“No. Of course not.” He shook his head, sobering, and every fiber of her being wished for him to follow that with, I love you. “I want you to be my wife.”
That’s when it all snapped into place. The sick churning in her stomach sped up.
“You haven’t been trying to get over Amber. That’s why it’s taking so long. What you’ve been searching for isn’t a cure—you’ve been looking for a replacement. The whole time. And you found one.”
“No one can replace Amber.” A lethal edge to his expression whipped out and knifed her in a tender place deep inside. “I would never attempt to try.”
“Of course. My mistake.” One of many. But she couldn’t let it go, couldn’t stop from ensuring they both heard the brutal truth. “I’ve been falling in love with you. All along. Tell me that’s one-sided.”
The harsh lines of his face softened. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“But you’re going to anyway.”
Her heart froze in disbelief. She’d put it out there, only to have it slapped down. It had never occurred to her that she wouldn’t be successful at healing him. That the baby wouldn’t be the answer. That her feelings wouldn’t be returned.
But Matt was honest to a fault, and he’d never lie to her.
He didn’t love her.
He couldn’t, because she wasn’t Amber. She’d never be able to fill the empty place in his heart, and she’d been a fool to think that demon could ever be slayed.
Her whole life had been shaped by rejection at the hands of people who didn’t love her because she wasn’t someone else. She wasn’t Lisa. She wasn’t Sara Lear. And she wasn’t Amber.
“Evangeline...” He sighed, and deep lines appeared around his eyes, aging him. “I’ve never made you any promises. I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep. And I’m not ready to be in love again. Might never be.”
Brutal. She’d had no idea how severe 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.