Page 142 of Sins of Arrogance

I don’t.

Her bar­ing of the teeth can’t be termed a smile. “Are you go­ing to let me in?”

“No.”

“Come now, cailín, we need to talk and it’s not a con­ver­sa­tion you want any­one else over­hear­ing.”

I’m nei­ther a girl, or a par­tic­u­larly young woman. Es­pe­cially in re­la­tion to Dier­dre’s age.

“Moma might get away with call­ing me cailín. You will not.” I make no ef­fort to step back from the door.

Dier­dre rolls her eyes. “You’re too young for Micky, no mat­ter what you’d like to be­lieve.”

“Funny, that’s not how he acts when he’s buried deep in­side me and beg­ging me to come with him.” I can’t be­lieve those words just came out of my mouth.

Maybe su­per bitch is right.

This is a con­ver­sa­tion bet­ter han­dled in pri­vate. I move back to al­low her in­side.

She gives me a pity­ing look as she passes me. “Or­der­ing more like. Micky isn’t one to beg.”

She’s right, darn it. But I’m not about to tell her so.

I shut the door and turn to face her. “I’m not go­ing to of­fer you a seat, re­fresh­ments or to use my bath­room. Say what you need to and leave.”

“You’re hold­ing Micky back.”

“Again, that’s not how he sees it.”

“Of course it is. He’s got too much honor to break his mar­riage vows, but he’s com­pletely out of your league and de­serves a woman of equal strength to stand be­side him.”

“Agree to dis­agree.”

Dier­dre’s eyes nar­row. “Don’t be a child. He’s too much man for you and we both know it.”

“Not true.” He’s just the right amount of man for me.

Even if he doesn’t re­turn my love, my hus­band craves my body like a drug.

“You need to give Micky a di­vorce.”

It’s like the woman can­not hear a word com­ing out of my mouth. Or she’s not lis­ten­ing to them.

“You need to get a first-class ticket out of Delulu Land. I’m not di­vorc­ing my hus­band so you can make a play for him.” Not that she prob­a­bly hasn’t made a play al­ready.

Only Mick’s pesky moral­ity has got­ten in the way. At least, that’s how I’m sure she sees it.

“If you love him, you will let him go.”

“Let­ting him go im­plies I’m some­how hold­ing onto him, and let’s be clear, Mick is the one that wants me tied to his side.” Or at least to his bed.

“He’s mak­ing the best of a bad sit­u­a­tion, but it’s been long enough. Ev­ery­one says you’re so com­pas­sion­ate and sweet, shouldn’t you turn some of that on your own hus­band?”

Even though I know she’s talk­ing out of her be­hind, her words hurt. I won’t let her see that though.

“I can’t imag­ine any­thing cru­eler than mak­ing it pos­si­ble for Mick to play house with a woman like you. He de­serves so much bet­ter.” I turn Dier­dre’s words back on her.

And it hits home. Dier­dre’s look skew­ers me.