19. Tiia
It’s a workday, just like every other, so even if I wanted to stay in bed forever and forget the rest of the world existed, I can’t.
It’s impossible.
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.”
“I had someone look at it. To tell me what it is, and when it was from.” But then he shakes his head. “I didn’t ask for an amount. I didn’t want to know.”
“Why not? It’s easily worth t?—”
But he pinches my lips between his thumb and finger, chuckling when I try to speak anyway.
“I don’t want to know. It’s not being sold, so I have no need for a dollar figure.”
Ten thousand, easily! Probably fifteen. Fifty, if the buyer knew a boy born into the Malone mafia held on to it for twenty years first.
I want to scream my words, to get them off my chest and out into the world. I want to share with him what absolute treasure he found, and then I want to deep dive into its history. Who owned it three hundred years ago? How many parties was it worn throughout? Was it donned by a bride on her wedding day, only to be tossed aside just as quickly as her dress when the groom wanted nothing more than her body?
Was it a gift from a man to a woman? Probably.
A wealthy man attempting to impress a well-bred woman? No doubt.
But how did it come to be in New York City? Who walked those trees before Micah, and were they devastated to learn they had dropped their jewel?
“It’s killing you,” he sniggers, kissing my temple when I’m sure veins grow and throb there. “You want to research it.”
“So badly!” I explode. “I can already see the dresses, Micah. And the balls. I can see some douchey duke, bending a knee and presenting it to his beloved. Perhaps she birthed a son, who gave it to a woman, and that woman birthed a son, and tradition rolled down for a few hundred years.”
“You’re not allowed to get it valued.”
Too late! I’ve already valued it in my mind.
“But you can research its history, if you want.”
Sucker! I’ve already written its story.
“Hey.” He grabs my chin and drags my face up, forcing my eyes away from the Colombian emeralds and instead, into a different pair. Same green. Almost the same shape. “Stop nutting out in your mind and pay attention to what I’m saying.”
“You’re so needy.” My palms sweat. The stress from my skin’s natural oils leeching into the silver, enough to make me sweat more. “This is really special, Micah. It’s just…” I give it one last, longing glance, knowing I have to give it back. Appreciating the gift he’s given me, purely by showing me. “Do you often walk around with it in your pocket? Aren’t you afraid of losing all that history?”
“I prefer to think about the future.” He leans in and presses a kiss to my lips. “Rarely the past. So while you’re thinking about the women of the seventeen hundreds, putting on pretty dresses and wearing emeralds to a party, I’m thinking about where it’ll go instead.”
“Ugh.” Unladylike, I make the sound in the back of my throat that sends his brow shooting high on his forehead. “The women of today just weren’t built the same. We’re not as classy. Not nearly as elegant. Society is about throwaway fashion these days. Buy a watch this year, buy another next year. And another the year after. We buy furniture and replace it with the new look in twelve months. You won’t see anyone shopping antique stores for the desks being built today. It’s all just so…” I make another sound, part grunt, part gag. “It’s not the same. Whoever commissioned this pendant knew what they were asking for. They appreciated fine jewelry and rightfully expected it to remain in fashion and for a very, very long time.”
“So you like it?” He smiles while I lose my mind over literal world history. “You don’t think it’s gaudy and old?”
“If I was still a virgin, I would trade my first time to a seedy king for this pendant.” I snort, which turns to a giggle, proving I was not the end consumer in mind when making this thing. “It’s so beautiful, Micah.” But I say my silent goodbyes, knowing my day must start, and thus, my time with the gems must end—or risk a grand larceny charge.
I open his hand and place it in his palm. “You are a very fortunate man for finding this. And a very lucky little boy some twenty years ago. I might have considered it a good omen for wonderful things to come.”
“And I didn’t pay a cent for it.”
I scoff. “It’s criminal.”
“Here.” He opens my hand again and reverses our moves, placing the jewel in my palm and closing my fingers around the silver frame. “My gift to you.”
“No!” I jump in my seat, completely and terrifyingly horrified at the prospect of being responsible for something so precious. “Micah! No way. It’s too valuable.”
“We, the owner, get to decide its value. And I merely consider it a rock I found on the ground one time.” He balls my fist and kisses my knuckles. “You can bitch and whine all you want, but something is worth only as much as a person is willing to pay for it.”
“Exactly! And there would be countless people in this world willing to pay?—”
“But it’s not for sale. Therefore,” he grabs my chin between his thumb and finger, “it has no dollar value.”
“But it does!”
“Would you be so panicked if it was just a rock? An actual stone picked up from the ground?”
“When you were ten years old, wandering the forest as you tried to escape your family’s abuse? Yes! It would still be valuable. Because the story it comes with is what makes it so precious. Same with your desk. Same with the chest. It’s just wood, Micah. Screws. Nuts and bolts. A swatch of leather. Individually, it could all be replaced easily, and a piece of wood on its own, worthless. A rock on its own, worthless. But the journey makes it special. The desk’s trek across the Atlantic. It’s tryst with the pirates. The chest’s romance with a Mongolian warrior. And the pendant’s life, first with an eighteenth-century woman, and later, with a boy who craved peace. Every journey is valuable.”
“And now the pendant gets to spend time with a woman who deals in antiquities. A twenty-first century beauty who understands and appreciates history.” He leans across and presses a kiss to my cheek. “I’m not asking. I’m telling you.”
“Micah…”
“Go to work.” He nods toward the front of the car, just a single tip of his head, alerting the driver to slide out and head to my door. “I’ll come by the apartment around six. I won’t mind if you figure out the pendant’s history, Grá. But I’ll be pissed if you’ve had it appraised and placed for auction.”
“I would never—” A furious blush rushes across my cheeks. “Put it up for auction.”
He chuckles and glances over my shoulder when the driver opens my door. An already warming breeze wafts into the car, mixing with Micah’s aftershave until his scent settles in my nostrils and makes them twitch.
“Go.” He checks my hand and re-tightens my fingers around his gift, then he nods toward the sidewalk. “I’ll see you later.”
“You’re gonna be safe today, right?” Shut up, heart! Sit down you stupid, impulsive, dangerous organ I never invited into this car anyway. “It’s not so improper as to mention the very real elephant sitting on your chest, is it?”
“I’m always safe. Always have men watching my back.” He dips his chin when the driver reaches in, clearly tired of waiting for me to move, and wraps his hand around my bicep. He guides me away from Micah and into the summer sun, but then I hear my name again. A faint sound against the backdrop of New York traffic and a city abuzz with morning commuters. “Tiia?”
“Yeah?” I bend, despite the driver’s hold, and search for Micah’s lips. To watch them move. Because without that, my ears simply won’t pick up each individual word he speaks. “What did you say?”
Confusion makes way for clarity. His mind no doubt clueing in to my constantly annoying, but not yet disabling, hearing issue. But then he smiles. “Be good. I’ll see you tonight.”
The fact that my heart swells… nauseates me. That I swoon for a man I really, really, shouldn’t, makes me anxious. But looking into his eyes and being the recipient of his smile somehow creates a soothing balm.
It’s temporary.
A band-aid at best.
And when he’s no longer by my side and my brain has a chance to overthink, I know that sickness will grow tenfold.
This is how a trauma bond is created. To know something is bad, but you keep doing it because it feels so damn good.
The driver gives my arm a small jerk. Not painful. Not even startling. Just a reminder he’s here. That he’s waiting.
So I breathe out a sigh that assures me I’m screwed, then I straighten out and turn from the car. “Goodbye, Micah Malone.” I look to the driver as he leads me all the way to the door of my building and smiles. “Thank you.”
“Head straight in, Ms. Hale. Loitering on the sidewalk is not safe.”
“Of course.” I cross the threshold as he opens the door, and swallow the heavy ball of dread settled in my throat as I walk away. But then I look down at the pendant I carry, worth more than anything I will ever possess now or in the future, and as I climb the stairs in last night’s clothes, I study the bright green stones.
One. Two. Three. I count them out, but stop when I hit fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. There are so many. Clusters of green, surrounded by silver and gold. It’s shaped like a cross, and delicate enough a quick bend could snap the whole thing without a lot of force.
It’s worth a small fortune, and only growing in value as it moves from hand to hand.
And he found it… just… found it. In the middle of nowhere as a child, and even then, he had the forethought not only to hide it from his father and anyone else who might’ve wanted to steal it, but to hold onto it into adulthood.
Surely a ten-year-old can’t distinguish a plastic diamond from the real thing. But Micah knew anyway to hold onto it forever.
And then after all these years, more than twenty of them, he decided to give it to me…
“Tiia fucking Hale!”
I skid on the stairs and wrench my eyes up to the next floor, stopping on the strong, broad form of a man I’ve neglected this last week. On a pair of brown eyes that glitter with anger.
“Ipo! What have you done?”
“Roscoe…”