Page 110 of Sins of Arrogance

“She re­fused to do her duty to the mob. Not like you.” She shoots me a look un­der her lashes. “No mat­ter how hard it was for you to leave me be­hind.”

I don’t con­firm or deny her as­sump­tion. Let­ting her be­lieve it with­out con­fir­ma­tion could be use­ful. “And what did Bro­gan say about Kara?”

No one could say my wife had not been will­ing to do her duty by the mob. She’d agreed to more than an al­liance mar­riage to ful­fill what her grand­fa­ther ex­pected of her.

Dier­dre blinks, her head wob­bling slightly. “Oh, he sym­pa­thized. Said young peo­ple these days are ruled by their feel­ings. Men­tioned Kara had got­ten a bit over­wrought af­ter Fitz was born.”

“Over­wrought,” I re­peat softly.

She shrugs one bare shoul­der. “He said it like it was funny. Patho­log­i­cally jeal­ous was the phrase. Said she thought you’d been cheat­ing while she was in the hos­pi­tal, but that she set­tled down and he was sure Brigid would too.”

I was wrong. My fa­ther-in-law is patho­log­i­cally in­dis­creet. How up­set would Kara be if I cut out her da’s tongue?

I wouldn’t make him choke to death on this own blood like the stupid bas­tard I al­lowed Wraith to kill ear­lier. I can be mer­ci­ful.

Dier­dre’s smile sharp­ens. “Was she right? I wouldn’t blame you if you had taken a lover.” She pauses. “Or still wanted one.”

No ques­tion who she’s sug­gest­ing to fill that role.

“I don’t break my prom­ises, Dier­dre. You know that.”

Her red tinted lips twist in a moue. “But forced mar­riage vows hardly count.”

“They do to me.” Re­gard­less, no other woman ap­peals to my li­bido and hasn’t since the first time I touched my wife in­ti­mately.

“Pity.” Dier­dre looks around with a frown. “Where’s our food?”

I sig­nal the waiter. He ar­rives to clear away the ap­pe­tiz­ers and place our main cour­ses on the ta­ble, then melts into the back­ground like he’s been trained to do.

He’s not one of the reg­u­lar wait­ers for the pub. De­spite be­ing owned by the mob, I brought in one of the sol­diers on my crew to do the serv­ing tonight.

I don’t want any­one over­hear­ing what I learn from Dier­dre and my men know how to keep their dis­tance. And their mouths shut…un­like Bro­gan.

Fecker.

Like she’s still think­ing about it too, Dier­dre says, “Bro­gan said you don’t look at other woman, but your lit­tle child bride was con­vinced you did. That it made things dif­fi­cult.”

Kara’s jeal­ousy wasn’t nearly as dif­fi­cult as the de­pres­sion that came with it af­ter Fitz’s birth.

And what she tried to do be­cause of it.

What the hell was I think­ing try­ing to make her jeal­ous again?

Feckin’ id­jit is what I am.

“You never looked at an­other woman,” she re­peats. “Is that true, Mick? Not even once?”

“I al­ready told you—”

“That you don’t break your prom­ises. I know, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to.” I let that set­tle be­tween us while I chew a bite of per­fectly pre­pared Kobe beef steak.

Yes, it’s an Irish pub, but a good steak is a good steak.

“I bet I could change your mind.” She pushes her shoul­ders for­ward, push­ing her breasts to­gether. “Re­mem­ber how much you loved fuck­ing these.”

Shite.