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Saved by the silence | page 1, 2
Last night, Matt was waiting in the bar of San Giusto, nursing a neat scotch, fiddling nervously with his phone. "I was about to call -- I thought maybe you weren't coming," he said, in a humble voice that disarmed me. "Why would I stand you up like that?" As I spoke, I felt a twinge of guilt over the extra time I had spent obsessing in my mirror. Matt's wistful, tormented gaze made me flinch. "You don't trust me," he said, flatly -- mournfully. I sipped some wine to steady my nerves and buy a few seconds of silence. "The other night, you ran off," he said quietly. "And suddenly, it all made sense. I realized why." Nancy Chan: Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl appears in Health & Body every Monday and Thursday. + About Nancy Chan: Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl -- with links to all episodes to date. + Read the Diary from the start. My hands began to shake. Suddenly, everything was converging to a point of no return. I held my breath. "When I told Elspeth --" "Your sister?" I exploded. "You told your sister? How could you do that to me?" I stared at him in numb rage. His sister -- the assistant prosecutor! "Well," he said pathetically, "I had to talk to someone who knew us both -- I made a mistake, OK? I thought I could put it behind me -- because it was just -- just a fling -- you're the one I care about, Nancy. If you would just let me explain --" Stunned, I began to realize what I had almost done to myself -- and to him. He's not here to confront me with my past -- he wants to confront me with his! "Please," he said, reaching for my hand. "It's hard to tell you the truth but I have to because I love you. I know I've been unfair to you --" "But how," I asked him, backtracking furiously, "could you tell someone else you were cheating on me? You made me look like a total fool!" "Elspeth warned me about that," he conceded miserably. "You're not supposed to know that she knows. She says it's a woman thing." "Oh, great," I said warming to my theme of outrage. "So that's why she was making all those pseudo-nice comments. When we had dinner with her --" "Look, can we focus on one problem at a time?" he demanded. "Leave my sister out of this for now --" "You're the one who included her," I pointed out, on the verge of tears -- partially of relief. "Please don't," he begged, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you here," he added in a gentle voice. He could see that I wasn't getting up to leave and I sensed that he was more than a little flattered by my reaction. "You're a sadistic bastard!" I whispered, dabbing my eyes with a bar napkin. "All this time you've been -- you've been projecting your own sneaky motives onto me, and I suppose you thought you were being clever, didn't you?" I tried to control my rampaging impulses but I couldn't help adding: "Who was it? Do I know her? Did I ever meet her?" He sighed sheepishly. "I ... look, maybe we shouldn't get into -- it's over, OK?" "For how long?" I demanded, blowing my nose. I thought back to the party at Miranda's -- where I overheard him, talking about another girl. Tearfully, I consoled myself -- my long silence had saved me in a way. "Were you lying to both of us?" I added, quietly. "What was she like?" He winced. "I don't think you ever met -- she was working for Pam," he said, alluding to his boss, "and she came onto me when we went out West for the pitch -- she's back in school now." "Larissa R_________!" I gasped, without thinking. Spooky's daughter, I realized, was Pam's summer intern! Matt stared in surprise. "How did you know?" Episode 40 Betrayal, his and hers
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