Canvas Between Us

The studio smelled like turpentine, plaster, and history.

Aanya stood just inside the threshold, half-shadowed beneath the arch of the old converted chapel. Light poured through the high arched windows, casting pale stripes across the stone floor. The building had once been sacred. Now it belonged to silence and art—like everything in Florence.

"You okay?" Emilia whispered, elbowing her gently.

Aanya nodded, eyes adjusting to the blend of ancient walls and sleek equipment. Paintings—fractured, flaking, precious—lined the long tables. The cracked face of a Madonna. The faded brushstroke of a forgotten saint. Time had touched everything here, even the air.

"I forgot what real studios feel like," Aanya murmured.

Emilia grinned. "Like being inside someone else's unfinished memory."

They walked past the first workstation. Aanya's boots tapped softly on the stone, a rhythm too calm for the storm in her chest. The moment she stepped inside, she felt it—something waiting. Not a presence. A pressure. Like the air had already been disturbed.

She told herself it was nerves.

At the third table, she found her name.

Taped to the edge in clean lettering: A. ROY.

Next to it lay a faded landscape from the late 1800s—sky-heavy, ochre and rust, in need of gentle correction. Her fingers hovered just above the cracked varnish.

"You'll be starting with this one," Emilia said, placing a gloved hand on the frame. "Minor flaking, some light color rebalancing. Nothing invasive."

Aanya exhaled.

Restoration was safer than painting. No invention. No vulnerability. Just repair.

She could do that.

She could fix what wasn't hers.

"Ah," Emilia said suddenly, her voice shifting. "Looks like our ghost finally arrived."

Aanya looked up.

At the far end of the studio, the door opened.

And in stepped the man from the alley.

From the gallery.

From her sketchbook.

He was no longer just shadow and glass.

He was here.

Real.

Leonhart Moretti.

Tall. Dressed in charcoal black. Tie sharp, shoes silent. He moved like someone who had never needed to explain himself.

His gaze swept the room once before it landed—without hesitation—on her.

Aanya's breath caught.

He said nothing.

Did nothing.

But the moment snapped something inside her.

He's him.

Emilia walked up to him, her posture straightening ever so slightly. "Mr. Moretti, pleasure as always. We weren't sure you'd drop in."

Leonhart inclined his head. "Only for a moment."

His voice was exactly as she remembered it—low, deliberate, shaped with expensive vowels.

Emilia gestured toward Aanya. "Our newest addition. Aanya Roy. From Kolkata. She's on the Grant Program."

He stepped closer.

Aanya straightened. She didn't offer her hand.

Neither did he.

Their eyes locked.

There was no flicker of surprise in his gaze. No warmth. Just the same cold knowing she had felt from across the gallery floor.

"Miss Roy," he said smoothly.

"Mr. Moretti," she replied, voice calm, even though her pulse betrayed her.

His gaze dropped briefly to her hands.

Then to the table.

Then back to her.

She saw it happen—the calculation. The recognition he refused to voice.

She held her ground.

Emilia, unaware of the tension, went on. "Mr. Moretti funds the entire restoration wing through his private foundation. Technically, he owns everything in this room."

Aanya didn't flinch, but the words landed sharp.

Of course he does.

Of course he would own even the air she was learning to breathe again.

"I've seen your work," Leonhart said casually, his eyes not leaving hers. "Your early sketches. Charcoal on rough paper. Mostly negative space. Your silence was louder than the figures."

Aanya's heart dropped.

"How?" she asked before she could stop herself.

He raised a brow. "Florence has small corners. Quiet talent doesn't stay buried."

"You sound like you were waiting to find it."

"Not waiting. Watching."

Emilia laughed lightly, misreading the moment. "Mr. Moretti has an eye for emerging artists. Don't let the suit fool you—he's been sponsoring residencies since he was twenty."

Aanya said nothing.

Leonhart looked away first.

Only to examine the painting on her table.

His hand didn't touch it, but the tension in the room shifted.

"You have a clean hand," he said. "Steady. Careful. Almost too careful."

"I don't make a habit of ruining things," she said.

He smiled slightly. "Sometimes ruining something is the only way to see what it's made of."

She met his gaze without blinking. "Some things aren't meant to be seen that way."

"A shame."

Emilia's phone buzzed. She checked it, sighed. "Apologies, Mr. Moretti—I need to step out for a moment."She gave him a nervous smile. "Please excuse me."

She vanished toward the stairwell.

Leaving them alone.

Silence bloomed between them.

Aanya turned back to her painting, peeled back one of the cotton cloths over the frame.

Leonhart stepped closer.

She didn't move, but her breath shifted.

He stood just far enough to keep it professional. Just close enough to undo that illusion.

"Why did you hang that painting at the gallery?" she asked softly.

He didn't answer immediately.

Then, "Because it needed to be seen."

"You bought it."

"Yes."

"You weren't supposed to."

"There's no law against recognizing value."

"You hung it where I would find it."

"Did you want to find it?"

She didn't answer.

He didn't push.

He walked around her slowly, toward the nearest wall of shelved frames, studying nothing in particular. Just her.

"You paint pain like you're afraid of it," he said quietly.

Aanya's fingers gripped the frame harder.

"You don't know me."

"No. But I know how you touch canvas. That's more honest than words."

"Is that how you know everyone?" she said, voice sharp. "Buy their art. Analyze their brushstrokes. Own their ghosts?"

His pause was long.

Then: "Only the ones worth owning."

She turned toward him, eyes narrowed.

But before she could speak, Emilia returned.

"Crisis averted," she said, returning. She offered him a polite smile. "Thank you for stopping by, Mr. Moretti. I'm sure you have more important places to be."

Leonhart gave a courteous nod. "Miss Roy, I'll leave you to it."

He turned.

Walked away.

No glance back.

Aanya stood frozen long after he was gone.

Emilia came up beside her. "He's a little intense, huh?"

Aanya forced a laugh. "You think?"

"I've only seen him rattle once—and that was when someone smudged a Botticelli with a thumbprint."

"I'm guessing he doesn't show up often?"

"Almost never. Why?"

Aanya shook her head. "No reason."

But there was a reason.

There was always a reason with men like him.

She sat again at the table, unrolling the tool cloth Emilia had handed her earlier.

But her hands shook faintly now.

The brush felt heavier. The light harsher.

She stared at the broken sky in the painting before her.

And saw the shape of his voice somewhere in the cracks.

She tried to work.

Tried to breathe.

But the silence he'd left behind wasn't empty.

It was watching.

Just like him.

Final Lines:

She told herself she wasn't afraid of him.But fear wasn't the right word anyway.It was recognition.And recognition always came with consequences.