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Of course, their newfound peace was also helped along by the fact Matt had fallen in love with Liza Moretti, Luca’s cousin.
The last few weeks, Conor had found himself receiving invitations to countless Moretti social events, like happy hours with his brothers and their new group of friends as well as a standing lunch date the Moretti men had every Wednesday at Paulie’s Diner.
So far, he’d turned them all down because he wasn’t entirely comfortable with this new norm. In truth, he’d preferred the years when his path rarely crossed that of the Morettis. It hadn’t been hard to avoid them the past fifteen years or so, as Conor rarely left his office in his night club, Enigma. For the most part, he didn’t travel in similar social circles and his day-to-day routines didn’t overlap those of the Morettis in any way.
Though to be fair, his solitary routine didn’t overlap with those of anyone.
As for Luca serving as contractor…Conor had Gage to thank for Moretti Brothers Restorations winning the bid to refurbish the building and create Harper’s dream restaurant. Not that it was much of a bidding process.
For the first time in his life, Conor offered a job based on nepotism.
A couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, he’d been invited to join Gage and Penny—as well as Rhys, Jess, and Tony—for dinner. Typically, Conor would have offered an excuse and stayed home, but for some reason, he’d accepted that night, too fed up with eating takeout alone.
During the meal—which had been very laid-back and enjoyable—Gage had asked Conor how things were going on the restaurant project. Conor had told them about purchasing the building and their plans for the renovation, complaining about how the construction company he’d hired had backed out just a few days earlier.
For the next hour, he and Tony had dominated the conversation, discussing his and Harper’s vision. Conor had gone into detail as he described the building, which Tony was familiar with, claiming it used to be his favorite pizza joint.
One thing led to another and before he knew it, he found himself offering Tony and his brothers the contract right there at the table, and Tony—mercifully—had promised to fast-track the project, even though Moretti Brothers had a waiting list of future clients.
Conor realized nepotism wasn’t the right word. There was no denying Moretti Brothers Restorations was the best construction firm in the city, but given their families’ past hostility, Conor had never worked with them, even after his father passed away. Considering Russo Enterprises did a great deal of construction in and around the city, they’d been shooting themselves in the foot by not hiring the Morettis all along.
This restaurant was their first foray into a Russo/Moretti professional relationship since the original rift four generations earlier. Conor suspected his brothers as well as Luca’s family were very interested in the success of the partnership, as it would potentially open the door to more joint ventures, which could be profitable for both companies—Russo Enterprises as well as Moretti Brothers.
While Conor hadn’t had any qualms offering Tony the job that night at dinner, he wasn’t sure he would have been quite so quick to do so if he’d known Luca would be the actual contractor—not Tony—and their primary contact at Moretti Brothers.
Primarily because he and Luca had a tiny bit of a past, one that still, all these years later, brought up some latent, misplaced jealousy and embarrassment. He wasn’t able to shake those feelings, even though the incident had occurred nearly twenty years earlier.
The worst part was, he was pretty sure Luca didn’t have a clue anything had even gone down between them.
Much to Conor’s chagrin, back in high school, he’d been wildly attracted to Luca, who had unwittingly been the first person to break his heart.
And now…they were working together.
Fucking. Awesome.
It had been easy to forget Luca existed when they never ran into each other, and for most of his adult life, mercifully he’d had no more than half a dozen “Luca sightings.” During those run-ins, they’d done little more than say hello and move on.
Ever since beginning work on this project, Conor had managed to avoid in-person meetings with Luca, instead dealing with the man behind the camera on his computer, and always with Harper and one or two of Luca’s other brothers in attendance as well.
Conor watched as Harper got closer, her attention focused solely on the building. Black smoke was billowing from the broken front windows as two firefighters directed a powerful stream of water from their hoses, dousing the flames.
Before Conor could call out to her, Harper pulled out her phone, tapping on it for a minute or two.
“Hey, Conor.”
He looked over to discover Luca approaching him, also taking note of Harper on her phone.
“Did you warn her?” Luca asked.
Conor shook his head. “She knew about the alarm, but I didn’t have a chance to call back and tell her it wasn’t just a glitch.”
“Shit,” Luca muttered.
Harper must have felt their gazes on her because she looked their direction, tapped her phone a couple more times, tucked it away, then gave a quick wave as she headed toward them.
“Hello, Conor,” she said as she stepped up to him. “Guess the dust theory didn’t pan out.”
Conor grimaced. “It did not. Not exactly the welcome to Philadelphia you were expecting.” He reached out to shake the hand she offered.
