The From Paris With Love And Regency Season Of Secrets Ultimate Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

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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 СКАЧАТЬ