Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“Alright. I’m hitting the shower. You need to hit the leg press,” I said, elbowing my cousin as I passed. His legs were fine and we both knew it. But cousins were just as good for ribbing as brothers were.
I showered and changed into a suit. Dressy for a garden center? Sure. But some habits were hard to break. I’d been admiring the suits our fathers and uncles always wore ever since I was biting ankles. Aside from when I was hitting the gym, I was rarely seen without one on.
Besides, it was the first time a lot of my employees were going to see me. I wanted to look good for first impressions.
By the time I made it to DG Greens, the school bus had just unloaded, and Domenico was speaking to the teacher and chaperones as the kids bounced around on their heels, necks craning to check out all the events to come.
Why the fuck was Domenico the one greeting children? Young children who weren’t mature enough to hear the abundance of f-bombs and other inventive curse words that would no doubt escape his lips.
Not a great way to secure future deals with the schools.
On a grumble, I climbed out of my car and rushed around the garden center, looking for someone—anyone—who could step in for my cousin.
“Is anyone working here?” I asked aloud when I didn’t see anyone.
But, of course, the second the words were out of my mouth, my gaze landed on someone.
Not, as I expected, one of the many young adults or the few farmhands who were usually lingering around.
Oh, no.
I’d never seen this woman before.
I would have remembered; that was for sure.
She was small—short and slight—but with a killer rack she had covered in a simple black tee. Her short legs were swimming in a pair of plaid orange and black pants, and there were thick combat boots on her feet. The thick sole must have added another inch or so to her height, so she was even shorter than she first appeared.
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.