The From Paris With Love And Regency Season Of Secrets Ultimate Collection. Кэрол Мортимер
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СКАЧАТЬ the truth could really be. “So you’re proposing we get married and raise a kid. But as roommates?”

      “We’ve been living together without being in love. Why does being married have to be any different? It’ll be like Venice, but permanent. If you don’t want to volunteer, then do something else, maybe related to music. Give private singing lessons.”

      “I can’t sing,” she choked out, and the final stitch holding her heart together snapped. The organ fell into two pieces somewhere in the vicinity of her womb, where the child she thought they’d love as a couple grew.

      “Piano lessons then.” He took her hand, squeezing, as if nothing was wrong. As if everything was going to work out fine. “If you taught me, you can teach anyone. It doesn’t matter to me as long as the baby is taken care of.”

      It doesn’t matter to me.

      She was nothing more than a warm oven for his offspring. Not someone to love and cherish. It was the ultimate rejection of everything she’d imagined their relationship to be.

      She yanked her hand out of his grasp.

      She’d invented a connection—one that didn’t actually exist—out of her own loneliness and fear of an empty future. In the end, Matt wanted something from her far more damaging, and far more heartbreaking, than she could have ever predicted. He wanted her to sacrifice everything that made her who she was, and in return, he vowed to never love her the way he loved Amber.

      Maybe he wasn’t capable of loving anyone other than Amber.

      Why hadn’t she realized that sooner?

      “Oh, the baby will be taken care of. My baby,” she corrected fiercely. This was one time when she’d be doing the rejecting. “I don’t actually need your help, in case that wasn’t clear. I’m not a wide-eyed sixteen-year-old, terrified and penniless. I’ve got a net worth in the eight figures. The baby will have every opportunity available under the sun. You go back to Dallas and attend some stuck-up snobby rich people’s charity event. I’ll be in Monte Carlo living the life that makes sense for me. You can have a relationship with your child through the internet.”

      She fled up the stairs, tears streaming, and locked herself in the bedroom to finish packing.

       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. СКАЧАТЬ