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There was no censure, no astonishment, nothing except…approval?
“I don’t think you heard what I said.”
“You slept with Matt Russo.” Arnold repeated what she’d considered a big bombshell as casually as if he was telling her they were having grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch.
“Seriously? That’s all you have to say? Good for me?” Liza hadn’t told a soul about her and Matt. It wasn’t like she was going to bring it up to any of her Moretti relatives, and while she had plenty of girlfriends to talk to, they all had a bad habit of falling for her cousins and brothers, which meant telling them would basically be the same thing as confessing it to her family. It was a vicious circle.
In the back of her mind, she’d been considering bringing up the subject to Arnold and Johnnie on Tuesday night at dinner because she really—REALLY—needed an objective opinion. But until she just blurted it out, she’d still been on the fence about telling anyone at all, thinking perhaps it was a secret best kept just that…a secret.
“What were you expecting me to say?” Arnold put the nets away, walked back to his chair, and sat down again. “I was there the night of the gala, Liza. I saw you and Matt together, saw the dance you shared. Johnnie commented on it when we got home, said there were so many sparks flying between the two of you, he was shocked the ballroom hadn’t gone up in flames.”
Liza had been so swept up in that dance, she hadn’t even considered the fact there’d been witnesses.
“Regardless of that,” she started. “Don’t you think I made a mistake?”
“Do you think it was a mistake?” Arnold was a licensed therapist, so she wasn’t new to his infuriating habit of answering questions with questions. Questions meant to make her think about her feelings and do a bunch of introspection and other shit she sucked at.
“Of course, I do,” she said hotly.
“Why?”
Liza scoffed and threw her head back against the couch, her gaze focused on the ceiling. “Because our families hate each other,” she spat, giving him the cop-out response.
And because Arnold knew the Moretti/Russo stories—she tended to overshare after a few glasses of wine—he called her on it. “Try again, because that feuding family bullshit is getting old. A lot of what you’re pretending to be pissed off about is ancient history, sins perpetuated by people who aren’t even still alive.”
“Matt pulled some of the shit,” she countered, though she knew her argument was weak.
Arnold smirked. “When he was eighteen. Everyone is an asshole at eighteen. So try again. Why was it a mistake?”
Liza fell silent because this was what she’d been struggling with ever since Christmas. Immediately following the gala, she’d tried to tell herself it was a mistake, and she’d failed. How could something so earthshaking and incredible be wrong?
For a few days, she’d toyed with the idea of calling Matt and suggesting a second-night stand. And maybe a third, a fourth, etc., just to see where things took them.
Then Penny had shown her the pictures of Matt with Patricia the day after what she couldn’t stop thinking of as the best night of her life, and, well, dammit, her pride had been tweaked. Because while she’d been reliving every freaking second of their night together, Matt had been making plans to go out with Queen Bitch.
Less than fifteen hours after Liza left his hotel room, he’d moved on. Or actually, back. Which told her it hadn’t been as amazing for him…and that had hurt her as much as it had pissed her off.
Under the guise of making herself feel better, she’d recalled all those “old stories” about Matt stealing Tony’s girlfriend, Adriana, seducing her and making sure Tony found them, to prove to herself that he was still the same old dog employing the same tricks.
Unfortunately, that ploy didn’t work because in the end, all it did was make her feel stupid. Like she should have known better, like she’d let herself get played by the playboy.
God. She hated feeling stupid. She’d spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve determined to forget him completely.
Until that kiss at midnight.
She realized Arnold was still waiting for an answer, but she didn’t have one to give him. “I don’t know why it was a mistake.”
“Does Matt agree that it shouldn’t have happened?”
Liza sighed because she wasn’t looking very intelligent in this conversation. “I don’t know. He and I haven’t talked about it.”
“What did he say in the morning?”
Liza bit her lower lip, hating her response to that question. “I snuck out in the middle of the night.”
Arnold’s eyes softened. “Oh, Liza. You haven’t seen him since?”
“Actually, he kissed me on New Year’s Eve,” she confessed.
