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

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СКАЧАТЬ measured float, producing rich tones from under the raised lid. This was easily a hundred-thousand-dollar piano. And Matt had given it to her because he wanted her to experience peace by gently prodding her toward something she could still do.

      She didn’t mind that kind of push so much.

      “A little elementary of a song choice, don’t you think?” he said into her ear, and she elbowed him.

      “Try it, smart guy. Go ahead.” She nodded to the keys.

      He plunked out a few scraggly notes that sounded more like he was dragging a screaming flamingo down the street than playing a song. But he got about half of them right—a hundred percent more than she was expecting.

      “Not bad. Practice makes perfect.”

      “Show me another one.” He nudged her with his chin, peering over her shoulder intently at the spread of white and black keys. “Something that takes both hands.”

      Without prompting, her fingers spread, arranging themselves around middle C and the melody trickled out. Then gained strength as her muscles remembered how to stretch and fly.

      Matt’s hand crept across her stomach and he held her tight as she played, never once flinching if her elbow caught him. He’d held her through a lot of difficult stuff. Had since the very first moments in the alcove at Vincenzo’s party.

      When the last notes faded, she slumped, drained.

      “One of yours?” he asked softly.

      “The first one I ever recorded.” But on a synthesizer and with a faster tempo, when she’d had the energy of a burgeoning career to fuel her performance. “My fingers are tired.”

      His lips rested against her temple. “You don’t have to play anymore. Though I enjoyed every second of it.”

      “It’s a good kind of tired. Thanks for playing with me. It helped.” The armadillos were having a throw-down in her stomach, but after last night, the exposure of being Eva again and sitting here at the piano, it was too much to keep from bubbling over. “It more than helped. I’m reminded again of what music means to me.”

      Reminded again of the peace of simple expression, which had been impossible, until lately.

      “What does it mean?”

      Escape, she thought. Music had been an escape. It could be again, in a far different way. She could separate music from Eva, peel back that layer and see what was underneath. Eva was gone. Evangeline could be herself.

      “It means I have choices.”

      “You did a brave thing by playing the piano again.” It was a gentle echo of what she’d said to him during the middle-of-the-night, nothing-is-sacred conversation. “It was hard, but you did it. Choose to do something else difficult. Write a song for Sara Lear.”

      “I’ll think about it.”

      “Good.” It was all he’d say. Somehow, that encouraged her to fill the silence.

      “The music industry...” She cleared her raspy throat—a wasted effort. “It’ll rob you of everything you’d hoped to gain. The fame, the money...I readily admit I loved that part. But there’s a price. You lose a sense of yourself and who you are without all the costume changes. People don’t see you anymore. Not the fans. Not the execs. Both put you on a pedestal but watch to see if you teeter just a tiny bit. Then the new song doesn’t climb the charts as fast as the last one. The fans are fickle, and the producers mutter about profits.”

      It was a no-win catch-22. Everyone wanted a piece of her until they were done with her. Rory. The industry. And everyone eventually rejected her, even people who should love her no matter what.

      “I see you,” he murmured.

      She nodded. “That’s why I’m still here.”

      Matt made it safe to ditch the mask and be herself. He was the one man on earth she could trust with the deepest part of herself and not be braced for a rejection because she wasn’t good enough.

      He was the only one who could get her to stay because for the first time in her life, staying was better than leaving.

       Ten

      Moonlight 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 СКАЧАТЬ