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Six

Evangeline sneaked into Vincenzo’s without stumbling over any passed-out revelers.

Once in her room, she threw on a sweater over Matt’s T-shirt and stabbed her legs into jeans. Then she packed her suitcases in preparation for either the biggest mistake of her life or the smartest thing she’d ever done.

Jury was still out on which one Matt was. But she was willing to see what unfolded as they blocked out the world for a few days, especially with the caveat of his consent to leave whenever things got too stifling.

Roots weren’t possible for someone like her, who fed from new experiences and new destinations. Who knew the dangers of staying in one place too long and allowing someone to matter. Being with a man who got that was huge.

So was the fact that he wasn’t in a hurry to get rid of her.

When he’d asked her to stay, he still had no idea who she was—she could tell. And somehow, that had been the clincher. Eva ceased to have any relevance. Actually, it hadn’t been a factor between them all along and she’d never had that. What started as a short-term anonymous encounter had accidentally turned into something else.

It was scary to be just Evangeline, scary to be so exposed, but deep inside, she yearned for someone to see beneath the layers and value her.

As soon as she found out Matt wasn’t that someone, she’d be out the door.

In record time, she shut the lid on her second suitcase and zipped it. She had packing down to a science.

As she carried the suitcases down the marble staircase to Vincenzo’s first floor, one of his buddies who’d passed out on the couch stirred. Franco. Or maybe it was Fabricio. He sat up and blearily evaluated her as he scrubbed his jaw.

“Eva. Didn’t know you were here.” A night of hard drinking slurred his accented English almost unintelligibly. He zeroed in on the suitcases. “Leaving already?”

“Yeah. Tell Vincenzo I said later.”

“Wait. Do my show this week.” He lifted his chin. “Milano Sera will treat you well.”

She took in his too-handsome face and two-hundred-dollar haircut that not even a night of couch surfing could ruin. Now she remembered him. Franco Buonotti. He was the host of a late-night talk show on an Italian network. He’d bugged her a couple of times before to do an exclusive with him.

“I don’t think so.”

“Aww. Not even for me?” He batted his eyelashes, and she almost snorted.

Italian playboys were so not her type—she was more into blue-eyed blonds Regardless, she hadn’t broken her silence on the botched surgery in six months and didn’t see a reason to change that now.

“Not even.”

She escaped to the haven her blue-eyed blond had offered.

Upstairs in Matt’s bedroom, she unpacked her clothes and arranged them in the empty spots he’d cleared for her in the closet and dresser. Unable to resist, she opened a drawer to finger his shirts. Very few of his items lay folded inside or hanging in the closet. He traveled as light as she did. But then, neither of them had a permanent home.

Oddly, seeing their clothes mixed felt very permanent. It shouldn’t have put a smile on her face.

Matt ordered lunch to be delivered, and the soup grew cold because they were too busy talking to eat. He was transparent and genuine, and his willingness to share covered her tendency not to. He never ran out of stories, and she forgot to be wary by the middle of the afternoon.

That’s when Milano Sera’s host intruded on her haven. Matt answered a knock at the door, and she glimpsed the too-handsome face of Vincenzo’s friend through the crack.

“I’ll take care of it,” she told Matt and shooed him away from the door. “I already said no.”

“Cara, no one says no to me.”

He’d cleaned up and squeezed his impressive build into tight Dolce & Gabbana jeans and a distressed T-shirt. That kind of sexy might work on tittering schoolgirls, but Evangeline couldn’t titter to save her life.

“Yet I did. This is a private home. Please respect that.”

She shut the door in his face and turned to see Matt watching her.

“Sales guy?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “What was he selling? Ice to Eskimos?”

And somehow he pulled a smile from her. Matt’s talents were amazing. “He hosts a talk show on an Italian network and wants me to do an interview.”

“Badly, I guess, to chase you here.”

“I’m sorry he bothered us.” She sighed. “It was a nice idea, to block out the world. Unfortunately, the world tends to camp out on my doorstep.”

With it came the intrusion of Eva...and a reminder of all the reasons she’d latched onto the suggestion of a place to hide. If she knew the answers to the questions, interviews might not be so hard.

Her phone beeped, as if to underscore the point. Like an idiot, she checked it to see an apology text from Vincenzo. Well, that was something, at least.

Matt took the phone from her fingers and tossed it on the credenza to his left without checking his aim.

“Hey, the world may come to you, but you don’t have to answer to it.” He swept her hand into his, holding it tight. “No rules at Palazzo D’Inverno. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Thanks.” It was therapeutic to have someone validate her choices.

He pulled her to the couch and settled them both into it comfortably. The sun was low enough in the sky to cast a glow over the whitewashed building opposite the palazzo.

His fingers tangled in her hair, and she experienced the deepest sense of harmony she’d experienced in a long while. Maybe the deepest ever.

“You drove an Escalade?” she asked in a blatant attempt to change the subject. “Really?”

It seemed too domestic for a guy who liked to throw rules out the window.

Matt chuckled. “Yeah. But I sold it, along with everything else. Seemed easier, since I had no idea where I was going or when I was coming back. Sometimes it feels like that part of my life was a dream, and I have a hard time remembering who that guy was.”

So he hadn’t really fit into that suburban existence. Venice was more his speed, and he’d obviously taken to the laid-back lifestyle. She wondered if she would have given him a second glance if they’d met at a party in the States.

“Did you end up in Venice because it reminds you of your wife? You said you bought this palazzo for her.”

The fingers in her hair stilled. “Amber. Yeah, I did buy it for her. But she died not too long after we got married. She never got the chance to visit.”

“That’s a shame.”

His wife had never seen this beautiful place Matt had given her. But Evangeline couldn’t quite squelch the thrill of knowing she was the only woman who had slept in Matt’s bed, who had lain with him on this couch and eaten at his table.

“The lack of ghosts is the most attractive thing about Palazzo D’Inverno. You know what that means in English? Winter Palace. Seemed appropriate to come here. My soul felt pretty frozen.”

Her heart ached for him. He wandered in search of a cure for his grief. Maybe he’d found one—her.

Silly. Probably a recipe for disaster to imagine herself a healer. But the notion was still there, pinging around inside her.

“The Italian who built this palazzo called it that because he came here during the winter from someplace colder. So did you.”

“True.” The expression on his face caught her right in her aching heart. “But it’s only warmer because you’re in it. I wouldn’t have come to Venice if Amber had stayed here. I sold the house in Dallas we’d bought together. I can’t be around things with memories. I get too attached.”

Of course he did. Anyone with Matt’s depth would be shattered by the loss of someone he’d obviously loved. He and his wife had shared a house and a life and a level of commitment she couldn’t comprehend.

He was staring out the window blindly when she glanced at him. “Is it hard to talk about her?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate, and the hard set of his mouth said he wasn’t going to.

For a guy who had easily told stories at lunch about his college days, closing off must mean it was a very taboo subject. She had an extra store of mercy for that kind of pain, especially for someone who’d been so very nice about Franco’s invasion.

Maybe she’d stayed in the worst sort of foolish gamble—betting that Matt wouldn’t hurt her because he empathized with her pain.

Through the glass, she watched a bird pecking at the marble balcony. “When I was in an interview and the reporter asked a question I didn’t want to answer, I’d use a code word. My manager would smoothly and quickly rescue me. We’ll have one, too. Whenever one of us touches on a sensitive subject, the code word is sacred. It means ‘get me out of this. No more questions.’”

That melted the stone from his expression. “What kind of code word?”

“You pick. Make it silly. That way, we can lighten the mood at the same time.”

“Armadillo,” he suggested immediately. “They walk funny.”

The way he said it, all serious about the assignment, made her giggle. “See? It works. So do you want to call armadillo about Amber?”

His mouth twitched. “Maybe. And maybe I’m starting to get through it. I can say her name out loud without flinching. Progress.”

Because of her? Maybe she hadn’t given herself enough credit in the healing department.

Then he tipped up her chin and pierced her with those pale blue eyes. “I’ll be your manager. In the interview.”

Her lungs seized. “What are you talking about? I’m not doing the interview.”

He didn’t get it at all. Had she lost her gamble already?

“But if you wanted to, I’d stay right there with you. Say the word and I’ll rescue you.” He smiled and it was so gentle, she almost smiled back. “Nothing wrong with both of us making progress.”

So, he’d obviously drawn a few of his own conclusions about her reasons for saying no.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to do the interview.”

“Okay.”

And like that, he dropped the subject in favor of launching into a discussion about what she might like for dinner. She responded, but most of her attention was back on Matt’s offer to be with her during the interview.

If he’d pushed, her heels would have dug in. But he never forced her to explain herself—backing her into an emotional corner was the fastest way to irritate her. It was almost like he knew.

“Matt?” He didn’t even comment about how she’d interrupted him. “You’d do that for me? Rescue me if I say armadillo?”

“Sure.” His brows wrinkled in confusion as he squeezed her hand. “I said I would. Does that mean you’re going to do the interview?”

Patiently, he waited her out, his silence nothing more than encouragement to go on if she chose. Or not, if she chose, which was usually the path she took. “I don’t know. I’ve had a strict no-interviews policy since the surgery.”

“Do you get stage fright in front of all those cameras or something? Just picture them in their underwear.”

The mental image of cameras wearing a pink, lacy bra-and-panty set made her giggle. “That’s not the problem. I just don’t like the questions.”

“Well, no offense, but that guy doesn’t strike me as a hard-hitting news journalist. If he asks you about anything more strenuous than where you shop, I’ll fall over in a dead shock.” He brushed a thumb across her cheek. “If I was going to jump back in the water, I’d get my feet wet with a small-time Italian talk show first.”

“I’ll think about it.”

She’d think of nothing but. Because his point was valid.

He gave her plenty of space by bounding up immediately to cook dinner. She trailed him to the kitchen to watch him beat the raw ingredients into submission, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

“While you’re sitting there,” Matt said as he pulled covered platters from the refrigerator. “You should start thinking of the proper way to thank me for this fantastic dinner.”

She returned his wicked grin. “Exactly how good of a cook are you?”

“My mama taught me well. Though I believe she intended for me to feed myself. Not use my culinary skills to seduce women.”

“But you’re so good at both. She should be proud.”

They laughed and traded banter, and dinner was everything she’d anticipated when he’d asked her to stay—a low-key, enjoyable evening with a man who liked her.

Matt wasn’t the only one who needed to heal. She got that. But he had a prayer of getting there one day, especially if she truly helped him along. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do in return to fix her vocal cords. She was permanently scarred, and at best, this Venice interlude was a distraction from the rest of her life and what she would do with it.

For ten years, she’d worked hard, so hard, to climb the charts. Nothing had been handed to her. Only by tapping into her emotions and feeding her muse with the next greatest adventure had she found success. Being aimless and idle grated on her almost as much as having no voice. She wanted—needed—meaning again, but what if she invested in something and it kicked her to the curb like music had?

The public’s hostile clamoring for a piece of her just increased the difficulty in answering the questions. But how long could she go on ignoring the fact that the person who really needed that answer was Evangeline?

Milano Sera was a benign compromise, and the addition of Matt’s strength made it somehow seem a lot safer. She should do it, if for no other reason than to gain some progress toward the answers. If Franco put her back against the wall and demanded an explanation of who she was going to be from now on, all she had to do was say armadillo.

* * *

Evangeline’s former publicist agreed to work with Milano Sera’s team to arrange an interview, with two important stipulations—Matt must be given free rein on the set, and Franco had to tape the show remotely from Vincenzo’s house.

No one argued. Two days after Evangeline tucked her belongings into Matt’s dresser, the taping was a go.

She checked her makeup one last time in the framed mirror above the marble double-sink vanity. A remote taping meant limited resources, so she’d handled her own clothes and hair in the ensuite bathroom she’d been sharing with Matt. No change from regular life; the days of stylists and three dedicated makeup artists were long over. She didn’t mind. The activity gave her a chance to calm her nerves.

Eva stared back at her from the mirror. Whatever happened today was happening to Eva. She had to remember that.

When she and Matt entered Vincenzo’s palazzo, the buzz of activity stopped as if a plug had been pulled. A statuesque, authoritative woman in her forties barreled over to pump Evangeline’s hand and escort her to the makeshift set, introducing herself as the show’s producer.

Gingerly, Evangeline perched in the tall, canvas chair the producer had indicated and smoothed her fuchsia skirt as the camera director lined up the shot, fiddled with the lighting and barked orders at the stressed assistants. Matt watched it all without comment from the edge of the camera zone, one hand shoved in his back pocket. It was a deceptively casual stance, but his keen blue eyes missed nothing.

So far, so good. The anchor of Matt’s presence went a long way.

Franco strolled over to take the other chair, appropriately slick in his Armani suit and practiced smile.

“Eva, I’m happy you changed your mind.”

Sure he was. The ratings boost would likely make his year.

An assistant clipped the small microphone inside Evangeline’s strappy top, which she’d specifically chosen because its design allowed for the microphone to be completely hidden.

“I enjoy watching Milano Sera so I’m happy to be here, as well.”

Franco nodded, though he surely didn’t believe either falsehood. Another assistant dashed over and frowned over Evangeline’s microphone as Franco murmured to the statuesque director.

“There’s a small difficulty, signorina.” The assistant unclipped the microphone and dashed away to return with another one. “Speak to Franco now.”

“Thank you for having me, Mr. Buonotti,” she said obediently.

Franco shook his head and tapped his earpiece. “It’s no good.”

The producer and another man whispered to each other furiously as assistants milled around.

“What’s the problem?” she asked Franco. Foreboding settled in her chest at his blank expression.

“Your voice, cara. It’s not working well with this remote equipment,” he explained, not the least bit apologetic, as if the equipment wasn’t to blame, but she was. “Too low. They can’t get it to register.”

Her cheeks heated. Rejected by the taping equipment.

“Try again. Speak directly into the microphone.” Franco cleared his throat. “Tell me, Eva. What is your life like now that your voice has been so tragically altered?”

A cold, clammy sweat broke out across her neck. Slicked her palms. Eva. He was talking about Eva’s voice. Not hers.

“Um.” She shook her head as her brain shut down.

Matt was wrong. The interview hadn’t even started yet, and already Franco was probing her wounds with inflammatory phrasing. Fashion tips, she could handle. Why had she naively believed Matt that shopping would be Franco’s focus?

Armadillo.

Her throat clamped closed and she couldn’t get the word out. Couldn’t make any sound at all.

This wasn’t happening to Eva, it was happening to her.

But then Matt was there, leading her from the chair and tersely informing the producer that Eva did not deign to give interviews to second-rate talk shows without proper equipment.

“Nice,” she said when she could speak again, which happened right around the time she crossed the threshold of Matt’s house. “You’re the best manager I’ve ever had.”

“I’m sorry I suggested that.”

He was still bristling, his expression hard and unyielding. And maybe a little frightening.

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is. I had no idea he’d be so insensitive.”

He muttered a particularly inventive slur on Franco’s paternity and heritage simultaneously.

Amazing how Matt could still make her smile in the midst of emotional uproar.

“If it makes you feel better, you made up for it, like by quadruple.”

It hadn’t been merely a rescue, but an expert extraction completed without letting on to her distress and giving Milano Sera’s team the impression they’d upset her diva personality. A miraculous feat in her opinion.

“It does not make me feel better.” He flipped on the lights to dispel the February gloom. Instantly, she cheered. This was still a haven. “You told me exactly what would happen. But I was so sure I knew what would help.”

Clearly frustrated, he heaved a sigh.

She tucked herself into his embrace and laid her head on his shoulder, right at the hollow she’d first discovered while they were dancing. “You’ve given me exactly what I needed. A place to block all that out.”

His arms tightened, drawing her into his body deliciously. “I’m glad, sweetheart. Palazzo D’Inverno is available to you as long as you want it.”

Not the house. You.

He helped, in so many intangible ways. In his arms, nothing seemed as bad.

She didn’t say it.

If nothing else, Franco had shown her the protection Eva had provided in the past had all but vanished. She had nothing left to be rejected but the deepest part of herself, and that was something she refused to risk.

No matter how much she wished Matt held some sort of magic key to her future, he couldn’t be anything more than a brief distraction. There was no question their Venice affair was going to be hot, fantastic...and short-lived.

She refused to become dependent on a man—not just a man, but one with his own demons—to fill the gap music had left behind, and she could see it happening as if Matt’s beautiful eyes had turned into a crystal ball. Worse, it would be all take and no give, because her store of trust was in short supply. That was totally unfair.

How much longer did it really make sense for her to stay?