My Boss Demanded I Prove His Father A Fraud, But I Fell For The Forger's Son Instead

The air in the private viewing room was cold, sterile, and smelled faintly of floor polish and old canvas. It was a smell I usually loved, one that spoke of history and reverence. Today, it just made my stomach clench. Before me, resting on a velvet-draped easel, was the "Seraphine Portrait."

She was beautiful, hauntingly so. A woman with skin like moonlit alabaster, dark hair coiled loosely at the nape of her neck, and eyes that held a universe of secrets. The artist had captured a fleeting expression, a subtle upturn of her lips that could have been the beginning of a smile or the memory of one. The brushwork was exquisite, the use of light and shadow masterful. It had all the hallmarks of a lost Renaissance treasure.

Except it came from the estate of Julian Croft, the most infamous art forger of the twentieth century.

"A remarkable piece, wouldn't you agree, Dr. Vance?"

The voice of the museum director, Mr. Davies, cut through my concentration. He stood a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression as unreadable as the woman in the portrait. His suit was impeccable, his silver hair perfectly coiffed. He was a man who radiated authority and an unnerving, quiet disapproval.

"It's... compelling," I said, my voice carefully neutral. My gaze traced the delicate craquelure that webbed across the surface. It looked authentic, felt authentic. But with a forger like Croft, looks were the ultimate deception.

"Compelling, yes," Davies conceded, stepping closer. "Croft was a master of compelling. He fooled the world's best for three decades. He nearly fooled me, once." The last words were spoken with a particular chill. Davies had built his formidable career on exposing Croft's forgeries, writing the definitive book that had landed the artist in prison, where he eventually died. This was personal for him.

"His son insists it's genuine," Davies continued, his eyes fixed on the painting. "Claims his father acquired it, that it was the one authentic piece he owned. A deathbed attempt to clear the family name, no doubt." He made a dismissive sound. "He's coming in tomorrow. I expect you to handle the initial meeting. Keep it professional. We are merely doing our due diligence."

My hands felt cold. This wasn't just another authentication. This was a legacy-defining case. For Davies, it was the final nail in his rival's coffin. For me, it was a tightrope walk over a professional abyss. If I declared it a forgery, I was siding with my powerful boss. If I claimed it was real, I was challenging the very foundation of his reputation. My own future at the museum, my entire career, hung on the secrets locked within the layers of oil and varnish on this canvas.

"I understand," I murmured, my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Good," he said, giving me a curt nod. "Find the flaw, Dr. Vance. There's always a flaw with a Croft."

He turned and left the room, the heavy door clicking shut behind him, leaving me alone with the portrait. The silence was immense. The woman's painted eyes seemed to follow me, her enigmatic smile a silent challenge. Find the flaw. It was less a request and more a command. And as I stood there, trapped in her gaze, I felt the first, unwelcome whisper of doubt. Not about the painting, but about the truth I was expected to find.

The next morning, I was sitting in one of the museum’s small, soulless conference rooms when the door opened. I had expected someone like Davies—sharp, polished, defensive. The man who entered was none of those things.

He was tall, with broad shoulders that seemed constrained by the crisp but simple button-down shirt he wore. His dark hair was a little too long, falling over his brow in a way that suggested he’d run his hands through it one too many times. His hands, resting on the back of the opposite chair, were clean but calloused, the knuckles prominent. These were not the hands of an art dealer or a lawyer. They were the hands of someone who worked.

"Dr. Vance?" His voice was low and even, holding no trace of the entitlement or aggression I’d braced myself for.

"Yes. Mr. Croft," I replied, my own voice sounding overly formal. "Please, have a seat."

He sat, his movements economical and deliberate. And then he looked at me, and the air left my lungs in a quiet rush. His eyes were a deep, startling gray, and they were filled with a profound, weary sadness. It wasn't the performative grief of a son trying to sell a story; it was a raw, hollowed-out ache that seemed to be a permanent part of him. Beneath it, though, was a flicker of something else—a stubborn, guarded intensity.

"Thank you for meeting with me," he began, his gaze unwavering. "I know what the museum's position is on my father."

"My position is objective, Mr. Croft," I corrected him, perhaps too quickly. "My job is to analyze the painting based on scientific and historical evidence, not reputation." The words sounded hollow even to me, a rehearsed line to maintain a professional distance that was already shrinking.

A corner of his mouth tilted, a humorless, tired expression. "His reputation is all anyone has ever cared about." He leaned forward slightly, his hands clasping on the table. "Look, I’m not here to tell you my father was a saint. He wasn't. But he wasn't a monster, either. He loved art. Truly loved it. That painting... the 'Seraphine Portrait'... he told me it was the one real thing he ever owned. He wanted it seen. He wanted people to see that he knew beauty, not just how to copy it."

His sincerity was a physical force, pressing against the wall of professional skepticism I was trying so hard to maintain. I found my eyes tracing the hard line of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble there. I forced my gaze back to his. That was a mistake. The grief in them was magnetic, pulling me in, making me want to understand the man he was defending, not just the forger Davies had described.

"The provenance is the primary issue," I said, my voice softer than I intended. "Without a clear history, authentication is… complex."

"I know," Liam said, his gaze dropping to his hands for a moment before meeting mine again. "All I'm asking is that you look at the painting for what it is. Not for who owned it."

The meeting concluded a few minutes later with a stiff, formal handshake. His skin was warm and slightly rough against mine, and the brief contact sent an unexpected and entirely inappropriate current through my arm. He left as quietly as he'd arrived, but his presence lingered in the sterile room long after the door clicked shut. I was left with the disarming memory of his eyes and a dangerous, unwelcome thought: What if he was right?

The following Saturday, I found myself miles from the museum district, seeking refuge in a place that felt like a different century. Archer’s Books was a labyrinth of towering shelves, the air thick with the sweet, dry scent of aging paper and leather bindings. It was my sanctuary, a place where history wasn't curated behind glass but could be held in your hands. I was in a narrow, dimly lit aisle in the back, running my fingers along the spines of obscure art history texts, searching for anything on Renaissance pigment composition—something, anything, that might explain the anomaly in the Seraphine’s primer.

“The Craftsman’s Handbook by Cennino Cennini,” a low voice said from behind me. “That’s a good one for gesso preparations.”

I froze, my hand still on a heavy, cloth-bound volume. I knew that voice. I turned slowly, my heart giving a sudden, hard thump against my ribs.

Liam Croft stood at the end of the aisle, a stack of books already cradled in one arm. He was wearing a soft gray Henley that stretched across his shoulders and worn jeans. He looked younger here, softer, stripped of the tension that had surrounded him in the museum. The weary sadness was still in his eyes, but in the dusty, golden light of the bookshop, it looked less like grief and more like a deep, settled thoughtfulness.

“Mr. Croft,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“Liam, please,” he corrected gently. He gestured with his chin toward the book in my hand. “Looking for something specific?”

I felt a flush creep up my neck. It was impossible to lie. “Pigment binders. And primer techniques, specifically.”

A flicker of understanding crossed his face. He walked toward me, his steps quiet on the creaking floorboards, and stopped just a few feet away. The narrow aisle suddenly felt incredibly small. “My father had a copy of that,” he said, his voice dropping even lower, as if sharing a secret. “The Italian original. He said you couldn’t trust the translations to get the chemistry right.”

“He read Italian?” I asked, surprised.

“He taught himself. He was obsessed with the old masters, with how they did things. The way they ground their own malachite, the way they used egg tempera for flesh tones to get that specific luminosity.” He spoke with a quiet passion that was mesmerizing. This wasn’t the defensive son from the museum; this was a man talking about a craft he understood intimately.

“That’s why you’re here,” I stated, it wasn’t a question.

He nodded, shifting the books in his arm. “I’m always looking for things he might have read. Trying to… understand the process. It was more than just copying. It was a science.”

We stood there for a long moment, the silence thick with everything our first meeting had been: the painting, his father, my job. But here, surrounded by shared knowledge, it felt different. The professional lines blurred, replaced by a simple, powerful current of mutual interest.

“There’s a section on German woodcut inks over here,” I found myself saying, stepping past him. My arm brushed against his, a brief, warm pressure of muscle through two layers of cotton. A jolt, sharp and clear, shot through me. I saw his jaw tighten for a fraction of a second. I pulled away quickly, my skin tingling where we’d touched.

He followed me to the next aisle. We talked for nearly an hour, our voices low, our conversation weaving from Albrecht Dürer to the chemical composition of lapis lazuli. He knew as much as I did, not from an academic perspective, but from a practical one. He spoke of his father not as a criminal, but as a master craftsman, a man whose genius was eclipsed by its application. And I listened, completely captivated, forgetting entirely about Mr. Davies and the career I was supposed to be protecting.

Finally, the shop owner announced he was closing in ten minutes. The spell was broken.

“I should go,” Liam said, his eyes finding mine in the dim light. They were intense, searching.

“Yes, me too,” I replied, my throat suddenly dry.

We walked toward the front of the store in silence. At the door, he stopped and turned to me. “Elara,” he said, using my first name for the first time. It sounded impossibly intimate. “Thank you. For talking to me.”

“It was…” I started, but I couldn’t find the right word. Professional? No. Interesting? It was far more than that.

He gave a small, almost sad smile. It was the first real smile I’d seen from him, and it transformed his entire face, erasing some of the deep-set weariness. “I know this is complicated,” he said softly. His gaze held mine, and in that look, I saw the same conflict, the same pull of a forbidden current that I felt churning inside me. It was a silent acknowledgment that this was more than a chance meeting, and that we were both standing on the edge of something dangerous and unavoidable. He gave a final, small nod and pushed the door open, disappearing into the evening air, leaving me with the ghost of his touch on my arm and the unsettling certainty that I was already in far too deep.