Pregnant by Morning(43)

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 and pieces, this one had structure. Order. And it would be a guaranteed hit. She knew it. All four of her Grammys had been for songwriting, not singing.

The piano hovered in the corner of her peripheral vision, and she glanced up at it, then up the stairs to where Matt lay sleeping. No piano this time. She didn’t want to wake him.

The fortune teller had predicted she’d conceive. And this felt like birth, like the beginning of something wonderful and amazing. A metamorphosis.

As the last word appeared, she finally removed her fingers from the screen and read over the song again, hearing the tune in her head as she internalized the words. With the right voice, like Sara Lear’s, it would climb the charts instantly.

She saved the file to her cloud account and powered off the tablet, staring out the window at the quiet canal.

The right voice. It wouldn’t be hers. She wasn’t ready to let the song go to another home, but for the first time, it didn’t sting so badly to envision it. Thanks to Matt.

Here in the dark, it didn’t seem so frightening to admit she was falling for him. He was so genuine and real, and her stupid heart hungrily latched onto those qualities. She knew better. Knew that nothing could crumble the monument to Amber in his chest. But her heart had its fingers in its ears, refusing to hear the message from her brain.

Matt was a heartbreak waiting to happen.

She should go before it was too late. Nicola had a place in Monte Carlo. Vincenzo had been making noises about shoving off in that direction in a few days and had texted her the address with an open invitation to join the group. Her stomach rolled. It had been off since the reporter incident.

Matt still needed her. His turmoil churned below the surface, popping up in his faraway gaze at odd moments. She’d give anything to ease that note of sheer anguish in his voice when he talked about his family and the life he’d lost.

She didn’t want to leave.

Her head fell back against the couch cushion. The riot of colors splashed across the ceiling was dim with only the outside canal lights to illuminate it. The paintings depicted domestic vignettes; men and women sleeping, eating, playing with children. This had been someone’s refuge, built to escape a harsh climate.

She and Matt had both done the same. And despite what she told herself about the reasons she stayed, she needed him as much as he needed her. How much longer could they hide away here before Venice became a stumbling block to healing instead of a sanctuary?

* * *

Matt’s gentle hands in her hair woke her. Daylight streamed through the panes leading to the balcony and beyond the glass, Venice was awash with the morning.

“You okay?” Matt asked from behind her. “Why didn’t you come back to bed?”

“Meant to. But I fell asleep.” She yawned. The mist of sleep would not clear her mind, like she’d dunked her head in a vat of Jell-O.

“I’ll make you some breakfast.”

Food did not sound appealing in the least. “You go ahead. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll grab something later.”