The Light Off the Water.

A Ricci Women Novel of Family and Secrets

He deceived me with kindness. That's the part I can't forgive.

Not the hidden name. Not the grandmother whose paintings my family stole. The kindness -- the way Nicholas Blum looked at me as if invisible women were the only ones worth seeing. The bread every morning. The way he held my confession about shrinking without crushing it.

I fell for him. I, the most precise woman in Venice, undone by careful hands and a secret against his chest.

I found that secret with my hands. During a kiss, hidden against his heart. I stopped the kiss. I asked who he was. And the man who named my silences answered with a silence that broke the room in half.

His grandmother is a hundred years old. She remembers every painting. She has been waiting for eighty years.

Now the evidence will destroy my father's legacy. My family will fracture. The name I honor will mean theft.

I have to choose. I can bury it and stay invisible. Or I can reveal the truth. Then I’ll face the wreckage with the man who lied to me.