of her. “One way leads to the linen closet of your old house. The other leads to the back of an apartment I own downtown.”
“Really?” Her jaw dropped and she stared at him wide-eyed. “This is under my house too?”
Quentin used the key that opened all the rooms in the house. “Yes, this is under the other house too.”
“But how?” she asked in frozen wonderment.
He turned and rested his shoulder against the door frame, staring deeply into her eyes. Even in the dim light, Grace could see the instant his gaze switched from playful to intense. Down there in the closed confines of the underground, it became more than just a stare. It seemed like the stare sucked the air right out of the hallway, because she suddenly couldn’t breathe. Her heart rate spiked simultaneously, making it that much harder to gasp for the depleted oxygen quietly. Grace took a step backward and her shoulder blades pressed into the wall. She held the bag against her chest, hoping to seem at ease, even though his gaze made her want to squirm.
Slowly, Quentin folded his arms over his chest as well and crossed one foot over the other, never taking his eyes from hers. A devilish grin turned the edges of his mouth up like horns, and she couldn’t take it anymore. “What?”
“Nothing,” he replied, turning his head and smirking at the wall. When he pushed himself away from the door frame, the hole-boring intensity was gone. “Relax.” Right, she sighed mentally.
The seneschal band peeked out from the bottom of his sleeve, and Grace glared at it. She was beginning to dislike it. She didn’t like him knowing how she was feeling—always—while she was left guessing about what was going on inside him. Unless, of course, she touched him. And after what had just happened, touching in any way would be asking for trouble. She had to work on setting up those boundaries between them, and soon.
Quentin disappeared through the doorway, talking as he went. “Your grandfather designed all of this down here and had it constructed. The hallway extends beneath all the houses on Belmont for a few blocks to your other house—” Still caught up in the intensity from a minute earlier, Grace remained leaning against the wall. “Hey, you alright?” Quentin asked as he leaned out into the hallway from the door.
“Uh yeah, sorry.” She shook her head. “What were you saying?” Grace waited for her heart rate to stabilize and then followed Quentin through the door. Again, he was unfazed and she was a ball of nerves. He continued as if nothing had just happened. “If you go in the other direction, the hallway continues underneath all of the houses heading west to my apartment, which is across the street from the bank.”
She noticed another door , but wasn’t sure what the rest of the room was. Quentin unlocked the other door and stepped aside so she could enter first. Inside was a large, fully furnished living room awash in artificial light. There was a small kitchen, and a bar.
Grace stood in the middle of the room, pondering the point of everything down there. “What’s through there?” She pointed at a door.
“A bedroom and bathroom. Come.”
The bedroom was the size of a jail cell, and the bathroom was about as comfortable-looking as a port-a-potty. To the left of the bedroom door was another door.
Quentin opened it and motioned for her to follow. It was a walk-in closet, a large walk-in closet—way bigger than the bedroom and bath. Clothes hung on hangers along the left and right sides of the wall. Shelves and drawers were strategically placed in columns throughout.
“This is the most important room of the entire estate.” His face was serious.
“The closet,” she asked incredulously. “Why?”
“This,” he said. Walking to the far back wall, Quentin separated two shelves, revealing a steel door behind it. “Give me your hand.”
Trying to avoid skin-to-skin contact with Quentin, she stayed put. “I’m okay to walk through myself.”
“Unless you give me your hand, neither one of us will be walking through this door.”
Grace braced herself for the onslaught of emotion, held her breath, and raised her arm toward him. Thrown a little off balance by the not-so-gentle tug of her wrist, her eyes narrowed into a glare. “What are you doing, Quentin?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted her arm and pressed her hand flat against a rectangular-shaped frame. Instantly the space within lit up in neon green, scanning her hand repeatedly