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“No! No! No!”
“How could she do this to me?!”
Look deeper.
Matt bowed his head in his hands and did something he hadn’t done since he was a young boy.
He cried.
Chapter Eighteen
“What the fuck was that?” Tony said the second the elevator doors closed behind them.
“Tony,” Luca said warningly.
Numbness sank in so deep, Liza felt as if she was suffocating, even though she felt the same way Tony did.
Because what the fuck was that?
“Liza,” Tony pressed.
“Please, Tony.” She was barely keeping it together. If she could just make it back to her apartment, she could fall apart completely, but she refused to do that here in front of them.
Luca placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. She and Luca had grown closer this past year—two of the last men standing in what had been their gang of single friends/family. With the exception of Luca and Joey, everyone else was shacked up and working on their happily ever afters. This morning, Liza had woken up thinking she might be switching to that club from the lonely hearts one.
She should have known better.
Regardless, it felt like she owed her cousins an explanation. After all, she hadn’t given them any warning that the status quo between her and Matt had changed from enemies to lovers. “I… We…” she started. She couldn’t speak the words, her tremulous control hanging on by a thread. “Matt…” Her voice broke the second she said his name.
“Shit,” Tony murmured, his voice calmer. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.” He reached out and gave her a hug. Liza tried to let that compassion bolster her. And it sort of worked until he released her, his gaze zeroed in on her own. “Can you explain to us what just happened in there?”
Liza took a deep breath, then gave them as much as she could say, aware her voice was small, tight. “I’ve been seeing Matt off and on for two months…actually a little more.” That wasn’t exactly true, but in her mind, the one-night stand after the gala and the New Year’s Eve kiss had started to count, the moment they’d become a monogamous couple.
“Jesus Christ, Liza,” Tony breathed, shaking his head as if she’d admitted to committing some heinous crime.
His reaction, though muted for him—considering how deep his disdain ran for Matt—helped, because if there was one thing Liza could do in her sleep, it was go toe-to-toe with her overprotective, opinionated relatives.
Bruno, Elio, and Aldo—the world’s greatest brothers—put her through her paces when they were younger, and she’d put a lot of time and effort into breaking their bad habits of intimidating her dates or expressing very strong views whenever she went out with someone they didn’t approve of.
Obviously, she’d done a better job breaking her brothers’ spirits than Layla had done with her big brothers, Tony, Luca, Gio, and Joey. Liza was beginning to understand why her cousin had moved to Baltimore.
“Don’t start with me, Tony Moretti,” she said hotly, trying to pick a fight, anger a preferable emotion to the excruciating anguish currently short-circuiting every internal system she had. The idea of curling into a fetal position in the corner of this elevator held a definite appeal.
Unfortunately, Tony wasn’t picking up what she was throwing down, his response too calm, too conciliatory. “I won’t start because that was…”
He didn’t finish that thought, so she did it for him.
“Horrible.”
Tony didn’t nod, though she could tell he agreed. “You’re gonna have to give me a minute to let this soak in, let me get used to it, sweetheart. You kind of sprung that on us out of nowhere. You and Matt.” The last sentence was muttered more to himself than to her.
His comment killed her weak-willed attempt at anger, and she sniffled, fighting hard not to cry again. “There’s nothing to get used to,” she said thickly.
“I don’t know about that,” Luca disagreed.
“You were in there,” she said, blinking when her vision blurred with tears. “It’s pretty fucking awful when you tell someone you love them for the first time, only to realize they don’t feel the same.”
Luca and Tony exchanged a look, then glanced back at her with matching bewildered expressions.
