“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?
Evangeline lay on the bed and wiped her eyes for the fortieth time. Morning sickness was worse than a slow death at the hands of sadistic monkeys. Crackers didn’t help. Ginger ale didn’t help. Cursing Matt didn’t help and usually made her cry. Like now.
She craved his egg-white omelets with every pregnancy hormone in her body. All the other hormones craved him.
How could she still be so torn apart over a man who’d stripped her down to her base layer and then rejected her? She’d taken a huge leap of faith and trusted him enough to fall in love, only to be crushed. Again.
Really, she couldn’t be angry with him. He hadn’t lied to her. She’d been lying to herself about what he needed. He’d rather suffer than get over Amber.
But she was angry. And devastated. So much so, she couldn’t stand to be around him any longer. The look on his face when she’d threatened to disappear had nearly killed her, but what else could she do?
Vincenzo’s cousin, Nicola, knocked on the open door. “You need something, cara?”
“Thanks. I’m okay.” She wasn’t but Nicola didn’t have any magic capable of fixing her broken heart. Thank God she’d come to Monte Carlo, where people understood her.
“We go to a club soon. VIP lounge. No paparazzi. You join us?” The elfin woman raised a brow. “Maybe you meet someone new who helps you forget.”
Ha. If only. “I better pass. I doubt someone new would care too much for me running to the bathroom every five minutes.”
The effort required to simply get dressed was enough of a deterrent to a night out. Then there were the smoke machines, which probably pumped out fumes toxic to a baby. Flashing lights were guaranteed to give her a headache. Cocktails would flow—watered down most likely, but with enough alcohol to render them off-limits.
Of course all of that was just noise. She missed Matt, missed Venice, and nothing else held much appeal.
Nicola nodded and left her alone.
Evangeline bit back an urge to call after her, to beg her to come back and sit awhile. But Evangeline didn’t want to be a burden on her nonpregnant friends. Which was all of them.
Still, Monte Carlo was beautiful. Outside the window of her room in Nicola’s high-rise condo, the city unfolded in a myriad of lights, energy and people, generating an exciting vibe that spilled out into the Mediterranean via the hundreds of yachts lining the shore.
Alone time was good. She’d come here to feed her newly awakened muse. Now she had plenty of time to see what new brilliance flowed from her fingers.
But instead of reaching for the paper and pen on her bedside table—which had sat untouched for two days—she retrieved the printed page from under her pillow and unfolded the song she’d written in Venice the night she’d fallen asleep on the couch.
She’d probably read these words a hundred times now. The theme of connection ran through every line. Of course, because she craved it. Losing her voice had been devastating because it was the link between her and the listener.
But the song spoke to a different kind of connection. One between people, but deeper than the superficial link between a singer and a fan. It was about bonds, family. Things she’d never had at any point in her life, but somehow the right expression had come from her soul.
Because Matt’s soul spilled over into hers with his strong sense of unity, goodness...and now she was crying again. How could she have gleaned so much from his depths when he’d closed himself off? It shouldn’t be possible. But the evidence was on the page.
It was definitely a good thing she couldn’t sing this. She’d never get through the whole thing without breaking down. Sara Lear would do the song justice, and it would be a nice hit for her already-stellar career.
Why couldn’t she imagine Sara singing it? Professional jealousy? Probably.
She read the words again. She had to let go. This was part of moving on, something she must find the strength to do. Her voice was gone, but she had a baby on the way. One day, she’d like to look her child in the face and be able to say I overcame a huge struggle. You can, too.
One day, she’d like to tell Matt how he’d helped her realize she was more than just a voice, more than Eva. She still had something of value to give.
The song was proof.
All at once, she knew why she couldn’t imagine Sara Lear singing this song. Sara didn’t need a hit song writer—she had