Chapter Ten
Hazel
I tried to let it go.
Really, I did.
I probably could have.
Except after the family night at the garden center, those men I figured might be connected to the Grassis were still at work every single day. Sure, there were fewer of them, but they were always around, lingering, watching, not speaking. It was borderline creepy.
And no one was talking about it.
Not Domenico.
Not the other employees.
I almost felt like everyone understood something I just wasn’t privy to.
As someone in a position of authority, I guess I had to be happy that everyone seemed to be on their best behavior since the men showed up. No sneaking off to smoke pot, no talking in groups when they were supposed to be working, not even showing up late.
That said, it was weird.
And I didn’t like not being in the know.
It felt weird to ask them, though.
So I tried to keep my head down and just do my job. It was hard, though, when everywhere I turned, there seemed to be someone lingering. While I didn’t feel like any of them were watching me, per se, it felt uncomfortable.
I started spending more time inside the shop, pretending that ordering and researching new artisans for the upcoming Christmas season required all my attention.
The thing was, browsing stuff online left a lot of room for my mind to roam. And roam it did. To the night in the woods, to the memory of the man, my certainty at the time that he was real. Then, of course, it drifted to the conversation with Dante.
It still didn’t feel right.
One thing I’d noticed every time I spoke to Dante was how good he was at eye contact. He knew just the balance between engaged listener and creep. I always felt like he was listening to understand, not just to wait for his turn to speak.
That conversation about the body had been different. He hadn’t looked at me once. Well, he’d looked toward me a few times, but not directly at me. There hadn’t been any eye contact.
What other conclusion could be drawn but that he’d lied to me?
The thing was, I couldn’t figure out why.
What would he have to gain by convincing me that a body wasn’t a body?
If this was some TV show or movie, I would come to the conclusion it was because he’d killed the guy.
Except… both he and Domenico had seemed genuinely shocked about my finding a body in the woods.
So if there was, like I suspected, a body there, why would they lie about it? Because of business? Was he worried about the bad press? About people thinking it wasn’t safe? About all the schools backing out because of parental backlash?
It was a valid concern, of course. We were right in the middle of the busy season. If he lost customers now, it might not only tank the Halloween season, but Christmas too.
It wasn’t like someone just had a heart attack or something from fear. Tragic, sure, but understandable. There were extenuating circumstances, bad health, etc.
But if someone was stabbed to death? There was no spinning that.
Still, was that good enough of a reason to… what? Hide a body?
My head whipped to the side, looking out the window, staring at the sprawling woods.
Was he out there?
Had they just… buried him?
My stomach twisted at the idea.
Especially as I imagined Dante, of all people, being the one to dig that grave, to push the body into it like it didn’t belong to someone, like there weren’t people out there wondering where he might be, what happened to him.
Somehow, as awful as it sounded, I could imagine Domenico doing something like that. Sure, he’d been nice to me. But there was some darkness inside of that man.
But Dante?
Dante, who I’d seen playing cars with his nephews at his mother’s house? Who’d rolled up his sleeves to wash the dishes after dinner was done? Who put his hand at the small of my back to lead me around? Who brought me coffee?
How could he do something like that?
God.
I was letting my mind run away with me. There was no proof he’d hidden a body, for goodness’ sake.
The problem was, I had a lot of questions and no answers to any of them.
Maybe I needed to do a little… investigation of my own.
Into horror props, any local missing people—hell, maybe even Dante Grassi himself.
With that in mind, I dropped down behind the counter, opened a browser, and searched for realistic human props.
I got lost in that vortex for well over an hour, scouring every retail and specialty website I came across.
Apparently, what people thought of as ‘realistic’ varied a lot.
I did eventually find my way onto a site that sold props specifically for horror films and carnivals.
The thing was, even though these were dummies, you had to pay nearly ten grand each for them, and they looked incredibly realistic, they weren’t unique. There were roughly twenty different people you could get with various levels of gore. But none of them matched the guy in the woods.
None of them, I noted, were anywhere near as large.
And, as I dug into the nitty-gritty product details, I understood why.
Even the smallest woman dummy was extremely heavy.
Part of that was because of the realism factor, and part of it was to ensure that no one could easily steal such an expensive prop.
To get a guy as large as the man in the woods (both in height and in weight), it would probably weigh as much as a human body would.
If the guy had been a prop, how could Dante’s cousin even have moved him all the way out into the woods?
Sure, his family was fit. But Dante himself was the fittest of the bunch, and he said he’d had Domenico’s help to move the ‘prop.’
I was about to check out another website when I heard the chime on the shop door.
I plastered on a customer service smile, ready to make some kind of sale, when my gaze landed on Dante.
“I thought I saw a light in here when I was passing,” he said, sauntering in wearing fresh gym clothes that left a lot less to the imagination than his usual suits did.
His arms were bare, big biceps making all sorts of fantasies about being picked up, carried, and thrown around by him swarm my very confused mind.
And the way his shirt was cut allowed me to see the outlines of abdominal muscles when he walked.
I wouldn’t even let my gaze slip lower than his stomach, though. Because I had a feeling those thin workout pants of his would confirm the ideas I’d conjured up about a very specific part of his anatomy.
“What do you mean?” I asked, slow-blinking at him as I tried to think past the fog of desire taking over my system.
Dante’s head cocked to the side, brows scrunching as he looked at me. His hand lifted, waving around the shop.
Sure enough, when I glanced around, the shop was dark, save for the blue glow coming from the computer screen.
The computer screen.
I needed to minimize the windows before Dante saw them.
“Oh, sorry. I guess I forgot to turn on the light.” I hoped we hadn’t lost customers.
“Hazel, it’s almost eleven.”
Eleven?
My gaze shot down to the computer to check the time. Which conveniently allowed me to covertly minimize the internet browser.
“Oh.”
“You didn’t notice everyone leaving?”
“I… no.”
How had I missed that?
Especially with how anxious I’d been around the place lately.
With how the shop was situated, I should have seen all the taillights and headlights as the staff pulled out of their spots for the night. Had I really been that distracted by my research?
“I don’t like you working here all alone,” he told me again. “It’s not safe. Especially if the door isn’t even locked. I’m gonna have a talk with Domenico.”
“No, don’t do that. This isn’t his fault. He left right when I was coming in here. This was on me. I lost track of time. I didn’t even go around to make sure all the lights and sounds were turned off.”
“It sounded all quiet to me. And this was the only light I saw. We have a well-trained staff here. Except for one workaholic,” he said as he started to round the counter.
And he really, really needed not to come behind the counter. Not just because the space was so limited and I already felt like his scent was enveloping me. But because I hadn’t closed the tabs or cleared the history.
I didn’t want him to know I’d been looking into his story.
“Well, I, uh, don’t really, you know, have anything to rush home to,” I said, my mouth suddenly going dry as he moved fully into the small space with me.
I felt compelled to both move toward and back away from him. My body compromised by staying perfectly still.
“Still,” Dante said, towering over me, forcing me to angle my head up to look at him. Which was a mistake because the low light in the shop cast his face in even more appealing shadows. “I don’t like you being here alone and unprotected.”
That gave me a full belly wobble.
Damn him.
I didn’t need my body getting all these ideas about him when my mind was so conflicted about the whole body/dummy situation. And, of course, the lying.
“I, uh,” I started, looking up at him. Words were hard when your mouth was suddenly bone dry.
“I worry about you,” he went on, his dark gaze on me.
“Why?” And why did my voice come out like a whisper?
“I just do,” he said, his voice pitching lower, and the new timbre shivered through me.
His hand lifted, brushing some hair that had escaped my claw clip behind my ear. This time, the shiver wasn’t just inside.
His chin tucked.
“I’ve got a million reasons not to do this,” he murmured as his hand slid down to rest on the side of my neck.
I had more.
Yet my head angled up. My eyes slid to his lips, then back up again.
Seeing it, Dante’s fingers tightened as his head lowered.
It was a slow descent, like he was waiting for one of us to come to our senses.
But we were both too caught up in the moment, in that unexpected, palpable spark that had been between us almost from the moment we’d met.
He came down low enough for his warm breath to feather across my cheek but waited for my chin to angle up before he closed in.
His mouth found mine in the dark, soft and slow, making a moan catch in my throat as my head fell back, inviting more.
Dante was happy to give it, the kiss shifting, turning rougher, needier. His lips bruised into mine, his scruff scraped my skin, his fingers dug into my skin.
My hands slid up his bare arms, fingers tracing over his tense biceps.
When my lips fell open in a moan, his tongue found mine, tasting, claiming.
My arms wound around the back of his neck, crushing my chest to his. The feeling had a rumbling sound moving through him.
Then his hands were gliding down my back, sinking into my ass, then yanking me up and off my feet.
When a surprised gasp escaped me, his teeth sank into my lower lip, turning the gasp into a moan as my legs wrapped around his hips.
He turned us, dropping me down on the countertop. My legs tightened around his lower back, holding us close.
Another moan escaped me as his hardness pressed against me.
Dante’s lips were hard then, demanding, dragging whimpers out of me as my hips did involuntary little circles against his hard length that those stretchy exercise pants of his were doing very little to contain.
Dante’s fingers snuck up under my sweater, cool fingers meeting overheated skin.
Our lips broke apart as my head fell back on a moan when his cock pressed just right.
Dante’s heavy-lidded eyes opened and held mine as his hips ground against me once again.
My groan caught on a gasp, though, as light suddenly flooded the shop.
Only one thing made the place light up like that: someone turned into the lot.
But instead of turning away, the light stayed blinding.
Dante and I yanked apart.
I hopped down off the counter as he moved out from behind it.
With his back to me, I was in my right mind enough to wake up the computer and close out the browser windows.
My whole body was still trembling with need as I grabbed my phone and purse just as Dante moved out of the store, the door chiming.
My fingers tightened around my phone as my mind flashed back to the body in the woods, wondering if this was the killer, if he was back for Dante… or me.
But then I saw the driver of the large SUV.
Domenico.
He and Dante seemed to be having a bit of a heated discussion, and I felt my stomach twist, worried my manager was getting in trouble for something that I’d done wrong.
I powered down the computer, then walked on shaky legs, pausing only to lock the door.
Domenico caught my eye, giving me what seemed like a friendly wave. Maybe Dante wasn’t yelling at him about me.
“I’m going to, uh, get going,” I called to Dante, ducking my head and rushing toward my car.
Domenico pulled over to allow me to back out.
I just barely managed to hold myself back from peeling out of the lot.
What was wrong with me?
How could I let a man who might be covering up a murder and lying to me about it kiss me? How could I rock against his hard length and dream about yanking down his pants and sucking him into my mouth, then feeling him slip deep inside me with one long slide?
Even alone in my car, feelings completely conflicted, my sex clenched hard enough to make me press my thighs together to ease the ache.
When I got to my apartment parking lot, I leaned forward, pressing my forehead into the wheel.
I needed to move that buying a new vibrator thing higher up on my to-do list.
Because I could not let myself hook up again with a man who might be dishonest with me about something as serious as a man’s death.
Even as I drifted off to sleep later, though, the memory of his lips on mine refused to stop invading my mind.