Page 5 of The Woman in the Hollow
Aside from the body, though, that fucking face. High, sharp cheekbones, sultry dark eyes under thick lashes and dark brows, and a pillowy-soft mouth covered in a deep wine red.
Her hair teased her shoulders, and her bangs brought your attention to her eyes, all of it a glass-like shiny black.
Fucking gorgeous.
And, judging by the way her eyes narrowed as she turned, wholly unimpressed by me.
It was right then that I noticed her name tag.
Hazel.
The woman with the Halloween-themed résumé.
“I work here. Can I help you with something, sir?” she asked, her tone chilly.
“Dante Grassi,” I said, moving closer.
“The owner,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Do you need me to do something?”
“Maybe tell me why my foul-mouthed cousin is the one greeting impressionable kids?” I asked, keeping my tone light, sensing I’d pissed her off.
“He’s the manager,” she said with a little shrug. “I ran around to tell everyone that the kids were here, set up the craft station, and got the doll clothes out for the scarecrows. Should I have been doing something else?”
“Place looks good,” I said, changing tack. I turned, taking it all in. It was similar to how it had been in my childhood memories. Better, though. The coffee and cider carts had been a great idea. And everything had just been amped up to another level.
When the idea came to me to buy the place—knowing that things like coffee carts, haunted houses, and hayrides were often high-cash businesses, making it perfect to clean mob money—I didn’t expect to like the actual running of a business as much as I did.
No, I hadn’t been super hands-on. But I had a lot of ideas that I passed on to Domenico to implement.
Considering it was a brand-new business, it had been a really successful summer. I had a feeling that fall and winter were going to be killer. Especially if I could bring together my plans for a winter wonderland starting the weekend after Thanksgiving.
Then, when the spring rolled around again, my plans for the summer season.
The place was going to be rolling in dough. Which the Family was going to like, since it allowed us to funnel even more dirty money through the place to legitimize it.
Maybe, if shit went to plan, I could take a bit of a step back from the mob grind, passing off that work to some soldiers, and enjoy life a little more. That seemed to be the way it went for my brothers and cousins. Once they had a legitimate business to clean their money, they all let the mob shit handle itself while they built lives and families.
While I hadn’t met a woman yet, doing the husband and father thing had always been the plan eventually.
Though, yeah, I didn’t tell my mother that. I always put that shit in vague ‘maybe one day’ terms. If she got wind that there was any seriousness about it on my part, Giulia Grassi was like a damn dog with a bone. She’d be hooking me up on dates with everyone from the mail lady to her hairdresser’s sister’s daughter’s best friend.
Who had time for that?
“Honestly, I was starting to worry it was never going to come together. But I’m really proud of what we’ve done here.”
“I imagine a lot of that is thanks to you.”
“A lot of it was your vision. I just helped pull it together.”
“Probably did more than help. Love Domenico, but I know he’s not gonna remember to buy doll clothes and leaf litter.”
“He’s oddly good at creating dead bodies,” Hazel said, making a surprised snort escape me.
I guess she didn’t know then.
