Chapter 23

Accardi

Chapter Twenty-Three

A sharp gasp escaped Genevieve the moment the pounding on her door began. Her eyes flicked to the clock on her nightstand—it read 12:30 a.m. In a hurried motion, she set her vibrator down beside her bed and struggled to straighten the tangled tank top that had slipped off her shoulders. Grabbing the baseball bat resting near her bedroom door, she moved cautiously down the dimly lit hallway toward the living room, where the front door was just barely visible.

The knocking came again, louder this time, echoing through the quiet apartment. Who could possibly be visiting at this hour? One of the reasons she had chosen this particular apartment was its cutting-edge security system. She recalled the detailed walkthrough the security guard had given her upon move-in: how the alarm system worked, how no one could enter the building without explicit permission from a tenant, and how the tenant themselves needed to come down to let any guest in. By the end of that explanation, she had felt safer than ever before. Yet now…

The knocking resumed, insistent and demanding. Genevieve tiptoed across the floor, trying to stay as silent as possible. Her heart pounded in her chest as she swallowed hard and rose onto her tiptoes to peer through the peephole. Her eyes narrowed in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. Quickly, she flipped the night latch deadbolt, slid the flip lock, disengaged the slide lock, unlocked the deadbolt, and disarmed the security system. Then she opened the door—and there stood Matteo.

His dark brown hair was tousled, as if he’d just been through a storm. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his breathing uneven. The muscles in his arms tensed as he gripped the doorframe, almost as if holding on for dear life. His eyes locked onto her with an intensity that made her skin prickle; it was as if he knew exactly what she had just been doing—and who she had imagined doing it with. A slow, predatory smile curved his lips, and Genevieve instinctively took a step back.

“Mr. Accardi, what…” she began, her voice trembling.