The Bad Boy Wants Me(62)

We go back to the party and neither Gavin nor Octavia are anywhere to be seen.





Chapter Thirty-five


Tori

‘Wake up, you morsel of sexiness.’

I groan and, turning away from the voice, curl up into a tight ball.

‘Come on. I’ve got something really special to show you,’ Cash says in my ear.

I open one eye. ‘What?’

‘Want to see The Last Supper?’ He licks along the shell.

My aunt told me she came to Milan and though she desperately wanted to see The Last Supper, she couldn’t. She joked tickets to see it were harder to come by than front seat invitations to a Gucci fashion show. I open both eyes. ‘You have tickets?’

‘Three if I’m keeping it real.’

I stretch luxuriously and yawn. How could this guy have so much energy? He lights up a stage for more than an hour, he parties until late at night, has sex until the early morning hours, and wakes up at first light.

He nibbles my lobe. He’s starting something here. ‘Unless you just want to stay in bed and we can have sex all morning.’

I pull back slightly. ‘As delicious as that sounds, I do want to see The Last Supper.’

He grins. Cocky and confident. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘What’s the time?’ I ask.

‘Nine.’

‘Already?’

‘Get in the shower and I’ll go wake Brit up,’ he says slipping out of the room.

Totally naked I pad over to the shower. Warm water rains down on me, bouncing off my head, face and shoulders. It’s a good way to wake up. I’m already out of the shower and getting into my clothes when Cash comes back in.

‘Is Britney getting ready?’ I ask.

‘She doesn’t want to come.’

‘Why not? I thought she loved art.’

‘Yeah, the modern stuff. Her exact grumpy response was, “Go away. I’m not getting out of bed to stand for half-an-hour in front of a painting that’s been so heavily restored it’s not even Leonardo’s work any more.”’

I giggle. That so sounds like Britney. ‘Did you tell her it’s a mural and not a painting?’

‘Nope. I didn’t think it would make a blind bit of difference.’

‘So what does she want to do?’ I ask picking up the hairdryer.

‘She wants to go to see the Duomo so she’ll meet us before we set off for that. I’ll arrange for the driver to pick her up and bring her to us.’

I point the hairdryer at him. ‘Aren’t you worried you’re going to get recognized and mobbed?’

He walks over to the desk and picks up the beard and the moustache he used that night we went to The Ministry of Sound.

I laugh. ‘Sterling idea.’



We have to pass through a humidity controlling chamber before we enter the refectory where we will only have fifteen minutes before the next lot of people will be let in. We enter, hushed and reverent. There is nothing else in that hall except a painting of Jesus’ crucifixion on the opposite wall.

I stand in front of the partially damaged mural and take a deep breath.

The painting is faded and even flaky, yet it is more majestic than anything I have seen before. I’m not a connoisseur of art, and I’m pretty certain I have seen other paintings and frescos with as much attention to detail, but perhaps it is the subject matter which arrests my complete attention. The painting catches the climactic moment when Jesus says, ‘One of you will betray me.’

Da Vinci has managed to capture the atmosphere of shock, astonishment, and rage among his disciples. The expressions on the faces of the apostles, their hand movements, and the postures of their bodies tell a mesmerizing story of the awakening of distrust in a tightly knit group of people.

I watch Judas. The bad guy. There is spilled salt before him, and he is clutching a bag of silver in his left hand. His right hand and Jesus’ are simultaneously reaching for a loaf of bread.

The guide’s voice comes through the device in my ear to say that the vanishing point for the painting is on Jesus’ right temple. That is where my eye goes and I’m suddenly moved by the look of gentle resignation and peace in a way I’ve never seen by him. Poor Jesus.

I steal a look at Cash and he is looking at me. The beard and the moustache make his eyes look as green as spring grass.

‘Do you like it?’ he asks.

‘It’s absolutely stunning.’

He smiles.

Then our time is over and all of us exit the convent through a gift shop and file out into the street.

‘Are you hungry?’ Cash asks.

In the bright sunshine his disguise looks really fake and stupid, but it occurs to me then, I don’t even care what he looks like any more. I just love him for what he is. For the things he says and does, and the way he touches my soul without even trying.