Rosie's Thorns 🥀|18+|🥀

12 | Rules

《¤Dominic ¤》

Having her moved into the penthouse wasn't part of the plan, but my hands were tied. There's a rat. It's the only plausible explanation my team could come up with. And to settle their nerves, I made her safety and protection my personal responsibility.

Yes, she infuriates me to no end. Yet, I wouldn't allow a single pink hair on her pretty little head come to harm. Past is the past. We both hurt each other, but I have to put aside our history to protect her. Even if I silently hope she falls flat on her face, I wouldn't be able to sleep if I knew her life was on the line.

She strolls in front of me towards the elevator, her hips swaying with every step as she paces in the living room. She's been pacing since Violet left, her nose buried deep into her phone. I doubt she even noticed my presence as she grumbles under her breath to herself.

I take this time to shamelessly scan her. Time did wonders. She wasn't the same small, thin young naive girl Armando had introduced me to all those years ago. There was a time when she radiated sunshine and I couldn't help but bask in it. She made me feel things I'd never felt before. Her warmth and radiance kept me from drowning in my own darkness.

But that was before she betrayed me.

She's changed. I can see it in her red rimmed green eyes that she's attempted to hide with makeup. They are dull, all traces of her radiance has been snuffed out. She used to be so full of hopes and dreams, it made me want to dream. But as I lean against the doorway to the kitchen, all I see is a woman hardened and closed off.

Good. It's better this way.

Yet, as the silence sings between us, I can't help but wonder what could have chased away her sunshine.

I shake my head and shove my hands into my pockets. It wasn't any of my concern anymore.

From the corner of my eye I can see her answering text messages and declining phone calls. Her freckled cheeks are stained red as her jaw tightens, eyes glittering as she swallows a lump in her throat.

A small, very, very tiny part of me wanted to reach out to her. This will make her stronger. I look away just as she lets out a choked gasp of anger as her thumbs race across her screen angerly as she heads for the L shaped couch in the middle of my living room.

Sure, wear a hole in my fucking floor.

I'm doing this for the betterment of the Costa empire, I remind myself.

I leave her to her own world and turn towards the kitchen adjacent to the open floored living room. She makes a sound in the back of her throat and I do my best to ignore it. Instead, I grab the small leather clad bottle of MamaJuana rum I'd gotten from the Dominican Republic when I'd visited last year. I take a small shot glass from the cabinet and pour myself a double shot.

It wouldn't put a dent in my tolerance level.

I thought about getting a glass of Jose Cuervo or Leyenda, possibly even my new bottle of Glenlivet, my single malt scotch whisky. But it's too early in the day to break them out just yet. I'll give her a few minutes, I'm sure she'll have me half a bottle deep by evening.

Casting her a sideways glance as I down the shot, I scan her defined curves. Indeed she wasn't a tiny or thin little girl anymore. She'd blossomed in our distance. I'd noticed last year at Armando's funeral. Her hips were wider, ass and breasts plumper, and her once brown hair was now a pastel pink. I remember how her soft long hair used to fall down to her hips. Now it barely stays in the bun at the nape of her neck.