Just thinking of that was enough to make her tremble, inside as well as out, to the degree a part of her wanted to shut down her life in London and just move on to somewhere Matteo Zalotti would never find her.
Except she knew the type of man he was. What he was capable of. If Matteo wanted to find her, then running wouldn’t solve anything, and she would have given up the life she had carved for herself here for nothing.
She gave a nervous glance toward the front of the store, where she knew Matteo was sitting outside right now behind the wheel of a sleek dark gray car that probably cost more than she could earn in several years. The parking restrictions in the street were lifted every evening after six o’clock, and Matteo had taken advantage of that fact to park his vehicle directly in front of the bookstore.
Grace had given him a brief wave of acknowledgment at seven o’clock when she locked the front entrance and switched off all the lights inside the store. Carla, and the rest of the staff, always left by the back door. As Grace now intended doing rather than going to dinner with Matteo.
No doubt, because he knew where she worked, and if he felt so inclined, he would come to the bookstore again tomorrow—she only hoped he didn’t send those two burly bodyguards instead—and demand to know why Grace had stood him up.
But Grace really hoped he would just accept her avoidance of him for the rejection it was and not bother with her again.
She could hope all she liked, but the man she’d met earlier today hadn’t given her the impression he would accept her or anyone else’s dismissal easily.
Grace left the small light on at the back of the store, setting the alarm as she normally did, before letting herself out the back door into the darkened alley behind the store, and locking the door behind her.
“Going somewhere, Grace?”
She gave a startled scream, the store keys falling from her fingers as she turned in the direction of that mocking voice.
Intermittent street lights lit up this alley, and Matteo was standing directly beneath one of them. His hair appeared more blue-black than ever from the soft glow overhead, giving his hard features the appearance of a perfectly rendered alabaster statue.
Except for his eyes.
Dark blue eyes that met Grace’s startled ones with that same glittering intensity which had so disarmed her earlier today.
He continued to hold her gaze as he stepped forward and bent to retrieve the keys from the cobbled ground, those uneven stones an indication of just how old this part of London was. “Here.” He dangled those keys in front of her.
Grace snatched them from him and dropped them into her bag, before then holding that cavernous shoulder bag in front of her as if for protection.
Which was pretty stupid of her, because this man was almost a foot taller than she was and outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds. And if he didn’t feel like throwing his own weight around to admonish her for her obvious attempt to avoid seeing him again, then he could always ask his two henchmen to do his dirty work for him. As he had no doubt done dozens of times in the past.
Matteo didn’t like the apprehension he could see in the shadowed darkness of Grace’s green eyes. Or the defensive way in which she now held her bag against her chest.
He’d been looking forward to seeing her again since they parted earlier today. So much so, he had been unable to concentrate on anything else. Luca and Antonio hadn’t spoken after he left the bookstore earlier, but they hadn’t been so reticent when he informed them he would be going out alone again this evening. They considered it too much after he had met alone with Markovic and Volkov this afternoon.
As don of the Zalotti family, Matteo had many enemies, but he had considered it would be an insult to the two Russians to conduct their meeting with his two bodyguards also in the room.
Neither did he want the other two men present during his dinner date with Grace.
A dinner date she’d obviously intended to avoid by leaving by the back door when she knew he was sitting in his car at the front of the building.
Matteo had watched her lock the front door of the bookstore, and then the lights being turned off before Grace had moved to the back of the store. Something, some instinct, had warned him not to let her out of his sight. Once he realized there was a back entrance to the building, and knew she could leave that way, he understood his suspicion. A suspicion which had now proved correct.
His mouth twisted. “You know who I am.” It was a statement, not a question.
She eyed him warily. “You told me who you were earlier.”
“I told you my name, not who I am.”
She looked flustered. “I— Yes, I looked your name up online.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of us to go out to dinner.”
“Scared?”
Her eyes widened and her mouth thinned at his mockery. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of us to go out to dinner because I’m not what you want.”
Matteo tensed. “How do you know what I want?” Having only recently put an end to the problems in his organization, he had allowed Antonio to instigate a background check on Grace Morrissey. Nothing in the single-page report he’d received back had rung any alarm bells. As far as he could tell, Grace was exactly who she said she was.
She shrugged. “I’m the manager of a bookstore. I spend my evenings at home. I live alone with my cat, for goodness’ sake,” she added exasperatedly when Matteo didn’t look concerned. “I saw photographs online of you with dozens
