Robert looked out at the calm surface of Lake Michigan and wished he was somewhere else—anywhere else. Anyone looking at the scene would have thought he was crazy. A beautiful summer day, out on his own yacht, beautiful women at his beck and call, champagne, waiters to serve them—how could anything be wrong? It was everyone’s dream. Robert wondered what was wrong with him. He had everything, but he felt so empty, as if he had nothing.
He had arrived at twenty-six, a billionaire with companies and properties all over the world. His legacy was well-established; he had nothing to prove anymore. Why was that not enough? Why did he feel so restless and unfulfilled? Why did this life he lived seem so pointless?
A tall brunette in a bikini, with new breasts and a pouty mouth advertising that it was not all natural, passed by and took his hand. “Come on deck and dance with us, Robert.”
“Later,” he said. He smiled at her, and she disappeared. Robert spotted Debra, his PA, near the door and waved her over. She was always where he was and absolutely loyal. She took care of everything for him, just as she’d always done.
“Sir?” Debra said. She was old-school respectful, something Robert used to like, but even that annoyed him lately.
“Call me Robert, Debra,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Robert gave up. “I’m sneaking downstairs to my bedroom. Tell people looking for me I’m sick. I want to be alone for a while.”
“Yes, sir... I mean, Robert.” At least she was trying. It would take time.
Robert lay on his bed in the spacious bedroom fitted out with oak wardrobes and dressing tables attached to the walls for the rough seas his yacht sometimes encountered. He’d traveled in it to Greece and South Africa, even to Australia a few times. It was his home when he was not in Chicago in his lakefront penthouse on the twenty-fifth floor of one of the buildings he owned in the city. The ground floor was his gallery, Rive Gauche, one of the more prestigious in the country. Art was one of Robert’s passions, and finding and promoting new artists he loved was one of the few things in his life that still gave him real joy. He kept to the background though. He didn’t like being seen as the owner or the benefactor. Few people knew what he actually did, and he liked it that way.
He looked up to the ceiling, sighing. He was sick in a way. He had been for some time. What was wrong with him? Was he lonely? Could it be as simple as that? Lonely with people constantly around him.
Of course he missed his parents, but the accident had been over three years ago now. Surely he was over the initial shock of the loss. It was a tragedy when their private plane crashed in the Andes, but Robert sometimes thought it was better they died together. Theirs had been a love story like no other, one Robert could only dream of ever having, and he doubted either one of them would have survived happily on their own. Robert was an only child, so he often felt lost without them, but the way he felt lately was more than that. His life seemed so meaningless. Nothing really challenged him anymore. Everything was easy and unexciting. Living the playboy life had lost its fun.
He rolled to his side. Soon the yacht would dock and the crowd would leave and he would be free of them, at least for a while. He had the opening of the Dancy show at the gallery tonight. He loved her paintings and would like to purchase one or two tonight for his house in Paris, but he didn’t look forward to seeing the same vacuous people that always attended such functions in Chicago. They were always there more for being seen than for appreciating the art. They would, as usual, be fawning over him in the insincere manner he’d come to loathe.
But then he reminded himself of his plan, and a surge of excitement passed through his body. He’d thought of it some weeks before, and it had not left his mind since. He’d read a story about an employee at the Louvre who stole the Mona Lisa—Vincenzo Peruggia. Something about that stuck with him. He imagined himself stealing a painting; just the thought made his blood race with excitement, something he never felt nowadays. To plan and execute such a thing successfully began to fill his mind and, oddly, it gave him a reason for living, something beyond his normal life.
Tonight he planned to implement what he’d laid out for himself. Tonight he intended to commit a perfect crime: to steal a painting from his own gallery and not get caught. He smiled thinking about it as he slowly drifted off to sleep.
***
“SIR? SIR?”
Robert opened his eyes, confused. Where was he?
“Sir, sorry to disturb you, but we’ve been docked for three hours now, and I fear if you don’t get up soon you will miss this evening’s engagement.” Debra stood to the side, as if embarrassed, holding his tuxedo in one hand.
Robert sat up on his bed and looked out the window. He was still on the yacht. It was dark, the city lights sparkling in the distance. He felt refreshed though; the long sleep had been exactly what he needed. He checked the clock and saw it was already 8:30. He’d be late for the opening—he’d better get going. He had a big night ahead of him.
***
ROBERT COULDN’T KEEP his mind still. All he could think of was his plan. Once the party was over and the crowd cleared out, when all was quiet, he would sneak back in and do it. Which painting would he steal? He decided since this was really just a practice run to see if he could get away with it, he would steal the painting that he’d purchased shortly after he’d arrived. It was small and in a good position in the gallery. And it would harm no one. The painter would have been paid, and he would not claim from his insurance for the loss. It was the perfect choice for his first attempt.
He milled around the crowd, trying to pay attention to the conversations about new business acquisitions or charities that were being started, gossip about who was sleeping with whom. He had interest in none of it.
Mrs. Vallier stood far too close to him and ran her hands up and down Robert’s well-defined biceps, felt clearly through his jacket while she talked. “You know we only just returned from Cannes. It was amazing. We missed you this year, Robert.”
She smiled at him, a smile meant to remind him of their rendezvous in a cheap hotel up the coast. Mrs. Vallier, though married and a few years old than Robert, was an energetic lover if little else.
“Perhaps next year,” Robert said, moving off.
He stood before the painting he’d purchased, the one chosen for the night’s escapade. It was a small painting, little bigger than two of his hands wide. The naked woman, for all of the paintings were of gorgeous naked women in all of their beauty, lay across a rumpled bed. A red blanket was pushed to the side, and one of her arms was thrown above her head, her long blonde hair spread around her like a halo, her other hand cupping between her legs, a slight smile on her face. He loved everything about the painting. The woman looked satiated after lovemaking of the long and luxurious kind. He would enjoy holding the painting in his hands; he got excited just imagining it. Art should move a person, and this painting moved him.
He turned looking away from the painting, and there she was.
Across the room, a woman, with the same spectacular blonde hair as the woman in the painting. She was dressed casually, as if clothes were nothing to her, that her real substance was herself— who she was— not the accoutrements that money could buy. So unlike the other women that filled up the room. It was such a new and refreshing manner, Robert could not look away from her. She wore a white blouse with a bold silver necklace and little makeup except for a slash of bright red lipstick on her perfect, natural lips. She looked directly at him. She noticed he was staring at her, but she did not look away. Nor did she move toward him, as most of the women in the room would have done, the hunt begun. She stayed where she was.
The gallery was packed with people. Robert pushed through them to get nearer to this extraordinary woman. He was finally next to her, though she was facing away from him. The crowd pushed him into her, his body against her back, and he bent his face slightly toward her golden hair and thought how it smelled of sunshine and summer and fields of green grass. His body, against his will, was filling with adrenaline, the excitement moving through him just being near her. He could not remember ever being so affected by a woman. He felt lost in her somehow.
She turned to him, and she was more beautiful up close than she was from across the room.
“Hello,” she said. “I thought I saw you looking at me from over there in the corner. Did you want something?”
“No,” he said. “Only to meet you, I guess.” He held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Robert.”
She smiled at him and her face lit up, and his breath caught in his throat. Had he ever met such a beautiful woman before? So beautiful and yet she seemed completely unconcerned about it and the effect she was having on him.
“Hi, Robert. I’m Kim. Kim Davidson.”