Page 129 of Sins of Arrogance

Her eyes widen with shock, then nar­row. “The kit­ten has claws, I see.”

“I’m no kit­ten and you? You’re not any­thing. Noth­ing to Mick. Noth­ing to me.” I say the words like they are true, no mat­ter how much I doubt them per­son­ally.

“I’m the woman Micky loves. He left me for a chance at be­ing a boss, but don’t kid your­self. He still wants me and I’m more than will­ing.”

Mick does not love her. He can’t. “If my hus­band loved you, he never would have left Ire­land. He’s not that weak or grasp­ing.”

“You keep telling your­self that. But now that he has Fitz, he doesn’t need you any­more. When he files for di­vorce, don’t for­get I told you so.”

Her words about Fitz are too much a re­flec­tion of my own fears, it’s all I can do not to throw up.

But I still man­age to say in an even tone, “Mick is not di­vorc­ing me.”

“Go ahead and bury your head in the sand while I re­build my re­la­tion­ship with the only man I want. And, Kara? What I want, I get.”

“Not my hus­band.” The words ring hol­low in­side me, but they sound con­fi­dent and sure.

And that’s all that mat­ters.

“We’ll see.” Dier­dre spins on her heel and walks back out into the sun­shine.

While my heart dives into the frozen tun­dra of win­ter.

Chap­ter 32: The Boathouse Reck­on­ing

MICK

Kara comes back from check­ing on her sis­ter with her spark miss­ing.

What did Fiona say to her?

I force my­self to wait to find out, to fix what­ever it is, un­til the party ends.

The La­bor Day guests are gone when I ask my wife if she wants to walk on the beach with me.

“Come for a walk with me.” I put out my hand, ex­pect­ing Kara to take it.

Fitz is spend­ing the night with Enoch, watched over by a full com­ple­ment of body­guards.

I’ve given se­cu­rity their in­struc­tions to sweep ev­ery room, closet and nook of the man­sion to make sure it’s clear of rev­el­ers. The out­door area has al­ready been swept and the only peo­ple left are the cleanup crew.

My wife looks at my hand like it’s a snake ready to strike. “A walk? Why?”

“Be­cause I want to.” Re­al­iz­ing that isn’t ex­actly ro­man­tic, I add. “So, we can talk.”

Kara likes talk­ing. She likes ro­mance. Which is why I try, even though it is not nat­u­ral for a man like me.

More since I no­ticed the way she watches Miceli with Róise than be­fore.

No Ital­ian mafioso is go­ing to make my wife think her Irish mob­ster isn’t as good of a hus­band.

In­stead of the soft look I’m ex­pect­ing, Kara’s ex­pres­sion goes frosty. “About the di­vorce you want so you can be with your first love? No thanks.”

She turns to go and I’m so shocked by her words it takes me a sec­ond to reach out and grab her. Her body tenses when I touch her.

“What the hell do you mean?”

Kara yanks away from me and, not want­ing to hurt her, I al­low it. But then I swiftly step for­ward and swing her up into my arms.