LITMIR.BIZ

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couldn’t imagine anything she’d be more ill-suited for.

      She fretted about it until he texted her to come home.

      When she burst in the door of Palazzo D’Inverno, the surprise nearly knocked her off her feet.

      “Oh, my God.”

      A shiny, ebony grand piano stood in the corner of the living room, overlooking the Grand Canal. Matt sat on the bench, quietly watching her, and the two together put a glitch in her lungs she couldn’t breathe through.

      “Presumptuous of me, I realize,” he said. “But I thought you might enjoy having it to play since going out isn’t so fun.”

      Her fingers curled spontaneously. She hadn’t touched piano keys since the surgery. Hadn’t wanted to. Didn’t want to now.

      “Thanks. It’s...nice.”

      His eyebrows rose. “You’re welcome, and you seem a little underwhelmed. Did I screw up?”

      Vehemently, she shook her head. “It’s the most thoughtful gift anyone’s ever given me.”

      “Okay. I’ll take that.” He slid off the bench and engulfed her in his warm, safe arms. “But there’s more. Do you want to tell me, or is the piano now the armadillo in the room?”

      The laugh slipped out. “How did you know I was going to call armadillo?”

      “You get this closed-in face whenever you’re about to say it.”

      “I don’t want to play.” It fell out of her mouth. Maybe on accident, or maybe because she couldn’t bear for him to be so understanding and not get anything for it.

      “You don’t have to. I can send it back.” He hugged her tighter and then released her. “I’ll call the delivery company right now.”

      “No.” That had definitely been said on purpose. She was safe with Matt. She knew that. “Want is the wrong word. I can’t play.”

      “Like you’ve forgotten how?”

      “Like the music is a razor blade.” Cut, Madam Wong had said. The music had been cut from her throat and it cut when she heard it and it cut when she played.

      “Screw up would be too kind a phrase, then,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was hard for you to play. I envisioned you gaining something...I don’t know, peaceful from it.”

      Her eyelids shut in sudden memory. The piano had been her refuge in a lonely house growing up, the one thing her mother had given her. Because it was the path to fame and fortune, foremost, but Evangeline turned it into something else. A means of expression she’d channeled in conjunction with her voice. Always together.

      The piano still had the music inside. She didn’t. But in Palazzo D’Inverno, there were no rules, and the two didn’t have to coexist. They could have value individually.

      “I’d like to find some peace,” she admitted. “I don’t know why it’s so hard.”

      “Peace is elusive.”

      She’d meant playing the piano was hard. He’d cut through the outer layer and exposed the raw truth. But not the whole truth. “Not when I’m with you.”

      With a smile, he captured her hand and pulled her toward the piano. “Then let’s do it together.”

      “What? You don’t play.”

      But he situated himself on the bench and drew her between his spread legs, placing her fingers on the keys under his own. “Teach me. I’ve been listening to music my whole life. How hard can it be?”

      She snorted out a giggle and leaned back against the solid chest supporting her, his breath teasing her ear and his heart thumping her spine.

      Safe. Matt was her anchor in a sea of anxiety.

      “Move your hands. That’s not how you learn. Here, listen.”

      Slowly, she picked out the notes to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” The keys sank under her fingers with 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

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