Page 96 of Diamond In The Rough

So I end up back inside Micah’s car, his driver in the front seat wearing a black cap and suit, while beside me, Micah himself looks boardroom ready.

His hair is washed and combed. His jaw, freshly shaved so his five o’clock stubble is exactly right. His suit is pressed and expensive, and though his phone chirps with people demanding his attention, he gives them none.

As far as he’s concerned, they can wait until he’s good and ready.

“I want to see you again tonight.” He reaches across and takes my hand in his. His large palm, dwarfing mine. His thick fingers, twining us together until I’m trapped.

But I can’t find it in my heart to mind.

“I could come to your place,” he continues. “Or you can come to mine. We could sleep in the middle of a park for all I care.” He rests his head back against the seat, but turns it my way and studies me. “I’m not done spending time with you.”

“We could do dinner.” I hate that my cheeks blaze. That nerves flutter in my stomach. “I think I’ve grown used to using you as my pillow and mattress already.”

His lips curl, so devastatingly handsome. “That works, since I’ve grown used to using you as a blanket. I’ll be in Manhattan most of today, I think. So I could swing by tonight when I’m done. You can choose whose home we sleep in.”

“Okay.” Licking my dry lips, I wonder, “What are you doing today? Meetings?”

He’s the fricken mafia! Meetings, for him, are surely code for, ‘I’m probably gonna trade drugs and kill someone.’

“Felix and I have to swing by CeCe’s club this morning, since it’s been a few days. Check in on things. Then we’ll do a sweep of all our clubs across the city.” He brings our joined hands up and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “They’re all legitimate, Grá. Legal money. Legal trade.” He grins when our eyes meet. “Since I know you’re thinking about my future in prison right now. Believe it or not, but we turned most our revenue legitimate this year. Christabelle and Minka look down on our family for breaking the law. So the guys have had to make some adjustments. And since Tim is dead…”

“They’ve had the freedom to do so,” I acknowledge, nodding when the thought of a Malone not breaking the law swirls in my heart the way lust does in a woman’s core. “That’s good, right? Restructuring so you and your brothers can stay out of jail.”

He chuckles, soft and taunting and just annoying enough to make my temper jump. “It’s good. Though it leaves room in the market for gnats like Wilkes to slide in and make a mess. The more we pull out, the noisier he gets. If we’re unlucky, he’ll pick up the market share. And if that happens, he’ll become a genuine problem, and not just an annoying bug who enjoys bothering us.”

“You don’t think Wilkes is already a valid threat? He’s responsible for at least a dozen murders in the last three months in the state of New York alone.” I blink when Micah’s eyes search mine. Swallow, when his scrutiny gets a little too hot. Too pressurized. “He’s been on the news a hundred times this year.”

“He’s a nobody. And you…” He presses a kiss to the side of my thumb, following it with a bite just painful enough to make me gasp, “are worrying about things you needn’t worry about.”

“Five minutes,” the driver announces from the front. Instantly, my eyes swing his way to see traffic backed up in every direction. Then I look out the side windows to recognize the deli just around the corner from my apartment. The grocery store. It would be quicker for me to walk from here. To get out and join the pedestrian traffic rather than sitting in the street. But I don’t want to leave yet. And I’d bet my entire life and sanity that Micah wouldn’t let me go even if I wanted to.

“Tiia? Look at me.”

“What do you think will—” I bring my eyes back around, only to stop on a jolt. For my gaze to drop to Micah’s free hand, the injured one, to the necklace that dangles from his palm and the jewel he spins between his fingers. “What is…” I frown and lean closer. “Are those emeralds?” I reach out, though I have no invitation to do so, and stroke the stones’ silver framing. “It’s very old. Seventeenth-century?”

“Eighteenth… It’s Spanish Iberian vermeil.” He chews on his bottom lip, nerves bouncing from his pores, so I swear I feel them in mine. “Pretty sure the women back then wore this on their dress.” He presses his palm to my chest, flat between my breasts. “Right here.”

“It must be worth a fortune.” I open my hand and search his eyes, my heart pounding and my antiquity’s soul frolicking in a field of Spanish jewels. “Could I? I’d love to see it.”

“Sure.” He places it in the center of my palm and sets his arm over my shoulder. To hold me close. To hold his treasure closer.

I turn the pendant over, spying the tiny stamp on the back almost completely worn away after decades of use.

“The emeralds are Colombian, I’m told.”

“I’m inclined to believe your source.” I stroke the silver, though it’s been coated in a thin layer of gold. “Where did you get this? It’s beautiful.”

“I found it.” He flattens his lips into a small, simple smile as my eyes snap up in surprise. He easily reads the shock in my expression, because he feathers a kiss over my lips. “Literally. I was probably ten or so, walking the land just outside my family’s estate. It’s surrounded by trees, and over the years, explored further and further when I wanted to get away.”

Which would have been often, probably. To escape the hell he was raised within.

“I was kicking rocks and wandering in the cool for hours. And it was just…” He shrugs. “It was there.”

“What an amazing thing to find.” I look down at the jewels as our car comes to a stop outside my apartment building. But I don’t make a move to leave yet. I don’t touch the door handle, or even glance out the window. “The chain is not original?”

I don’t know why I say it like a question, when I know the answer already. But Micah twirls his finger in a lock of my hair and shakes his head. “No, I added the chain a while back. So it could be carried around with less chance of being lost.”

“And you’ve had it valued?” I steal my eyes from the pendant and meet his gaze. “For you to know that it’s eighteenth-century Spanish tells me you’ve had it appraised.”

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