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The distance she’d noticed this morning was still there, though it wasn’t something she could call him on, given he was being polite, if somewhat quieter than yesterday.
She couldn’t help but wonder if he regretted inviting her to stay in his suite with him.
What if his interest in her was waning? What if he felt as if she was overstaying her welcome?
“How was your meeting?” she asked at last, drawing Matt’s attention away from the damn menu.
He gave her a puzzled look for just long enough that she suddenly questioned if there’d even been a meeting at all. A few seconds too late, he cleared his throat and said, “It was fine,” before turning his attention back to the menu.
“Anything look good?” Liza tried. “I’ve got my eye on the lomi lomi salmon or maybe the poke. How about you?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Wow. This was going to be a long night if she couldn’t pull him out of whatever mood he was in.
Then she recalled her luncheon with Arnold. If she couldn’t draw him into conversation, maybe she could entertain him with something scandalous and slightly funny, so she recounted the story of the two cousins, Maggie and Maya, who were fighting over the same man. “Arnold is concerned they’ll make a scene at the reception, especially since Maggie’s plus-one was Maya’s boyfriend before she found out the two of them were cheating on her. They thought Maggie would be smart enough to leave the guy at home considering her cousin was going to be there. Of course, Johnnie is hoping for some juicy drama to liven things up.”
“Sleeping with a person who’s dating someone else is guaranteed to produce bad feelings.” Matt’s comment, spoken in such a monotone voice, suddenly struck a little too close to home, and she realized her story had hit a nerve without her intending it to.
“I guess so,” she hedged.
“You and I both know I speak from experience.”
Now that Matt had opened the door, Liza decided to walk through. She’d heard the story of Matt sleeping with her cousin Tony’s girlfriend countless times in the past—always from Tony’s perspective. She was curious to hear Matt’s side of the story.
“I guess it’s a tricky thing…two guys falling for the same girl.”
Matt chuckled, but it wasn’t an amused sound. Rather, it was cold and slightly sinister. “Tony and I didn’t fall for the same girl, Liza. Is that what you’ve thought all these years?”
It wasn’t. Because that wasn’t how Tony told the tale. “Tony said you slept with his girlfriend to get even with him for winning class president.”
“He also stole the position of quarterback when his family moved back to Philly from Baltimore. Your cousin was a pain in my ass senior year.”
Liza hated the vehemence in Matt’s tone. It had her back going up because defending her family was second nature to her. However, she was trying to give Matt the benefit of the doubt, for some reason.
“It was high school.” Time to find a way out of this minefield she’d stepped onto. “Things always seem to matter a hell of a lot at eighteen.”
Matt fell silent, and she thought perhaps he would let the conversation end there. Unfortunately, he didn’t. “Not exactly. If there was one thing my father pounded into my brain growing up, it was that Russos always come out on top.”
“Well, that’s hardly true, is it?” she couldn’t help but counter.
“Isn’t it? Tony may have won the positions, but I got revenge.”
Liza had grown up listening to countless stories about the Russos striking back hard against her family whenever they didn’t get what they wanted. After all, Matt’s grandfather had destroyed Nonno’s business by any and every means necessary, just because Nonna had chosen Nonno over him.
“So Tony’s version of the story…that you seduced his girlfriend in a place where you knew he’d catch the two of you…”
“Was the truth,” Matt finished.
Liza shook her head, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she’d been seeing a different side of Matt since the gala. Actually, her impression of him had been slowly evolving over the past year or so.
When Penny mentioned some generous thing Matt had done for the Russo Enterprises employees or for his brothers.
When Arnold and Devonte sang his praises after the pickup basketball games.
When he gave Jess a job to help keep her and Jasper off the streets.
When he’d sent her obnoxious date, Davis Taylor, packing at the gala.
