Читать книгу The From Paris With Love And Regency Season Of Secrets Ultimate Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 102
ОглавлениеMoonlight poured through the panes of glass in the bedroom. Evangeline eased out from under Matt’s arm and pulled the covers over his gorgeously muscled torso. He shifted but didn’t wake up.
She watched him breathe, unable to tear her eyes away. Sooty lashes brushed his cheeks, and underneath those lids lay the most amazing depths. No matter how many mornings she woke wound up in his long limbs, it wouldn’t be enough. She could stand here forever and bask in his presence.
But the words were flowing, calling her with their siren song, begging her to commit the emotion to paper. She couldn’t ignore the first stirring of inspiration.
The piano had unwound something inside her, and Matt patiently drew it out, helping her examine it in his clearheaded, logical way.
Downstairs, she plopped onto the couch with the back of a take-out menu and a pen. Fifteen minutes later, lyrics covered every blank space on the menu. Good lyrics. For the first time in months, she’d tapped into her center and captured the music.
She rummaged around for more paper and came up empty-handed. Matt’s iPad sat on the coffee table and though under normal circumstances she’d never use a digital page, she couldn’t lose momentum.
When she hit the power button, one of the squares with the logo WFP caught her attention. It hadn’t been there before.
She touched it and the website popped up. Wheeler Family Partners. The header contained the profiles of four men and she recognized Matt’s instantly. The chiseled good-looking face next to Matt must be his brother, Lucas. A total player. She could see the look in his eye a mile away and hoped his wife kept that one on a short leash.
The other men must be their dad and grandfather. Andrew and Robert, according to the About page. Matt favored his grandfather. They both had the same piercing gaze and straightforwardness. She could tell neither of them would ever lie, cheat or steal.
Her eye wandered down the paragraph. Geez. Wheeler Family Partners had done eighty million dollars of business in the last quarter of the previous year alone, largely owing to the sale of a communications complex in North Dallas.
And Matt had been the spearhead of his firm. Like she’d assumed, he’d been successful at everything he’d tried. Business. Marriage. Getting her to stay.
He was far more special than she’d imagined.
She tapped the website closed and brought up a free-text application, more than a little concerned she’d stemmed the fountain of words with her side foray into Matt’s domain.
A blank page materialized. It didn’t scare her.
But the words she typed did. She couldn’t stop, didn’t even pause as the song fell from her fingers, fully formed. Whereas the first round had taken shape in bits and pieces, this one had structure. Order. And it would be a guaranteed hit. She knew it. All four of her Grammys had been for songwriting, not singing.
The piano hovered in the corner of her peripheral vision, and she glanced up at it, then up the stairs to where Matt lay sleeping. No piano this time. She didn’t want to wake him.
The fortune teller had predicted she’d conceive. And this felt like birth, like the beginning of something wonderful and amazing. A metamorphosis.
As the last word appeared, she finally removed her fingers from the screen and read over the song again, hearing the tune in her head as she internalized the words. With the right voice, like Sara Lear’s, it would climb the charts instantly.
She saved the file to her cloud account and powered off the tablet, staring out the window at the quiet canal.
The right voice. It wouldn’t be hers. She wasn’t ready to let the song go to another home, but for the first time, it didn’t sting so badly to envision it. Thanks to Matt.
Here in the dark, it didn’t seem so frightening to admit she was falling for him. He was so genuine and real, and her stupid heart hungrily latched onto those qualities. She knew better. Knew that nothing could crumble the monument to Amber in his chest. But her heart had its fingers in its ears, refusing to hear the message from her brain.
Matt was a heartbreak waiting to happen.
She should go before it was too late. Nicola had a place in Monte Carlo. Vincenzo had been making noises about shoving off in that direction in a few days and had texted her the address with an open invitation to join the group. Her stomach rolled. It had been off since the reporter incident.
Matt still needed her. His turmoil churned below the surface, popping up in his faraway gaze at odd moments. She’d give anything to ease that note of sheer anguish in his voice when he talked about his family and the life he’d lost.
She didn’t want to leave.
Her head fell back against the couch cushion. The riot of colors splashed across the ceiling was dim with only the outside canal lights to illuminate it. The paintings depicted domestic vignettes; men and women sleeping, eating, playing with children. This had been someone’s refuge, built to escape a harsh climate.
She and Matt had both done the same. And despite what she told herself about the reasons she stayed, she needed him as much as he needed her. How much longer could they hide away here before Venice became a stumbling block to healing instead of a sanctuary?
* * *
Matt’s gentle hands in her hair woke her. Daylight streamed through the panes leading to the balcony and beyond the glass, Venice was awash with the morning.
“You okay?” Matt asked from behind her. “Why didn’t you come back to bed?”
“Meant to. But I fell asleep.” She yawned. The mist of sleep would not clear her mind, like she’d dunked her head in a vat of Jell-O.
“I’ll make you some breakfast.”
Food did not sound appealing in the least. “You go ahead. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll grab something later.”
He leaned to plant an upside-down kiss on her lips. “Want me to scrub your back?”
Which was code for Very-Little-Bathing-To-Occur. “Normally I’d be all over that. But I’m just wiped out. The shower is to wake me up.” She smiled to soften the blow.
“If you’re sure.” He brushed a thumb tenderly across her temple and disappeared into the kitchen. Thumps of cabinets opening and dishes clinking drifted out. Comforting sounds. Sounds of home.
How would she know? She’d never had the kind of home the noises had evoked. Never wanted one.
Until now.
Oh, God, where had that come from? This wasn’t her home. It wasn’t even Matt’s home. Home was for people who wanted to stay together, who implicitly trusted each other and never spent all their energy looking for the exit.
She didn’t do the domestic thing for a reason. And her subconscious argued that the reason was because she hadn’t done it with the right person yet.
Heavy with fatigue, she wandered upstairs to take a long hot shower and get dressed. Somewhere along the way, she began to feel human again. By the time she returned to the lower level, Matt was watching cable news with the crinkle in his forehead that meant he was bored.
When he caught sight of her, he lit up, his expression radiant, and he was absolutely the most gorgeous man on earth. Her heart squished. Out of nowhere, lines of a new song popped into her head. A sappy, sugary love song.
She wasn’t just falling for him, she’d splatted flat on the ground and then a giant cupid had stepped on her.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“Define better,” she mumbled, eyes closed in case her stupid, inadvisable feelings were beaming from her insides. “I’m awake, if that’s what you mean.”
He leaped off the couch and hustled her into the kitchen so he could ply her with food, though the thought of putting anything in her mouth made her slightly nauseous.
Idiot reporters. Those creeps were still upsetting her. She didn’t say anything. There was no point in Matt being upset, too.
Gulping orange juice, she took a seat at the island and watched Matt move around the kitchen. Poetry in motion. He was never content to shove a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster and call it breakfast. His idea of cooking involved creativity usually reserved for master chefs.
Today, he was making an egg-white omelet with prosciutto and sun-dried tomatoes, and a half-moon of cantaloupe on the side. He placed the plate in front of her with a flourish and refilled her empty orange juice glass.
She forked a bite into her mouth and swallowed. It stayed down. “Delicious. As always. You should open a restaurant.”
“Nah. I just throw some stuff together and pray it turns out.” He waved it off with a pleased smile. “Cooking is fun.”
“I’m glad one of us thinks so.” Her idea of fun was paying someone else to cook. And clean up the kitchen. Matt had never met a pan unworthy of his olive oil or chicken stock. But he made such fantastic dishes, she really didn’t mind cleaning up.
“Well, I never used to.” He shrugged. “But I like cooking for you.”
“Why, because I’m so inventive with how I show my appreciation?” She waggled her brows.
He laughed. “That is one of the perks. But mostly because you let me. Amber...she was kind of a Gordon Ramsay about her kitchen. I stayed out of it.”
The omelet took on a whole new significance. “You never cooked for Amber?”
“Sure, when we were dating. But then, I don’t know. She loved to cook and prided herself on it, so I just didn’t anymore.” He stared out the window at the joint courtyard Palazzo D’Inverno shared with Vincenzo’s house, his gaze faraway and dejected. “I paid through the nose to upgrade the kitchen in this place. For her. I didn’t expect to be the one who would actually use it. Honestly, I probably never would have started cooking again if you hadn’t stayed.”
That put a lump the size of a grapefruit in her throat. She couldn’t swallow. “Thanks for resurrecting your spatula for me.”
He shot her a grin. Lately, it didn’t take long at all for him to snap out of his Amber mood, which, if she had her way, he’d get out of permanently.
“You eat too much takeout. Or you used to. You were practically wasted away to nothing when I got ahold of you. At least this way, I know you’re putting something healthy into your body.”
“Oh, I see. You cook for me because you’re concerned about my health,” she joked back.
And then it sank in. It wasn’t a joke. He’d been taking care of her. All along. Maybe subconsciously she’d known that and hence had begun to equate kitchen sounds with a sense of home.
Matt communicated in subtle, baffling ways she’d never experienced—probably because she never stayed long enough to allow it. What was he trying to tell her with food? That he might have deeper and more lasting feelings for her then she’d thought?
Wishful thinking at its worst.
Her eyes burned with the sudden prick of tears.
The omelet turned to mush in her mouth, and she shoved the plate away. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Think I’ll go back to bed.”
“Are you coming down with something?” He skirted the island and cupped her chin with both palms to peer into her eyes, concern practically dripping from his touch.
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
Narrowed blue eyes locked onto hers. The deflection didn’t fool him, but he chose not to call her on it.
Upstairs, she threw herself onto the bed, but it smelled like Matt and that wasn’t conducive to sleep, unless she wanted to have red-hot dreams about the way that man’s mouth felt on her body. She’d rather be experiencing the real thing, but with something far stronger than desire in his gaze.
She wanted Amber’s place in his heart. It was a really inadvisable thing to long for. But that didn’t make the longing magically disappear.
Matt had cooked for her. He’d been taking care of her in a way he never had with Amber.
Maybe he just needed more time to get over her. Maybe being here, in the house he’d bought his wife, prevented Matt from fully healing. Was Evangeline falling down on her job by dragging out their Venice bubble?
She rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, exhausted but unable to shut off the hamsters turning the wheel in her brain. She’d never been so tired in her life, probably because she’d rendered herself completely inactive. This was the longest she’d stayed in one place.
Monte Carlo beckoned. The words—the music—flowed again after a long, painful hiatus. If she stayed, all that lovely inspiration might dry up again. The wind had always guided her well enough before.
But if she moved on, Matt might lose all the progress he’d made. Worse, they’d never find out what might be possible between them. He couldn’t go home yet; that much he’d made clear in more than one conversation.
What if they moved on together?
A daring question. But what if it worked?
If she said the idea of being loved by Matt didn’t thrill her, she’d be lying. A solid, committed man like Matt would never fail her, and in turn, she’d never fail him. They had an unparalleled measure of trust in each other, an understanding. That was the way love was supposed to work. She wanted that, for once in her life.
But what if she asked and he said no? He’d been drifting in search of a way to get his old life back. Just because he wasn’t ready to go home this minute didn’t mean that goal had changed. Could she really risk Matt’s rejection?
After mulling it over for a long time, sleep finally claimed her.
* * *
Matthew’s slight restless feeling graduated into a full-blown itch to do something productive. He settled for getting out of the house.
He took his laptop to the rooftop patio and sat in the sun. The Venetian spring was unbelievable, still cool in the mornings, but a warm breeze wafted from the Adriatic Sea, laden with the pungent scent of marine life.
He wished Evangeline had come up to enjoy it with him, but she was taking an afternoon nap for the third time in a week.
Something was up, and he suspected she slept to avoid him. Because she was leaving. He could feel her winding down, becoming less talkative.
Honestly, he was avoiding “the talk,” too. It didn’t feel finished, this thing between them, but only because he didn’t want it to be. For once, the idea of no commitment seemed like a blessing. There would be no broken heart in his future when she took off.
The organ in question gave a quick, painful tug at the thought of Evangeline leaving, and he shut his eyes until it started beating normally again. No more of that, now.
Since he had an afternoon to himself, Matthew poked around in his stock accounts, balanced his checkbook and generally killed time with stuff that had no promise of holding his interest.
He logged onto WFP, curious to see if anything new was going on. Lucas had posted a few sales, but nothing major and certainly not at the same clip as his brother had performed last quarter. First quarter historically saw the best sales as companies began the year with clean budgets.
The numbers should be better.
Strategies, marketing, building specs—all of it scrolled into his head and he latched on greedily, gratified both the knowledge and the drive was still there.
They could easily gain visibility by—
Stay out of it.
Lucas was handling it, as he had been. What good could Matthew possibly do from halfway around the world?
Renewed guilt gnawed on his insides.
Real estate was in his blood, and he’d missed the negotiations, the deals, the art of reading a potential seller. But the restlessness was more than lack of a job; it was a lack of setting goals and working to achieve them. Feeling successful and knowing his effort would be rewarded tangibly.
He wanted to be dependable, responsible Matthew Wheeler again, not a grieving, guilt-ridden widower.
Maybe he could check in, casually, without throwing his weight around. That might work. He was still a partner, regardless of whether he’d been acting like one, and there was no time like the present to start making amends.
Evangeline had played the piano. Maybe he could take a step out of the valley, too.
A baby step. The top of the mountain would grow closer with each one.
Before he thought better of it, he fished out his phone and sent Lucas a text message.
The response came instantly. You’re alive?
Matthew flinched. Yeah, he deserved that. He shot back: Still have a pulse last time I checked. What’s going on with WFP? 1st Q looks like a train wreck.
What do you care?
I care. I’ll send flowers to soothe your bruised feelings later. 1st Q?
Lucas’s answer took almost five minutes, during which Matthew sweated through some very unpleasant possibilities, like Lucas had fallen off the responsibility wagon or something had happened to their father.
Richards Group opened shop in Dallas.
Matthew swore. That had never crossed his mind.
Saul Richards owned the Houston real-estate market and the Wheelers owned North Texas. It was understood that Richards stayed on his turf and the Wheelers stayed on theirs. The shift wasn’t a mystery—Richards had scented Wheeler blood with Matthew out of the picture.
Matthew shouldn’t be out of the picture. Lucas had been handling it. Now he needed help. Wheeler Family Partners had been in business for over a century, and Matthew refused to be the one who let it fail.
It was time to go home.
The thought didn’t fill him with dread like he’d expected. His life in Dallas had been inescapably intertwined with Amber, with the expectations of creating a family and upholding traditions. But she was gone and as he’d flippantly, but accurately, told Lucas, he still had a pulse. Lucas had married a wife who helped him succeed, and they were happily working on the continuation of the Wheeler line.
There was no pressure for Matthew to fill his old role until he was ready.
The healing had happened so gradually, he hadn’t realized it.
Evangeline called his name, and he glanced up to see her waltzing across the patio from the stairs. Sunlight beamed across her face, and she smiled. It slid down his throat with a jagged edge and sliced something in his gut.
God Almighty, she was almost ethereal. But sexy. Strong. Luminous.
Fingers numb, he dropped his phone to the concrete and pulled her into his lap to kiss her thoroughly. She smelled like sleep and Evangeline and everything good in the world. She’d helped him heal. Brightened up his house. His soul.
As the familiar lightning-fast rush of heat filled him, it suddenly occurred to him that if he went home, he’d have to end things with Evangeline.
Then he had the most dangerous thought—what if she came home with him?
No. He couldn’t fathom issuing such an invitation. An invitation for what? To hide away in some lover’s nest while he stormed the gates of Saul Richards’s blockade on the Dallas real-estate market? She would grow bored with Dallas in about five minutes. She’d grow bored with Matthew Wheeler in four.
He could imagine going home for the first time in a long time. But he could not imagine Evangeline there, fitting into Amber’s role as the woman behind the Wheeler. Mostly because bright, glittery Evangeline could never blend into the background the way Amber had, quietly providing support and encouragement, organizing get-togethers and charity events with his mother. The women in his world were beige.
Evangeline shifted in his lap, straddling him, her tongue finding creative ways to tease him. Yeah, she was as far from beige as Venice was from Dallas, and he forgot about everything but the warm breeze on his face and the hot woman in his arms.
She drew back, breathing heavily, with a businesslike glint in her eye. “I came to talk. Stop distracting me.”
Talk. That sounded bad.
He scooted her back an inch, off his blazing erection, in deference to the directive. “Hey, I’m not the one looking all sexy and disheveled and climbing all over you.”
“Can’t help myself,” she murmured and sighed, thrusting her chest into his. “You’re so tempting.”
She wasn’t wearing a bra and talking was pretty much the last thing he wanted to do.
“What did you want to talk about?” he asked, and snaked a hand under her T-shirt, which was actually his, and hell if that wasn’t the most arousing thing ever. He fanned a palm across her bare back, gradually working it around to the front where her breast fell into his eager fingers.
She moaned and arched against him. “Monte Carlo.”
He paused, thumb and forefinger wrapped firmly around her nipple. “What about it?”
The end of things now had definition. She was going to Monte Carlo, and he did not want to think about all the implications.
“There’s a party.” She gasped. “Don’t stop. Whatever you’re doing, it feels amazing.”
“You mean this?” Tweaking her nipple again, he shoved her up against his erection because maybe they were going to talk and have sex. It would be the first time in several days they’d connected outside of bed.
“Yes. That.” She writhed against him, igniting his flesh. His eyes crossed. “I didn’t bring a condom. Fair warning.”
“Well, now. That sounds like a challenge. Hmm. What can I do that doesn’t require a condom?” He yanked the T-shirt up and closed a nipple between his lips, sucking for all he was worth. Her warm skin felt like velvet in his mouth and she moaned his name, bucking against him.
He loved her responses, loved that he could do that to her.
He slipped a thumb down her shorts and inside her panties to circle her trigger-point, and relentlessly pleasured her until she came apart. Beautiful. He could watch that over and over.
Boneless, she slumped against him, and he breathed through his nose until his erection subsided to merely painful instead of excruciating.
“You were telling me about a party?” he prompted when her breathing slowed.
This was it. She was taking off. Maybe later today. This might be their last time together.
He did not want to give her up.
“I was?” She rolled her head to nuzzle his neck, nearly sending him off the edge of the chair.
“In Monte Carlo. Talk fast because we’re finishing this in about four seconds downstairs.” He stood with her in his arms, sad it was over.
No, not sad. Devastated.
“Um...” She met his gaze and smiled, but it never reached her eyes. “Never mind. We can talk about it later. Take me downstairs.”
Swallowing, he nodded. She didn’t want to ruin their last time together with unpleasant reminders of what was about to happen. Neither did he.
Evangeline was the best thing that had ever happened to him, enlivening him, encouraging him—but also encouraging him to keep hiding. To keep being a runaway.
It was best to go their separate ways, like they’d always planned. Lucas needed him, and the sting of reentering his old life without Amber had mellowed. When he went home, Matt would disappear forever, and there’d be no more wild and crazy, totally-un-Matthew-like Venetian affairs. He’d have his identity back. A plan. Security.
Evangeline would be free to fly off wherever she chose to go next, chasing the wind to the ends of the Earth.
The thought should have made him happier.
Venice was a transitory interlude, and now it was done. He only wished that truth eased the tightness in his lungs. And in his heart.
If only....well, life didn’t give anyone the luxury of “if only.”
When he picked up his phone to follow Evangeline back to the lower level, he saw another text from Lucas.
I’m handling Richards. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.
