“I’m tired of hiding, Alonzo.” Timur emphasized the name, disgust in his tone. “But I’m not the point. We take great care with your route, never going the same way twice. We change vehicles. We watch over you and yet you insist on coming back to this place. The other men said you used to come here all the time. I’m beginning to think your sweet tooth has nothing to do with the goods in the cases and more to do with the goods behind the counter.”

Alonzo didn’t smile. He rarely, if ever, smiled. His gaze was restless, scanning the streets, the sidewalks, and most of all, looking through the plate-glass windows of the Small Sweet Shoppe. She was there, just as she always was. Working. Beautiful. Breathtaking. He shouldn’t be there. He was the last man that should ever go into that bakery and put his gaze on that woman, but he couldn’t stop himself. Timur was right. She was his Achilles’ heel.

He sighed and put his hand to the door, shoving it open because he couldn’t stop himself. He was a disciplined man in every area of his life, he had to be, yet for eight months he’d come to the bakery at least three times a week. That was him being disciplined. He’d wanted to go every damn day. He’d stayed away over a month, nearly two. He could count the weeks, days, hours and minutes since he’d last seen her.

“Bad idea, boss,” Timur muttered. He was deadly serious and when he pushed past Alonzo to take a sweep of the small interior, his body in front of his brother’s, he scowled at the woman behind the counter—the one who eventually was going to be the death of his brother if Fyodor kept this madness up.

Alonzo paused inside the door, taking a moment to drink her in. Savor her. Just for that moment before she looked up. He found he was holding his breath. A part of him almost wished she had a man. That she wouldn’t look up, see him and smile that innocent, shy smile that told him she was interested in a monster. On the other hand, if she didn’t smile at him that way, he’d be crushed. Shattered. It had been so damned long since he’d laid eyes on her, and he couldn’t take it one more minute. More, if she was smiling that way for another man, he might commit murder and it would have nothing to do with his leopard.