Chapter 121 - Prince's Generosity

Prince greeted me with a bouquet of red roses on my arrival. Red roses wrapped in back paper, and his bleached-white smile.

"For you, Diana. I wanted to give you black roses at first, but I thought it would be too grim."

'Like it's not too grim as it is. Also, can't you just take a hint?' I gritted my teeth together hard enough that I was afraid I might break my fillings. But, for now, Prince was a client, and I had to act polite if I wanted to get what I wanted and be done with him. That meant accepting the flowers until I could throw them away and giving him my thanks.

I was careful to not touch his fingers as I took the flowers from Prince.

But oh, how insistent he was. Polite, even gallant, but insufferably insistent.

"Would you want anything to drink? To eat? I have an excellent wine collection," he said as soon as I exchanged my sandals for soft guest shoes.

"Do you like that painting? I bought it cheap, but it must have more value than that if it catches your eye," Prince said when my gaze brushed one of the decorative paintings hanged on the walls of his estate. Estate, because it had a garden a size of a football field attached.

"What do you do in your spare time, Diana? I like to read in my garden. It's very relaxing. Do you want to see it?" he asked when I walked past a window with a look on the greenery that surrounding Prince's house.

I just had to be equally insistent in return. "Carthāgō dēlenda est1", and "I just want to look at the set, please." Still, I've spent half an hour walked around the grounds before Prince finally brought me to the storeroom that hosted his collection.

The set that I targeted was already put aside, the protective cover moved away to show me it in all its Baroque glory. Pastel blue, the set consisted out of three chairs and a sofa—perfect, as it meant there would a chair to spare in case JJ paid Avarice another visit, ha! The well-preserved velvet upholstery was embroidered with gold and silver threads, and the polished wood was oak.

I walked around the set, taking it in from all sides. From just a first glance it was genuine, though I'd better check it closer, and more than that, it was well preserved—

'Or not,' I thought as I walked to the back of the sofa. There, on the dark wood, I spotted several small holes. Small, almost unnoticeable, but serious. I lowered to one knee and used a flashlight on my phone for lit the holes up as I inspected them.

"Is something wrong with the items, Diana?" Prince's worried voice went right over my head.

I snarled as I took in the damages. Not much, but at least one board was definitely eaten up inside. A few gentle knocks on the wood proved that the board next to it was eaten up, too. It didn't happen recently, but it did, and now the item wasn't in the pristine condition it once had been.

Oh, one could argue that the sofa was still perfectly usable, but eaten up boards made it easier for the entire item to break, and I knew that Avarice won't accept anything less than perfection. I huffed through my nose and wondered if this could be restored.

I knew my grandmother won't be able to. She was a miracle worker with paintings, despite her poor with years eyesight, but she didn't have neither tools nor skills for woodworking on that scale. The boards would need to be replaced, and that would require dismantling the entire thing and putting it back together… Possible, but I'd have to pay a hefty sum to a good restorer.

"Diana?"

Oh, right, I wasn't here alone. "There's some bugs damage on the wood. Did you know when you bought it?"

"No." The darker tone of Prince's voice made me lift my eyes on him. Gone was the smile—now he looked every bit a calculating businessman. It was much easier to deal with. "Is it serious?"

"I won't be able to tell until I look through everything. But I don't think it's a fake, at least," I said absentmindedly.

I lowered even closer to the ground, ignoring the cleanliness of my shirt, to look under the sofa with my flashlight. My inspection was over only after I inspected every centimetre of the furniture set. There was an etching of the master's brand on the underside of each item, and the woodworking methods, as well as the embroidery, added to my assurance of the authenticity of the items.

I found no more of the termite holes, but what I did find was bad enough. With a sigh, I stood up and brushed off the dust and dirt from my clothes.

"The sofa needs to go through restorations until it can be called to be in pristine condition. If you bought it for a price of an undamaged item, you were duped, Denis. Either way, I'd like to buy it off your hands."

The restoration would be costly, but if I haggled well enough, together with the cost of the set itself it might be under five hundred thousand Avarice promised to pay… 'Or maybe,' I frowned as other, unorthodox options came to my head, 'there are other ways to go about it… I will have to ask—'

"You can have it, Diana. It's a gift for you."

I blinked and did a double take of Prince's face. He waved at the set, a gesture of a generous patron, and looked at me with self-assurance that long ago went into the realm of arrogance. Even if this was my perfect opportunity, I just couldn't stop my next words.

"This is too expensive for a gift!"

"You said it was damaged, so not that expensive anymore, is it? Take it. I will accept no refusals, Diana. Accept or refuse, it will be delivered to your home shortly."

This was how it felt to make a choice that meant nothing in the end.