Page 62 of Diamond In The Rough

“Beloved? You were killing it! It’s happier with me.”

“And yet, I’ve kept it alive for most of a year already. It can’t have been suffering that much.”

“It shouldn’t have been suffering at all! The epipremnum aureum, aka the pothos, aka,” he presses, “Devil’s Ivy, is a highly invasive plant. It’s a fuckin’ weed, Tiia! The fact you almost killed it is embarrassing, considering Hawaii is working to keep that shit under control.”

“You keep my island out of this,” I growl. “She did nothing to warrant you tossing her into our argument.”

“It’s called irony. I assure you, the plant doesn’t want you in its life any more than you want Jakeline Colby in yours. Leave the ivy alone, Tiia Hale. She’s happy in her new home.”

Bested, I drop my gaze, focusing instead on a chunk of chicken. “It wasn’t part of the sale.” I peek up from beneath my lashes. “You stole.”

“And you didn’t deserve her. You’re inept.”

“Inept?” My spine snaps straight, and my temper, the one I work so hard to keep on a tight leash, whips through my blood.

But then Micah’s phone beeps. His fear of my wrath, non-existent as he frees the device from his pocket and reads the screen in silence.

I have a belly full of creamy pasta and a whole night’s worth of Chinese, cooling untouched. I should be satisfied, and in the throes of a carb-induced coma. But Micah’s suspicious stare has my pulse racing.

That, and his fingers growing tighter around the device. His knuckles whitening as he hurriedly types something in response.

When his eyes come up to mine and narrow, my heart comes to a dead standstill.

I look at the door, as though expecting an entire SWAT team to bust through. I am sitting with a mafia hitman, after all. Nice manners and quick wit don’t remove the facts behind a man’s vocation. Then I look to the phone in his hand, wondering if it might explode… or crack under his grip.

Finally, I bring my focus up and stop on his intense emerald stare as nerves batter at my stomach like the wings of an angry wasp. “What?”

“Are you dating Roscoe?” He sets his phone down, carefully placing it face-down on the counter, and pushes up from his chair.

His movements are slow. Calculated and powerful.

Terrifyingly so.

“Is he your lover, Tiia?” He wanders around the long counter, sending my pulse into a tailspin as he steps to my side and tilts his head. “You snuggle into his chest in the street, and eat dinner with him a few nights a week.” He stops on my left, his body warmth seeping into my bones. But I don’t turn to face him. I don’t have the guts to break my posture or meet his angry stare. “Are you Roscoe’s?”

“I’m no one’s.” I swallow the dread settled in the base of my throat and turn only my head. “I’m a grown woman, not a pet rock.”

“Do you share a bed with him? Have you ever shared a bed with him?”

“Well…”

His lips firm. That’s the only reaction this tightly controlled man allows himself to my almost-confession.

“Do you currently, actively share a bed with him? If someone asked him about you, would he tell them you belong to him romantically? Would you want him to say that?”

“No, I?—”

“Excellent.” He turns on his heels, the timing too perfect to be coincidence, and heads toward my door when someone knocks on the other side. But not just any old knock: the telltale tap-tap-taptap that announces the identity of my visitor. “I’ll deal with this, then.”

“Wait.” I shove up from my stool and start across the apartment, but Micah is quick and unafraid. He swings the door wide and catches poor Roscoe unaware.

Eyes widen and jaws tighten. But though Roscoe’s gaze shoots past Micah and stops on me, my self-appointed bodyguard only grins. “You’re dismissed.”

Micah steps when I step, blocking my exit when I would otherwise try to slip through the gap and break up what may become a confrontation. “She doesn’t want you, bro.” He looks down at the bottle of wine Roscoe holds in his hand, then reaches out and snatches it, faster than a rattlesnake’s strike. “But we’ll keep this. Now go away—and don’t walk these halls ever again.”

“Ipo—”

“You especially don’t get to call her anything except ‘Tiia’ or ‘Ms. Hale’. Ipo implies intimacy. And you,” he grits out, “don’t get to claim intimacy with this woman anymore.”

---