Pregnant by Morning by Kat Cantrell Page A

formally introduced ourselves, have we?”
    “Evangeline La Fleur.” She stuck her hand out in mock solemnity. “Nice to meet you, Matt Wheeler.”
    Vincenzo paused long enough to drain his glass and motioned for a refill.
    In the silence, Angelo asked Matt, “What do you do?”
    “I’m a partner at a commercial real estate firm in Dallas, Texas.”
    No hesitation. No dodging the question. It was clearly how he defined himself or the answer wouldn’t have come so quickly. It put an odd barb in her stomach because she wouldn’t have been so quick with her own answer.
    “Oh, do you know J. R. Ewing?” Angelo snickered at his own joke. Evangeline rolled her eyes, but Matt just laughed.
    He was such a good guy to spend time with her friends and not call them out for being lame. But here she could relax and just be herself, without the pressure of Eva.
    “Real estate.” Nicola wrinkled her nose. “Houses?”
    “No, we haven’t delved into residential. We sell office buildings. Downtown high-rises.” When he warmed to the subject, the pang in her stomach poked a little harder. He loved his job. It was all over his expression. “Land for development. That sort of thing.”
    We . Not I . An interesting choice of phrasing. Who was the we?
    “High-rises. That sounds impressive.” Nicola’s nose unwrinkled and she leaned forward, suddenly a bit more interested in Evangeline’s companion now that she scented money.
    “Matt’s very successful,” Evangeline threw in, though she didn’t know much about the ins and outs of the life he’d left behind. Neither last names nor pre-Venice activities had ranked very high on the priority list of their discussions. She’d always assumed it was by design, since Matt’s wife was a taboo piece of that past.
    But really, of course he was successful. Look at him.
    He squeezed her hand. “Evangeline’s being kind. I’ve been on an extended vacation. Wheeler Family Partners was the top-selling firm in Texas last year, but its current success is due to my brother. Not me.”
    “You work for a family business?” Nicola asked, and Matt nodded, explaining how the other partners were his dad and brother and the firm had been in his family for over a hundred years.
    No one else seemed to notice the catch in his voice, but it sliced at her.
    Family meant nothing to her, was almost a foreign word. But to Matt, it seemed as if it had been the cornerstone of his existence before Venice. He’d communicated far more than the simple logistics of a job—he’d belonged to a unit.
    He wandered in search of answers now, but did he eventually want to return to his roots? She didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want it to matter. But the barb in her stomach was also due to realizing they were less alike than she’d assumed.
    She waited until after dinner, when they’d settled into the water taxi to return to Matt’s house, to bring it up again. “Tell me more about your life in Dallas.”
    With a laugh, he kissed her sweetly. “Why? Do you need to take a nap? That would be so boring you’d nod off in a second.”
    Her lips curved. “Boring? You? There’s no way the guy who put his hand under my dress on a balcony could ever be boring.”
    “I drove a sports utility vehicle, Evangeline.”
    “But you left it all behind.” His wife’s death had turned him into a drifter. Like her. They’d both been honed by tragedy but had yet to recognize their new shape. She desperately wanted to feel that kinship with him again after learning they’d come from such different places. “So it doesn’t matter now, right?”
    “It matters. I walked away from a legacy. The name of the firm is Wheeler Family Partners. That pretty much encapsulates it. Family is everything. And I abandoned them.” His voice never wavered as he listed his sins.
    Strength. He had it in spades and it pulled at her. The men in her life were weak. Spineless. Matt regretted his actions but took full responsibility for what