Chapter One
Julie’s nerves had been winding tighter and tighter since she’d left New York ten hours ago. They’d squeezed into hard knots when she landed in Milan, and now, in the car carrying her toward the lake, her insides churned. She barely noticed the extraordinary smoothness and quiet of the hired vehicle or the buttery softness of leather upholstery in the back seat.
She wished she’d said no to the trip. She wished she could’ve said no. But that wasn’t really an option. Professor Antonio Farnese had asked for her specifically to come and assess the group of paintings he’d recently inherited. If genuine, they were worth a fortune, and it would be her job to convince him to donate or sell them to her museum for a reasonable price. It was a chance of a lifetime for someone so young,
