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Matt rose, dropping enough money on the table to cover the wine they’d drunk, plus a good tip. “Come on.” He placed his hand on her lower back, guiding her out of the restaurant. When they reached the curb, she twisted, forcing him to stop touching her.
“Are you using me?” she asked, hating the way he’d referred to Adriana as a means to an end. Given their families’ history of animosity, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was serving some nefarious purpose as well. If so, she didn’t have a clue what it could be.
“To what end?” He turned to walk back to the hotel, giving her no choice but to follow.
“You tell me,” she replied.
“Is this some sort of Moretti paranoia?” he asked with that smug smirk she hadn’t seen since the night of the gala.
“Don’t do that. Don’t make me feel like an idiot for asking a perfectly legitimate question. You went out of your way at that table to let me know that people are pawns you use for your own benefit. So, are you using me?”
“Yes,” Matt said, barely glancing her direction, walking faster.
She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or if he really had picked up the pace, but she was struggling to keep up.
“I am using you, Liza. For sex. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Sex,” the parrot repeated. This conversation had gone completely off the rails. The whole day had. She’d woken up in one frame of mind, and he’d woken up in another—unfortunately, his was the one they’d agreed on.
Just sex.
When they reached the hotel, Matt’s hand found its way to her back again, guiding her across the lobby. She slowed down as they passed the reception desk, but Matt urged her forward.
“I’m going to—” she started.
“We’re not finished,” he said in a harsh tone, laced with an underlying warning that told her he’d die on that hill before he’d let her get her own room.
Liza stared him down, refusing to move. “I think I need to explain a few things to you, Mr. Russo.”
His eyes narrowed, but he gave her a brief nod in agreement. “You can explain in the room,” he said shortly.
She looked around them, taking note the number of happy tourists milling around the lobby, perfectly aware that if she started this here, they would make one hell of a scene.
Liza would be smart to refuse him, to get her own room and table this whole discussion until she got her temper under control.
But she needed to show him she wasn’t someone he could push around. Backing down in a fight wasn’t something that came natural to her, so she brushed by him and the reception desk, walking to their room, forcing him to follow in her wake.
Storming toward their suite, she fumed, hating how he’d gone out of his way to ruin things between them. The bastard had sensed her feelings were changing and he’d found a way to put her back on his track.
The “just sex” track. The track she’d agreed to two days earlier.
Fuck that, she thought, recalling all the bullshit he’d just spewed at her.
Entering the suite together, Liza spun around as Matt closed the door behind them. “You want this fight?”
He nodded.
She stepped closer to him, driving her finger into his shoulder. “You’re an asshole. That’s the lesson I was supposed to take away from all of this shit today, right?”
Matt stared at her for two heartbeats too long before he gave her a single bob of the head.
She slow clapped. “Well done.”
“I’ve never lied to you about what this would be,” he said, as if that made his actions excusable.
“You haven’t. Apparently, I’ve given you the wrong impression of me.”
“What impression is that?” he growled.
