Kenzie Anne - Florentine Part 2 -11.11.21- Now

“Lead the way,” she said. “But Matteo?”

He opened the book. Inside were not words, but sketches. Charcoal and sanguine. A woman’s face, repeated over and over. The same face. High cheekbones, a defiant mouth, eyes that seemed to follow you even in two-dimensional form. Kenzie felt the floor drop away.

The rain over Florence had not stopped for three days. It fell in soft, persistent sheets against the leaded glass of the restored palazzo , turning the Arno into a churning, muddy serpent below. Kenzie Anne stood at the window of her studio, a dry paintbrush held loosely in her fingers, watching the water trace paths down the glass like veins. Kenzie Anne - Florentine Part 2 -11.11.21-

“Because every few centuries, a woman with that face is born in a city by a river,” he said. “And every time, she is given a choice. To be the painter. Or to be the paint.”

“Before I show you,” he said, “you need to understand. This isn’t a love story, Kenzie. It’s a warning.” “Lead the way,” she said

The door to the studio creaked open. She didn’t turn. She knew the weight of his step.

She finally turned to face him. His eyes were the color of the Arno after the storm—gray-green, churning. There was a small cut on his lower lip, fresh. He hadn’t had it yesterday. Charcoal and sanguine

Part one had ended in fire. A gallery opening, a stolen kiss behind a column of Carrara marble, a whisper of “Tornami a trovare” —come find me again. She had. She had sold her return ticket to New York and stayed.