Matteo (14 page)

He chuckles. “Complex?”

“Under all those layers of arrogance and aloofness, you’re passionate. You’re strong but vulnerable. You’re guarded and fiercely protective of those you love, but you have a soft spot of your own.”

He’s silent for a while and I hope I haven’t offended him. Then, he says, “I like it when you call me ‘Matteo’. I like how my name sounds on your lips.”

His confession warms me all over and for just a moment, all my defenses slip away. “I like who I become whenever you’re around,” I whisper. And immediately, I wish I could take the words back. “Does that make me sound weak?” I ask bashfully. I can’t be weak. ‘Weak’ is not an option for me.

His hand cups my face and he looks me deep in the eyes. “You’re the strongest woman I know, Ellie Parker.”

I press my cheek to his chest and smile. I want to believe that he means the things he’s saying. I never expected to feel this way for him.

He sighs deeply. “I would invite you to spend the night, but Tilly tends to climb into my bed at all hours of the night.”

I smile softly at the thought of Matteo’s adorable little girl. “I understand,” I say quietly. “Let’s just enjoy this moment. Let’s think about nothing else.”

Laying there in his arms, it’s the first time in a long time I feel like I’m exactly where I belong.

Chapter 25

I walk down the corridor of Cartwright Moretti Stevenson the next morning feeling reinvigorated. I slept like a goddamned baby after my driver took Ellie home last night and now, I can’t fight the smile that’s tickling at my lips.

I don’t even recognize myself.

I don’t know what’s happening to me.

I’m not the kind of guy who gets off on just spending time with a woman. I’ve never spent hours and hours just quietly holding a woman in my arms. But that’s what I did with Ellie last night and – though I was hard as nails for most of our time together –  holding her was
enough
.

Anna-Maria eyes me cautiously as I approach her cubicle.

Shit – she’s probably still upset about seeing me with Ellie last night. I never wanted to hurt her. I can count on one hand the names of the women that I’ve ever really cared about and Anna-Maria is one of them.

She’s always been so loyal to me. She’s always been more than just my secretary.

No – I’ve never loved her, but that’s not her fault. It’s not because of anything she ever did wrong. It’s just that I was never ‘wired’ for love…until Ellie. I don’t want things between Anna-Maria and me to become strained. I hope it’s not too late. I’ll do what I must to preserve our friendship.

I’ve hurt people. Anna-Maria is one of them. And I feel like shit for that.

“Good morning, Anna-Maria,” I say coming to a stop opposite her desk. “About last night, I just want to let you know – “

“Shhh!” she says in an irritated whisper, her eyes darting just past my office door. “Madison’s here. And she’s
pissed
. About
something
. She’s been waiting for you for like 25 minutes and there was nothing I could say to make her leave.”

My eyebrows furrow. I hate it when my little sister is upset. My siblings and I have always been extremely protective of each other. It’s always been us against the world. We’re the Morettis – that’s how we were brought up. So, if someone did something to hurt my sister, I’m ready to fight them – no questions asked.

I’m already grimacing, my fists balled up at my sides. I ask Anna-Maria, “Did she say why she’s upset?”

Anna-Maria shakes her head. “No – but I think it’s
you
she’s mad at.”

“Me?” I haven’t done a thing to her. I haven’t even spoken to her in a few days, come to think about it.

“Yes – she was going on and on about you being a selfish asshole –“ and then she adds under her breath “—and I happen to agree today.”

I ignore Anna-Maria’s passive aggressive behavior. She and I will sort through our differences later. For now, I need to figure out what has Madison all riled up.

“Hold my calls,” I toss over my shoulder as I brush past Anna-Maria and enter my office.

Madison is standing by the window, looking out over Union Square. One hand is anchored on her waist and a snifter of scotch dangles from the fingers of her other hand.

My sister. Drinking. Before 10 a.m.

This is
bad
.

“Maddie, what’s going on?” I say as I close the door behind me.

She spins around and glares at me. “Well, you’re late this morning,” she seethes. “Is it because you were recuperating. From. Fucking. Ellie. Parker. All. Night. Long?”

Whoa!
I definitely didn’t see
that
coming.

I remain calm. I’ll play it cool and see just how much she knows. “Madison – what exactly are you talking about?”

“Don’t insult me, Matt. You’ve been fucking Ellie Parker. I know it. I saw you with her at the Waldorf last week. I saw you booking a room with her.” She spits the words out at me and they’re covered in vile.

I sigh. “So, what’s it to you if I’m involved with her?” I say nonchalantly as I pad over to the mini-bar to pour myself a drink. I need to keep my back to her so that she doesn’t read my face. I need to buy myself some time to analyze the gravity of the situation. If she’s already told Michael about this, then I can forget about getting that promotion to managing partner of the firm. If she hasn’t told Michael yet, maybe I can reason with her.

She marches right up beside me. “What’s it to me?” she throws my words back at me. “Matt – do you even know who that woman is?”

I throw her a disinterested sidelong glance. “Yes – I know who she is. Yes – I know she’s a client of the firm’s and I violated firm policy by sleeping with her –“

My sister hocks a bitter laugh. “Fuck firm policy, Matt. That’s not even what I’m talking about. This is much bigger than firm fucking policy.”

I roll my eyes. I love my sister but Madison has a tendency to be a tad dramatic. “Maddie – get to the point. Please. I have work to do.”

“When I first realized you were sleeping with one of the firm’s clients
again
, Domenic convinced me to let it go. He said to me ‘Matt will be Matt. The policy has never deterred him from fucking whoever the hell he wants to fuck, so don’t go making a big deal about it.’ And I listened to him. I dropped it. But then, Michael was preparing to send the
New York Flame
a cease and desist letter yesterday, ordering them to stop publishing trash about my personal life and one of the interns stumbled upon an interesting little tidbit–”

I turn to face her, furrowing my brows. “What are you talking about?”

“Ellie Parker – she’s Eloise Benoit. Do you have any fucking idea who Eloise Benoit is?”

I shake my head slowly. The name rings a bell but I’m not sure why.

“Eloise Benoit is the founder of the
New York Flame
, that dirty, salacious tabloid magazine that’s been dragging the Moretti name through the mud for years.”

Chapter 26

From the moment he stepped through the door tonight, I could tell that something was
off.

He seemed cold. Distant.

He didn’t try to kiss me or even touch me. He had no gentle words to whisper into my ear. He just took a seat at the kitchen table and watched wordlessly as I finished preparing dinner. I could feel his eyes on me as my back was turned to him, but he wasn’t ‘checking me out’ – he was
analyzing
me and it made me pretty freaking uncomfortable.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” I ask him as I set my bowl of rice, vegetables and chicken down on the table in front of me.

“No,” he says curtly, his mouth pulled into a tight line.

“Water? Juice?”

“Are you Eloise Benoit?” The words shoot out of his mouth.

My jaw goes slack.

I search my brain for words but I don’t find any.

This is the last thing I expected Matteo to ask me.

“Ellie – answer me. Are you Eloise Benoit?”

His eyes are stormy and his body radiates rage. I’m almost scared to answer. But more than that, I’m ashamed because I know what he must think of me right now. He probably thinks I that I betrayed him. He probably sees me as a liar.

“Are you just gonna sit there and stare at me or are you gonna answer?”

“I – I.” Shit – I wanted to be the one to tell him so that I could explain myself. I hate that he found out from someone else.

He shoves away from the table so hard that the chair smacks into the wall behind him. “All this fucking time! All this fucking time, Ellie! You kept this from me. You saw me falling for you, trusting you more and more, and you kept this fucking secret from me.”

“It’s not that simple, Matteo,” I yelp getting up from my seat. I have to make him understand.

“It’s not that simple? Ellie – your so-called blog has been spreading gossip about me and my family for years. About my parents, my brother, my little sisters. And you thought it was okay to be with me and never mention that?”

“I didn’t plan any of this, if that’s what you’re thinking?”

“How am I supposed to believe that, Ellie? You lied to me about what you do for a living. About your name.” He unclenches his fist and pushes his fingers through his hair.

“I didn’t lie to you. You were never interested in knowing about my blog. You turned up your nose at me the first time I mentioned it, like you didn’t even take me seriously.”

“Well, I never imagined that you ran a blog built on tearing people’s lives to shreds and feeding it to blood-thirsty gossip-mongers just to make a dollar.”

“That’s not how it is, Matteo.”

He mutters a string of curse words under his breath.

“And as for my name – my name is Eloise Parker – but my grandparents started calling me ‘Ellie’ when I was a little girl. Nobody calls me ‘Eloise’. And ‘Benoit’? That’s my mother’s maiden name. It’s French and beautiful and I love it. Plus, I hated my father too much to carry his name around everywhere with me. So, when I started my blog, I decided to go by ‘Eloise Benoit’. It’s anonymous and exotic at the same time…But my
legal
name is Eloise Parker. Your law firm has my birth certificate. Didn’t you read through my file?”

His eyes drop to the floor and he shakes his head. “Regardless of what your name is, you let me go on believing that I could trust you –“

“You
can
trust me,” I insist.

He hocks a laugh. “I can trust you? How do I know you haven’t been getting close to me just to dig up more of my family’s secrets so that you can post them on your fucking
blog
?”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Tears run hot down my cheeks. I’m falling for this man and here he is breaking my heart with each syllable that streams out of his mouth.

“Christ – I introduced you to my daughter, Ellie. My precious little girl.”

“I would never blog about Tilly. I wouldn’t do that.” My god – I have no chance here, do I?

“This –“ he gestures to the space between us “is exactly why I’ve never been in love. You give someone your heart and then they use it as a soccer ball.”

Before I can say anything else, he’s halfway to the front door. Nothing I say or do will change the way he feels. Knowing that makes me feel helpless and hopeless.

He turns and looks at me as his hand reaches for the doorknob. “You’re incredible, Ellie, in all the wrong ways.”

I can’t let him walk out the door thinking that this wasn’t real. That what we feel for each other isn’t real.

I do the only thing I can think of.

“I love you.”

I offer the three little words that have been weighing on my mind for the last few days. But after what I’ve done, they’ll mean nothing to him.

He looks at me like I just punched him in the stomach. “Your mother, she was wrong. Chemistry isn’t enough. Trust plus honesty have to be part of the equation if you’re gonna call it ‘love’.”