Page 81 of Her Billionaire Boss
Elizabeth’s face went red with indignation.“Yes.I do have friends who were divorced.Theywere divorced.They didn’tinitiatethose divorces.”
Thatwas the problem?That Jackson hadn’t left Catherine?
“If she told you this last night, why call me this morning in hysterics?”Matt demanded.
“I told her last night in no uncertain terms that if she were getting divorced, she would return my mother’s ring,” Elizabeth stated firmly.Then, her lower lip quivered.“She was here at eight this morning, with him, to return it.Also, to shout obscenities at me before she left.It was profoundly upsetting.”
I had to give my brother credit for coming here with Catherine.If I thought Elizabeth was frosty to me, I could only imagine how she’d treated him.
And imagining it made me furious.
As if suddenly remembering that her son was disabled, Elizabeth exclaimed, “Oh, darling, do sit down.”
Matt moved toward the only chair at the table, then hesitated.He turned to me and gestured to indicate I could take the seat, if I wanted it.I shook my head.“You need a rest.”
The sound of my voice alerted Elizabeth like a prey animal’s cry to a predator in the forest.She whipped her withering gaze to me.“I would ask you to leave, as this is a family matter, but it’s your family causing the trouble.”
“It’s Jackson causing the trouble,” Matt snapped.“You’re putting the blame everywhere but on him!He’s the one who cheated!”
“Husbands cheat.”The defense was so automatic, such a ready excuse, that I almost felt bad for Elizabeth in that moment.Mostly, I felt bad for Matt and Catherine.They’d clearly grown up knowing that their father had another family.I wondered if they’d ever met, or even if they’d ever wanted to.
But that was a part of Matt’s past he could discuss with me—or not—on his own terms.It seemed too painful a subject to ever pry.If he hadn’t mentioned anything about half-siblings yet, it was because he either didn’t think about them or didn’t want to think about them.Certainly, it was an indication that he didn’t have a relationship with them, and I knew he wouldn’t hide it if he did.
Husbands cheat.Was that a value that had been instilled in Matt?Was that why he’d never mentioned it?Could the sweet, devoted nerd I loved hurt me that way?
The way he answered his mother told me all I needed to know on that score.His gaze hardened and, with conviction I felt as an almost physical force, he said quietly, calmly, “I won’t.”
Elizabeth looked between the two of us, her earlier panic rising again.“You’re not—”
“Engaged?”Matt asked.“Yes.We are.We wanted to wait to tell you the happy news in person.”
Well played, Matt.I wasn’t going to blow his cover and deny it; he was clearly trying to get under Elizabeth’s skin and frankly, the way she had spoken about my brother as if he were some kind of home wrecker, when it had been her daughter doing the wrecking of her own home, I enjoyed the horrified look on her face.
“Is there a problem?”Matt goaded her cooly.
She lifted her chin.“Of course, there’s a problem.Your girlfriend’s—”
“Fiancé,” he corrected her to get under her skin, I knew.
“Yourgirlfriend’sbrother has already tarnished our family name.Now, you’re planning to bring her in to further—”
It was the talk about me like I wasn’t there that finally did it.It’s what finally broke me and prompted me to interrupt and finish her sentence with, “Lower your property value?”
She gaped at me.
“I’m right here.If you have an issue with me, you can go ahead and speak to me directly.”My heart raced.My eyes were sweaty.I hated conflict, but there I was, jumping into one with both feet.“And if you have a problem with my big brother, well, lady, you have a problem with me.”
She still couldn’t find her voice, and though Matt shifted in his chair as though he was about to say something, the dam had already burst, and I couldn’t slow down.
In a perfect world, I would have remained calm and poised, with deadly directness that would put her in her place.But my world was far from perfect at that moment, so I decided to burn it all down.
“My brother hasn’t done shit to hurt your family, or you daughter’s marriage,” I snapped.“Your daughter chose to leave her husband.Probably because her husband is a giant douchebag who gives off the sleaziest possible vibe that I have ever encountered on a first impression of anyone, and I’ve been to plenty of frat parties!The fact that you even approved of their marriage to him in the first place shows how demented and deluded your precious ‘society’ is.It’s all garden parties and ass-kissing to you and your set, but the rest of us live in the real world, Lizzie.We’ve moved on from the eighteenth century and we expect our spouses to give us the baseline respect of not setting up fallback families all over the place like a god damn fast-food franchise.”
“Charlotte—” Matt said quietly.
But I was not done.Not by a long shot, unfortunately.And since he was probably going to dump me as soon as I stopped talking, anyway, I might as well get it all out.My anger flowed from me like a symphony of stifled hatred that I hadn’t even realized I’d been composing since the birthday weekend and the rules and the forks and the changing for dinner.Standing there in front of his mother, whose good opinion I had so wanted to secure before, all of my fears of inadequacy in Matt’s world confirmed, I didn’t want to make Elizabeth aware of how little her estimation of me mattered now.I wanted her to hear how unimportant she and her little friends were to the rest of the entire world.
“My brother is fucking awesome,” I went on.“He’s a way better man than your daughter deserves.You would be lucky to get to know him.But you never will, because you don’t care.You don’t care if Catherine is happy with him.You probably don’t care that your daughter fucked some rando in your study during your garden party.You’d probably be fine with it, as long as the guy had a lot of money, right?”
