Page 115 of Sins of Arrogance

The soft click of a key­board reaches me be­fore I get there. Cast­ing a pale gold halo over her light brown hair, the only light in the room is the lamp on the desk she’s work­ing on.

Her shoul­ders tense, but she doesn’t look up when I walk in.

In sleep leg­gings and an over­sized shirt that cov­ers enough to sat­isfy most nuns, her fin­gers move fast over the keys. The out­fit seems fa­mil­iar and then I re­mem­ber.

The third and last time she ever safe worded with me. She’d worn the same kind of clothes to sleep in.

Ar­mor.

Shite.

“Hello, a stór.” Loos­en­ing my tie, I toe off my shoes. “What are you work­ing on?”

“Hey,” she says with­out turn­ing. “How was your din­ner?”

Not cold, but not warm ei­ther. A shade of po­lite she uses with peo­ple out­side her in­ner cir­cle.

And I don’t like it turned on me.

I shrug out of my suit jacket and pull off my tie, toss­ing it on the bed with an idea for us­ing it later. “Pro­duc­tive.”

Kara makes a non­com­mit­tal sound in re­sponse.

I walk over to her and lean­ing down with one hand on the back of her chair, I lower my voice in in­vi­ta­tion. “You didn’t tell me what you’re work­ing on.”

“Does it mat­ter?”

Her un­will­ing­ness to an­swer pulls me up short. It’s not like her.

Is she work­ing on some­thing for school? Maybe Kara doesn’t want to tell me since I sup­pos­edly don’t know about her se­cretly at­tend­ing a uni­ver­sity with an on­line pro­gram.

“Is this some­thing you have to fin­ish right now?” I ask.

Her hands still on the key­board. “It’s some­thing I’m go­ing to fin­ish right now.”

Which is not the same thing. She’s choos­ing to pri­or­i­tize what­ever she’s work­ing on over our time to­gether.

That’s not some­thing Kara does.

We both treat these night­time hours of pri­vacy to­gether as im­por­tant.

Un­less it’s a bleedin’ emer­gency, I come home to Kara be­fore mid­night ev­ery night. And she is al­ways here, ready to wel­come me when I wake her.

I frown, try­ing to fig­ure out what’s go­ing through my sweet wife’s brain. “Is this a late-night study ses­sion? Have you got a big test com­ing up or some­thing?”

She was still be­fore. Now, she’s frozen into im­mo­bil­ity. “You know.”

“About you go­ing to col­lege? Yes.”

“How long?” she asks in a whis­per.

“Since the be­gin­ning. There’s noth­ing about you that I don’t know.”

She makes a sound of dis­be­lief.

I shake my head. She doubts me? “I fol­lowed you.”

“When?”