Page 116 of Matteo

“I haven’t been hiding in a convent. I have dated, and had the occasional fling, but nothing that seemed worth rearranging my life for.”

“Ah.” He sounds like he wants more information.

I could tell him it was because I was focused on my cybersecurity company, because I needed it to work, but that would only open the floodgates for him to ask about my past. And I don’t want that. I have to be so careful because Matteo doesn’t miss a thing, and I sense he’s a little hung up on Vlad and what he means to me.

“How did you meet your friend? The one who’s getting married?”

“Vlad?”

“Is that his name?”

“Didn’t I mention it before?” I ask, acutely aware that I haven’t. I’ve been trying not to talk about Vlad, or the wedding, but I realize how ridiculous this is given that we’re going to Europe together.

Matteo seems uneasy, and I’m not sure if he’s jealous, or if it’s something else.

“How did you meet him?”

“Online, I thought I told you.”

I didn’t mean to sound so defensive, but I wasn’t expecting this level of interrogation after what we’ve just done. I prop up on my elbow, thumbing his lower lip, then slide my finger into his mouth. He sucks it, his eyes on mine. It’s so intimate. Suggestive. Dirty and delicious.

I’m curious about his past lovers. “Tell me,” I say, moving my hand across his chest. “What about you? How many in the last year?”

“In the last year? What do you think I am, an escort?” he exclaims.

I imagine someone like him, looking more like a rockstar than a billionaire, would have many women dropping at his feet.

“You look like you belong on stage, like you’re part of a band.”

He chuckles. “You should hear what the old man has to say about my dress sense. I’m the only one who doesn’t wear a suit. Dex doesn’t either, he’s usually in smart jeans and T-shirts, but my dress code is slightly more unconventional for a CEO.”

I do remember what Paul said, when I discovered who Matteo was. The thought takes me back to the memory of us being trapped in the elevator. I would never have guessed who he was. I thought he worked in maintenance, facilities or maybe the building operations team.

I want to know more about his family. I’m always intrigued by people and their connections and relationships, maybe because I don’t have any.

Vlad and the team were the closest I ever got to feeling a part of a group, until we got caught. He got arrested and the rest of us were dragged into investigations and interviews. Everything changed. The group scattered. Vlad eventually left the United States and rebuilt his life in Croatia, far away from the attention, the scrutiny, and the ghosts of what we'd all done. None of us were ever quite the same after that.

Thinking about that time always drags me somewhere I don’t want to go. I force myself to come back to the present. “Tell me more about Dex.”

“He’s my half-brother.”

“Your half-brother?” I don’t understand fully what he means, though I’m starting to see that his family is more complicated than I thought. His mom lives in Italy, he doesn’t get on with his father, and now I learn that Dex is a half-brother.

“You really want to know about my fucked-up family?”

My fingers still on his bicep. “I want to know everything.”

He exhales a long sigh, as if he’s preparing himself for something difficult. “There are two sets of brothers. The American Knights, and us. Same father. Different mothers. Different countries. Different lives. We found out about one another when we were very young. Jett was a teen. Rio was ten, and me and Enzo a few years younger, when that sordid secret came out and disrupted all our lives on both sides of the Atlantic.”

My mouth hangs open, and I have no words.

“Fucked up, I told you.”

“What sordid secret?”

He exhales a lengthy sigh. “The old man had an affair. He had a wife—Jett, Dex and Zach’s mom, and a mistress. I shouldn’t say that about my mom, but … she was the other woman, the one he didn’t marry. She also didn’t know he was a married man with a whole other life and family in the States.”

My stomach twists. Shock crashes through me followed by something heavier. Sympathy. Sadness. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for a child to discover that his entire family had been built on a lie.