Page 135 of Sins of Arrogance

A fris­son of ex­cite­ment goes through me. Ev­ery piece of the Irish jew­eler’s col­lec­tion is in­di­vid­u­ally de­signed and hand­made, mak­ing what­ever is in­side mine alone.

I do noth­ing to sup­press my gasp of de­light when I open the lid. A del­i­cate, bolo style, tree of life bracelet is nes­tled on the satin. Sil­ver glints brightly against a fab­ric that is such a dark green it is al­most black.

I run my fin­gers rev­er­ently over the bracelet. “I love it.”

“Knew you would,” he crows. “Da thought you’d want some­thing with di­a­monds.”

Fitz knows me bet­ter than his fa­ther.

Okay, to be fair, Mick prob­a­bly wasn’t think­ing about what I would like. He’d be fo­cused on adding jew­elry to my col­lec­tion of pieces that ex­hibit my wealth and stand­ing. Thereby his own and that of my fa­ther.

“Your da al­ready took care of that.” I touch the pear-shaped green sap­phire of per­fect color and clar­ity sit­ting against my chest an inch above my cleav­age.

This year’s gift is go­ing to be one of my fa­vorite pieces. Not be­cause of the size of the sap­phire pen­dant, or the round cut di­a­monds and princess cut green sap­phires of im­pec­ca­ble qual­ity used in the set­ting.

But be­cause the set­ting from which the pear-shaped sap­phire dan­gles is made up of del­i­cate leaves and tiny branches. Beau­ti­ful, it re­flects my love for na­ture, de­spite my in­ner com­puter geek.

I would be feel­ing trea­sured and seen if not for the fact that Dier­dre is also sport­ing a new neck­lace given to her by Mick.

He gave it to her the day af­ter La­bor Day. It’s all I can do not to gri­mace at the mem­ory.

“Oh, Micky, thank you. It’s per­fect!” Dier­dre holds up a sil­ver chain with a four-leaf clover charm nes­tled next to a medal­lion of St. Michael. “It’s just like the one I lost.”

Lost? She prob­a­bly threw it away and then dropped enough hints my hus­band bought her a re­place­ment.

Jeal­ousy takes an­other swipe at my heart. In the past, it would have been a cut deep enough to draw blood. But not to­day.

What­ever my mar­riage was, or could have be­come, it’s not. And I’ve fi­nally ac­cepted that fact.

If we had a dif­fer­ent re­la­tion­ship, I would have told him about col­lege and my ther­a­pist. If things were dif­fer­ent be­tween us, he would have told me he knew.

Mick and I are stuck to­gether and we both have to make the best of it, but my heart is no longer on of­fer.

Sex, yes. Emo­tions, no.

That’s my new mantra.

“You keep your ‘mpor­tant stuff in that box with the tree carved on the top,” Fitz says, break­ing into my thoughts. “And you’re the most im­por­tant to me.”

My heart bursts with love, silly emo­tional tears prick­ing my eyes. “Thank you, Fitzy.”

Pulling him in for a tight hug, the mois­ture in my eyes al­most spills over when he hugs me back just as tightly. Get­ting hugs like this from him is pretty hit-and-miss these days.

I’m strug­gling to be­lieve he’s al­ready in first grade. And lov­ing it.

“Why don’t you help your mam put the bracelet on?” Mick’s deep, rich voice washes over me as his warm hand lands on my bare shoul­der.

My heart rate surges a my nip­ples bead with in­ap­pro­pri­ate an­tic­i­pa­tion. Be­cause emo­tions aside, my hus­band is my sex­ual cat­nip.

Ut­terly and to­tally ir­re­sistible.

I ac­cepted that when I chose to make love to him again af­ter the de­ba­cle of him leav­ing me to take Dier­dre to din­ner.

His fore­fin­ger slides over my col­lar­bone, send­ing a shiver of arousal through me I try my best to hide. The pos­ses­sive press of his thumb against my nape makes that al­most im­pos­si­ble though.

I want to shrug off his touch al­most as much as I want him to move those skilled fin­gers just a lit­tle lower. Nei­ther would be ac­cept­able right now.

What I can do is lean for­ward to al­low Fitz to help me put on the bracelet and hope my hus­band gets the hint.