canvas of Heart

CANVAS OF HEART 1- A beautiful Day Isabella Rossini had never been the kind of woman to be swept off her feet by grand gestures or flashing displays of wealth. She had learned early on that life wasn’t a fairy tale, and the world wasn’t built to cater to romantic dreams. Her mother’s early death, followed by her father’s declining health, had forced her to grow up quickly. Dreams of studying art in Paris had been set aside, replaced by the gritty reality of managing the small art gallery that had been in her family for generations. At 20, when her mother had died, her father had sickened and become senile. Gone were her dreams of going to study art in Paris; that was because she had long given them up for what was real and lurid in the small art gallery her family had owned for generations. The gallery was not one of Florence’s glittering attractions – it was tucked away on a dark street, its gloomy rooms a far cry from the soaring spaces where tourists thronged. Still, it was hers. And in it, among its hushed walls, hung memories of family, of the Florence she had always known, of the art-restoration work she loved. Most of her days were spent here; her hands moved softly over the aged surfaces of old paintings while the fingers of her mind reached out to make sense of long-dead craftsman’s visions. This work, was the solace of her life. Then it was on a wet afternoon that the tourist came in to break the silence. Isabella had expected to be working alone. The gallery was shut to the public on Monday afternoons, so all she had to do was the odd bit of touch-up here and there. She was brushing paint onto the surface of a 17th century landscape, when a soft chime announced the opening of the bell above the door. For some reason, she looked up. Most tourists came looking for directions to the Popular Italian Restaurant close to her gallery. What she saw, though, was not a heat-stroked American family consulting a map, but a tall man in a perfectly tailored suit. His dark hair was tousled by the wind, wearing the same bemused expression as she must have. James Blackwell was not a modest man. Tall, broad-shouldered and olive-toned with piercing blue eyes, he occupied a lot of space in diplomatic negotiations, and for obvious reasons also in the room. He had the fulsome sculpted vaguely Mediterranean looks of someone who might’ve posed for the cover of GQ, but there was something behind his eyes and an edge to his mouth that suggested experience – all the gentlemen’s agreement-sealing of his career had given him an unspoken but palpable gravitas She turned back to the painting, but not so that Gabriel-François could be looked at with the same casual closeness as a handful of money. Isabella wasn’t about to be won over by yet another rich man and his engaging smile. “Good afternoon,” James greeted, his voice deep and smooth “Can I help you?” Isabella responded without looking up, keeping her tone professional. James scanned the gallery at a leisurely pace. ‘I thought I’d find something unusual. Something with history.’ Isabella’s eyes, brown flecked with gold, finally turned toward him. ‘We’re a restoration gallery, not a sales gallery. I can give you some references if you’re looking for something to take home.’ James smiled. ‘It wasn’t a thing I was going to buy. I am interested in the story behind the art.’ Her eyes narrowed, and she dropped her tools on the bench, intrigued . ‘Most people who come in here don’t care about the stories, they just care about how much it will cost them. “I’m not most people,” he said simply. Isabella Rossini is one of the most beautiful women he has ever seen. He won’t agree with that assessment, of course. Not because he downplays her pulchritude (who could fault her for that?) but because she has never regarded herself as pretty lady Mrs Rossini is 27. She is tall, 5’6”, with long, an art historian, chestnut-brown hair flowing in loose waves to the small of her back, and usually swept behind the ear as it tends to fall. She has hazel eyes, full and expressive, veiling intelligence as well as vulnerability in their tawny depths. She walks with an easy, gracefully understated elegance. Mrs Rossini dresses simply, in classic, low-key styles, and won’t do without jewellery. She perceives herself as a functional dresser. Born in the heat of Florence, a city renowned for its culture and beauty, she grew up in a household brimming with bohemian vitality. However, life has far from been easy for her. When Isabella’s mother died when she was 16, it was up to her to take care of her father, a renowned artist who fell ill and could no longer provide for the family. She gave up her dream of studying art in Paris and stayed behind to keep the small gallery the family ran. Although she no longer practices her art as a painter, Isabella remains committed to art restoration, which she finds therapeutic. Bringing an old masterpiece back to life and seeing a young girl’s grinning face lovingly reassembled after humbling restoration works are all ways of piecemeal mending, a reflection of patching bits in her fragmented life. She is fiercely independent, stubborn, self-sacrificing: she is used to standing alone, and slow to trust those others who live in a different world of privilege and money, which is why she is distrustful toward James at first. Despite these familiar aspects of her character, she is also kind and empathetic, and she longs to live a life unencumbered by the responsibilities she shoulders for her family. James Blackwell is 35, 6ft 2in, broad-shouldered and solid, with thick black hair that he combs back, a chiseled face, and a liquid gaze rimmed in golden darkness that seems to look to the soul. An industrialists, he built a multi-billion-dollar corporation, and yet he lacks a certain social polish; a certain lightness. He is serious, measured and intense. His square jaw and prominent nose say ‘female attention not required’. His smile is rare and beautiful. This is a classic case of rags to riches – our protagonist is a self-made billionaire. James was born in a nameless town in the US, to a single mother who worked two jobs to make ends meet for herself and James’s younger sister. When he reached high school, he dedicated himself to studying and managed to win himself a scholarship to a prestigious university where he read computer science and business administration. Through persistence, hard work and sheer genius, he founded a tech firm as a young upstart in his mid-20s, which grew to become an international monopoly. Outwardly, James is a winning version of the yuppie: sure of himself; decisive; ambitious to a potentially dangerous degree. Inwardly, he is a lonely and cautious man, despite his wealth, or perhaps because of it: he has learned to mistrust people, not knowing whether their attention is for him or his money. It is this, too, that makes him attractive to Isabella – that she is not in the least impressed by money, but intrigued by art, and solid, middle-of-the-road by temperament. Back home, James is used to getting his way, but Isabella is the first person who can really win at him emotionally, because he can’t buy her; it’s her honesty itself that he falls in love with. While he’s willing to travel to the ends of the earth for her, he knows intimate love can’t be built on big displays – it needs tentativeness, trust and openness, all of which he’s still learning to give. After few conversations about art, James decided to go for a business meeting and promise to return for another time in the gallery .