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Twelve

“Evangeline.” Matthew banged on the door again, barely resisting the urge to kick it in. “Open the door. We’re not finished, not by a long shot.”

What in the name of all that was holy had just happened? Somehow, Evangeline had broken up with him, like they were a real couple.

But weren’t they? He was going to marry her. He wanted to marry her.

He’d invested considerable energy into figuring out the next steps—marriage, a house, a stake in the ground—and Evangeline was throwing it back in his face.

This was killing him. His insides tossed and turned faster than a shoreline in a hurricane.

“Oh, we’re finished,” she called, and slammed something—a drawer. “A good lawyer will help us work out the visitation rights.”

Visitation rights. Lawyers. If this was a nightmare, it was not ending fast enough.

“Lawyers are not the answer.”

“Why, don’t you have one?”

He rolled his eyes at her scathing tone. “I am one. Granted, not well-versed in the ins and outs of international custody law. But I’m pretty sure I could hold my own given time to acclimate.”

Some shuffling. The door flung open to reveal Evangeline’s ravaged face. He hated it when she cried. Hated being the reason.

“You’re a lawyer?” She spit it out like he’d admitted to being a member of the Black Panthers.

But at least she was talking to him again. He had to get this situation back under control before she took off to Monte Carlo and he never heard from her again.

“I passed the bar. Is that really important in light of the other really important thing we should be discussing? The baby?” he prompted.

She crossed her arms. “Well, we’re full of disclosures today, aren’t we? No wonder you’re so sanctimonious. Anything else you forgot to tell me?”

“It’s not like I hid it on purpose to make you mad. It just never came up.”

“But it perfectly illustrates the point. I trusted you.” She was so worked up, she bristled. “I’ve never been anything but honest about who I am yet I don’t know you at all.”

Direct hit. He had worn his mask far longer than she had.

Punching photographers. Sex on the roof. Midnight confessionals. None of that was really him, and she was calling him on it. This was all his fault.

A doozy of a headache landed right behind his eyeballs.

“I didn’t set out to deceive you.”

All at once, she deflated. “I thought...well, it doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter. Evangeline—” He pressed a fingertip to both eyelids, willing the headache to disappear. It didn’t. “I don’t want to deal with custody and visitation through lawyers. The baby belongs with both parents.”

Evangeline and the baby belonged with him, in Dallas. Their choices about the future had been taken from them, and he’d think about why that made him so happy later.

“Then come to Monte Carlo with me.” Her soft brown eyes beseeched him, pulling at him. Unearthing the confusing, unnatural reaction he had to her. “Prove that you’re the man I think you are. More hinges on it than what’s going to happen with the baby. You came to me broken. I want you to be whole again. Let me heal you.”

“But you’ve already done that.” He couldn’t help it. He pulled her into his arms, and the feel of her, the warmth, the familiar scent of her hair, knocked his equilibrium loose, nearly putting him on the ground. “That’s why I can go back to Dallas and pick up the reins of who I was. Because you made me feel alive again.”

Alive. Yes. And without her, what would he be?

“No.” She buried her face in his neck. “You’re not healed. If you were, you would be able to love me.”

That was the kicker. They had different definitions of healed.

“I didn’t lie to you. I told you I didn’t have anything to give. I’m sorry, but a baby doesn’t change that.”

She nodded. “I understand. And it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t marry you. If we were in love, I...well, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

She’d sliced through everything, right to the heart of it. She wanted him to love her. And he couldn’t.

The purgatory of loss was too painful. He wasn’t willing to risk backsliding into a hole of depression again. Not even for her.

Especially for her. She made him feel too much.

This was not the opportune time to figure out all this. He’d been searching for a way to get back on track, not searching for someone like Evangeline.

“No compromise?” He had a sick feeling in his gut that he already knew the answer.

“Oh, Matt.” She kissed him, lightly, and her lips lifted too quickly. “Sure I’d compromise. London. Madrid. Pick a place. Monte Carlo isn’t nearly as important as what it represents. You won’t fully heal until you accept that your old life is gone. You can’t go back. Neither of us can. All we can do is move forward. If that’s what you want, Monte Carlo is the answer.”

He couldn’t chase her around the globe like a teenager with a trust fund and no responsibilities.

“Not for me.”

It wasn’t the right answer for her, either. She’d never find the next steps in Monte Carlo, and the anguish would swallow her whole if he wasn’t around. How in the world did she think she’d survive without him?

The baby belonged with him. She belonged with him. He wanted to howl with the injustice of it, that he couldn’t make her see the logic.

She stepped out of his embrace, dry-eyed. “Then, this is goodbye.”

* * *

Matthew called a cab instead of Lucas, though he knew his brother would pick him up from the airport. Family would always be there for him, regardless of the grief he’d put them through for the past eighteen months. But he couldn’t face anyone.

Not yet. Not when he still couldn’t process that he’d left Evangeline in Venice.

The mother of his child. And he’d had to let her go.

After several more arguments, a bucket of tears—not all hers—and a bunch of slammed doors, he’d finally given up trying to reason with her. Stubborn woman. She refused to see what was best and actually threatened to disappear if he didn’t accept her decision.

Ultimately, their connection was nothing but the magic of Venice, blowing smoke and illusion to cover the truth. They weren’t meant to be together.

The cab pulled up at his parents’ house. The driver hefted the suitcases from the trunk, accepted the folded bill with a nod and drove off, leaving Matthew on the sidewalk in the middle of the suburban neighborhood he’d grown up in. The neighborhood he didn’t recognize at all.

His mother had planted something flowery and purple in the side yard that he’d never seen before, and the house’s wood trim had been painted. Maybe the brick had been power-washed. A car rushed by on the street behind him, likely only driving thirty miles an hour, but it felt more like a hundred. All of it lent to the sense of being somewhere unfamiliar.

There weren’t any cars in Venice. Boats slipped by quietly in the canal or sometimes the cheerful call of a gondolier announced its presence. People strolled the streets and enjoyed a slower pace. He’d grown used to it. Preferred it.

The front door creaked, and his mother poked her blond head out. “Now there’s a sight for sore eyes. Get in here, honey. You should have told me you were coming.”

Matthew grinned at the break in her voice. “Hey, Mama. It was a surprise.”

“It certainly is. Surprise me less or you’ll give me a heart attack.” She flew over the doorstep and into a fierce hug.

This, at least, felt very familiar. Very welcoming. He’d missed her.

Mama hustled him into the house and fluttered around, doing a bang-up job of ignoring Matthew’s protests about staying in a hotel. To stem the tide, he carried his stuff to the extra bedroom upstairs. Arguing with Mama did not ever end well.

“Sit. Let me look at you.” Mama sank onto the couch and he followed. She smoothed a lock of hair from his forehead. “Staying long?”

“Yeah.” He knew what she was really asking. “I’m home for good.”

That put weight on his shoulders. He’d thought he was ready. He was ready. But it was so permanent. And so Evangeline-free.

Her sharp gaze swept him, twice, with a combination of disbelief and hope. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

The harsh laugh scraped at his throat. “Not really. But I figured out it’s because I didn’t actually know what I was looking for. I don’t do well without a plan.”

“You never have. So what’s your plan now?”

“I’m going back to WFP. Lucas has managed to get himself into a hole, and I’m going to get him out.” First time in a long time he had a sense of purpose. A goal. It felt good. Right.

Mama shot him a puzzled glance. “A hole? Did he tell you that?”

“I know about Richards Group. It’s partly the reason I came home.” The other part had everything to do with a singular desire to be dependable, straight-arrow Matthew Wheeler again. To do something he excelled at and had ultimate control over.

“I think you should talk to him. We’ll have a big family dinner to celebrate you being home. Call your brother. Tell him to come early so you can get on the same page.” She smiled. “Far be it from me to get in the middle of my boys, but honey, you left. Lucas has been handling things. I doubt he’s going to take kindly to you sticking your nose into WFP and bossing him around. A word to the wise.”

Matthew checked the eye-roll out of sheer respect for the woman who had birthed him. But it was hard.

“I’m not going to boss him around, Mama. I’m here to help.”

She nodded. “Just you remember that. You’re helping. Not in charge.”

The transatlantic flight caught up to him then, and he cracked his jaw with a yawn. “I’m going to take a shower and maybe watch TV for a couple of mindless hours.” Decompress. Be alone without his mother’s shrewd gaze on him. He pulled her into a long hug. “Thanks. For letting me come home.”

“Silly.” She thumped his shoulder, her eyes shiny and full. “You’re still my kid, no matter how big you get. I love you. You’re always welcome here.”

He almost spilled everything then, all the heartache of the past eighteen months, the depression, the disorientation. How he’d experienced it again tenfold on the flight home at the hands of a different woman. But the wounds of Evangeline were far too fresh and the wounds of Amber far too...faded.

He frowned. When had that happened?

“See you at dinner.”

Dropping a kiss on his mother’s cheek, he went upstairs to clear his mind with a hot shower, which didn’t work.

When he’d last been in Dallas, the burden of grief had turned the sunniest of days dark. Amber was constantly on his mind, how he couldn’t go on without her. How everything they’d planned was dashed. He’d expected coming home to bring all that back. It hadn’t.

When he thought about Amber now, it was with a hazy sort of warm rush. The prongs of grief had lifted.

The skin he washed was the same. But the man inside wasn’t. That’s why the neighborhood and his mother’s house had been unrecognizable. Despite all his yearning to slip back in time, to a place where he knew everything was safe and right, he couldn’t. The only thing he could do was accept that he had changed.

Like Evangeline had said.

But if he accepted that his life was something different now, who would he be?

He called Lucas and then flipped on the TV to lose himself in the oblivion of sleep.

The door crashed against the wall, waking him. Groggily, he sat up and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. The empty bed.

He wasn’t in Venice with Evangeline. He was in Dallas. Alone.

A fuzzy Lucas lounged against the door frame, hand in his pants’ pocket and a smirk on his face.

“God Almighty, you look like roadkill in August.” Lucas tsked.

“Thanks. That’s exactly what I needed to hear. I was sleeping, by the way,” Matthew groused and rubbed a hand across his eyes. His brother’s form snapped into focus. “Though I appreciate that you were so eager to see me you couldn’t wait.”

Lucas snorted out a laugh. “I just didn’t believe you were actually here. Had to see it for myself. You back?”

“Looks that way.”

“All the way back?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I’m here, aren’t I?”

Lucas sat on the edge of the bed a couple feet away, dipping the mattress. “You were in bad shape. I’m concerned. Sue me.”

Well, I am a sanctimonious lawyer.

Matthew’s head dropped into his hands. It wasn’t just jet lag crushing him. Evangeline—knowing he’d hurt her, being without her—weighed more than he could bear.

“Honestly, I don’t know if ‘all the way back’ is possible.”

“Amber’s death nearly destroyed you. Don’t let it finish the job,” Lucas advised quietly. “You took some time away. Now rejoin life. I’m working on trouncing Richards Group. Another Wheeler on the job can’t hurt.”

Matthew nearly laughed. “If only Amber were the problem, I’d be all set. Unfortunately, I traded one impossible-to-solve issue for another.”

Lucas nodded sagely. “This has to do with the very sexy lady you met. What happened?”

Matthew met his brother’s sharp gaze. “How do you know about that?”

“Everyone knows about that. You photograph well, as it happens. So she figured out she’s too good for you, huh? Am I going to be nursing you through a broken heart?”

Matthew growled. “Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, poor baby. Did she make you cry?” Lucas thumped him on the arm, and Matthew shot him a glare.

“Back off. She’s pregnant.”

He hadn’t meant to say anything. But it came out nonetheless, too huge to stay under wraps.

“Then what are you doing here without her?” His brother’s eyes narrowed. “Oh. It’s not yours.”

Matthew’s fist curled, and he almost let it fly, but curbed the impulse at the last second. Where had that anger come from? He wasn’t in Venice, free to do whatever he wanted, when he wanted to.

“Of course it’s mine. And God, it’s a mess.”

Lucas started laughing and didn’t stop even when Matthew shoved him. Finally, Lucas wiped his eyes. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” His brother’s face might actually be improved with a good slug to the jaw.

Still sniggering, Lucas crossed his arms. “May I remind you of what you said to me about Cia? I believe you accused me of getting a one-night stand pregnant and self-righteously informed me that accidents happen.”

His stomach twisted as he vaguely recalled saying something asinine to that effect. “Is it too late to apologize?”

“Nah.” Lucas grinned. “No apology needed. It’s nice to know you’re human like the rest of us. Where is she now? Did you have a fight or something?”

“Worse. She threw my marriage proposal back in my face and took off with her friends.”

“That sucks.” Lucas whistled in disbelief. “Women. Can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ’em.”

Matthew had made it sound like Evangeline was a flighty, irresponsible girl who didn’t understand what she’d given up, which was completely unfair and not representative of how badly the whole thing had gone down.

“I guess I didn’t actually propose.”

Lucas’s eyebrows rose. “What did you do then?”

“Told her we were getting married.” Out loud, it sounded even worse than it did in his head. “It made sense, you know? You marry a woman you get pregnant. Instead, she’s talking about lawyers and custody arrangements.”

“Geez, are you that clueless?” Lucas huffed out a disgusted breath. “No wonder she dumped you. You don’t have a romantic bone in your body, obviously. How in the world did you score with Eva?”

That bristled the hair on the back of Matthew’s neck. “I didn’t score with her. It wasn’t like that. We had something—” Special. Meaningful. Unexplainable. “I don’t know. Different.”

“Different than what? Amber?”

Matthew’s throat burned, and he almost used it as an excuse to clam up. But once, he and Lucas had been close. That their bond had deteriorated was totally his fault. He wanted it back. And the first step was being honest.

“Different than anything I’ve ever experienced. Amber fit me, fit my plans. Evangeline...doesn’t.”

But she fit Matt comfortably, like a second skin. Evangeline was different—sexy, arousing, provoking and flat-out frightening.

“So? Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”

If only it was that easy.

“Since you’re so smart, you tell me. If everything you thought you knew about yourself got flipped upside down, what would you do?” Yeah, asking what would Lucas do had gotten him into this mess. Why break tradition?

A perceptive light crept into his brother’s eyes. “Well, now. That very thing happened, as a matter of fact. When it did, I looked to my older brother and said, that’s who I want to be.”

Matthew flinched. “Me? Which part of dumping all my responsibilities in your lap did you aim to replicate?”

“Nobody blames you for that. You needed a break. But I guess you forgot the rest of that conversation the afternoon Grandpa died. You said I could be you, and you were going to go be me. I took that seriously. I stepped up because I wanted to be as successful as you.”

“I took it seriously, too.” Matthew had to chuckle at the irony. “You want to know how I got Evangeline’s attention? I pretended I was you. It worked.”

Lucas grinned. “I’ve never seduced a pop star.”

“Neither have I. I didn’t know that’s who she was at the time. All I wanted was to feel something again.” And he’d done a stellar job. He felt stupid, frustrated and out of his element. “Then bam! There she was, like an answer to a prayer, only I hadn’t prayed for that. I didn’t have any idea what to do with her.”

“Well, you must have had some idea since she’s, you know, pregnant.” Lucas ducked, but Matthew hadn’t been planning to smack him. Not right this minute, anyway.

“Yeah, I’m not going to kiss and tell. Hope you get over your disappointment real soon.” He flopped back against the pillow, exhausted. “Now she doesn’t want anything to do with me, and my kid is going to be living in Europe while I’m here. Mama is going to be so disappointed.”

“Mama? What about you? Aren’t you disappointed in yourself?”

“I didn’t need you to point that out.”

Of course he was disappointed. He’d dreamed of a family for a long time. Instantly, the image of Evangeline holding his child, her beautiful face luminous as she smiled at the bundle, popped into his mind, and the sharp stab to the gut nearly doubled him over.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re going to figure it out.” Lucas put a brotherly hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “I’ve never seen you fail at something you put your heart into.”

He eyed his little brother with new respect. Lucas had stepped into the role Matthew formerly occupied, and with more success than probably anyone had expected, thanks in no small part to Cia. Never underestimate the power of the right woman.

Lucas excused himself so Matthew could get ready for dinner.

When he arrived downstairs, everyone was already at the table. Conversation ground to a sudden halt—obviously because they’d been discussing him—when he came into view.

“Hey, son.” His dad, who looked tan and fit, jumped up to give him a brief manly hug.

“Playing a lot of golf lately?”

His dad nodded. “Lucas is running the show at WFP, and I’m enjoying life. Care for a round?”

Matthew agreed without really intending to, but he was home. Home meant doing all the things he used to. Might as well reestablish the routine right away.

Cia glanced up at him and flicked her long, dark hair from her shoulder. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up.” She pointed to her huge stomach, and he quickly averted his eyes. Pregnancy was a sore subject.

“Cia.”

He kissed his sister-in-law’s cheek and smiled at Mama, then proceeded to suffer through a long discussion about the strategies Lucas was working to drive Richards Group back to Houston where their competitor belonged. It was staggering to hear Lucas spit out such cogent, well-thought-out plans.

More than once, his attention wandered back to Venice, only to snap back to the present when someone said his name. Matthew. He’d been called that more times today alone than in all of the past few months.

It felt weird to answer to it.

Afterward, he flopped into one of the wicker chairs on Mama’s porch, across from Lucas and Cia. They giggled and nuzzled each other until he thought he’d throw up.

“Get a room.”

“Hey, just because you screwed things up with your woman doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy mine.” Lucas ducked as Cia smacked him.

“Leave him alone,” she said with a conciliatory kiss to her husband’s jaw.

Matthew did a double take. His sister-in-law had never liked him. “Defending me? What is the world coming to?”

But she shot him a mellow smile instead of flaying him alive like she’d have done in the past. “You tell me. What has your world come to, Matthew?”

“Disaster,” he muttered. Louder, he said, “Lucas spill all my beans?”

“No, the internet did. It was quite the discussion at the shelter for a week. Did you at least come home with an autograph or two?”

Yeah. Evangeline had taken a Sharpie to his insides all right.

Matthew grimaced. “I came home with nothing.”

“I see your attitude hasn’t improved. Shame.” Cia clucked. “Now I owe Lucas something that’s going to be very hard for me to do in my current state.”

The smoldering glance she skewered his brother with said she’d figure out a way to pay up or die trying. They seemed blissfully happy, even almost a year into their marriage. Who would have thought?

“Did you lose a bet?”

“Yeah.” Lucas answered for her. “The second she saw the pictures of you and Eva, she swore you’d never come home. So I won.”

Matthew shook his head. “I don’t know how you could make such a bet over a picture.”

Coolly, Cia evaluated him. “You haven’t seen them. Have you?” Without waiting for his answer, she held out a hand to Lucas. “Phone, please.”

When she got it, she tapped a few times and handed it to Matthew. Pulse hammering, he glanced at the photo taken in front of the restaurant in Venice, and zeroed in on Evangeline’s beautiful, radiant face. The small resolution didn’t diminish her light in the slightest. She burst from the screen, burst into his gut. The reporter he’d punched took a great picture.

“That picture is the first evidence I’ve seen that you have teeth. You have a nice smile,” Cia said quietly.

He tore his gaze off the woman in the photo to look at the guy she was with. Him. But a version of Matthew Wheeler he’d never seen before.

“Before you left,” Cia continued, “you had a permanent scowl. Kind of like now.”

He certainly didn’t have a scowl on his face in the picture. He looked happy. Blissful even, with his arm around Evangeline. They were close, so close, as if they couldn’t bear to be apart for the few moments it took to reach the street. Her face turned up toward his, ignoring the iconic scenery around her. They looked like a couple. A real couple.

A couple so in love they only saw each other.

Whether he wanted it or not, it had happened. He’d been falling in love with Evangeline all along.

Lucas jumped in with a spectacular double-team. “That’s the smile of a man who’s a goner. If you’re so miserable without her, why aren’t you wherever she is, making it right?”

His brother—the relationship expert. Matthew almost rolled his eyes. “We’re too different to make it work.”

A lie. He was too afraid to make it work. He’d come home because running away was what he did. His eyelids slammed shut. Was that really who he’d become? A quitter?

“That’s pure BS. You’re not trying to make it work. You’re here, and she’s there. Trust me when I say pride won’t keep you warm at night. Swallow yours. And watch a You Tube video on how to propose properly to a woman.”

Maybe his brother had learned a thing or two about what it took. As he reevaluated Lucas with his arm around his pregnant wife, Matthew had a nasty epiphany. Lucas wasn’t a screwup, or even much of a womanizer. In trying to be Lucas, he’d been chasing a shadow that didn’t exist.

He hadn’t been acting like his brother—he’d been Matthew Wheeler all along, but a better, braver, bolder version, who went by the name of Matt. Evangeline had tapped into his secret longings, ripped off his “Matthew” mask and enabled him to discover who he really was underneath the name.

The man Amber married had vanished and become someone else—a man in love with the mother of his child. An ocean separated them because he’d been blindly, selfishly hanging on to slim threads of the past, too afraid of descending into depression again to realize he’d lost everything important.

He wanted to be that guy who kept up with Evangeline La Fleur and had sex on the roof and believed in the whims of fate that had seen fit to blow her into his path. He wanted to be with her and their child, regardless of whether it happened according to his plan.

The Screwup hat was firmly on Matthew’s head. But the mistake hadn’t been the accidental pregnancy—it had been letting Evangeline go.

How in the world could he make that right?