Page 145 of Sins of Arrogance

“She had her foot on my throat.” Dier­dre coughs and breathes deeply for ef­fect. “She at­tacked me for no rea­son. I was just warn­ing her about how dan­ger­ous it is to let Fitzy play in the boathouse when he’s so fas­ci­nated by the idea of swim­ming in the wa­ter be­yond it.”

Oh, she’s such a good liar. She sounds so sin­cere, but she mis­cal­cu­lated with this whop­per.

“Our son is too afraid to try to swim be­yond the boathouse,” I say scathingly. “And don’t call him Fitzy.”

Her call­ing my hus­band Micky is grat­ing enough.

With an ap­peal­ing look at Mick, she rubs at her throat. “I didn’t know that. I was just try­ing help.”

“If you have con­cerns about my son, bring them to me. You know Kara doesn’t take well to what she con­sid­ers crit­i­cism from you.”

Se­ri­ously? “You did not just say that.” I make no at­tempt to hide my fury at his words.

Mick jerks his head to look at me, like he’s thinks I’m the un­rea­son­able one right now.

“I’m sorry.” Dier­dre’s voice hic­cups on the word sorry like she’s hold­ing back a sob and ef­fec­tively brings his at­ten­tion back to her. “I just thought we were start­ing to be friends.”

“In what world?” I scoff.

Mick looks be­tween me and Dier­dre and sighs. “I don’t think you and my wife be­ing friends is in the cards.”

He freakin’ sighed.

Again, like I’m part of the prob­lem.

I guess, his ex-girl­friend wasn’t mis­taken about one thing. Nei­ther my hus­band, nor my fa­ther, are go­ing to be­lieve a word I say about Dier­dre Kelly.

That knowl­edge burns like bit­ter gall in my throat. But the jeal­ousy they’re all so wor­ried about? Nowhere in ev­i­dence.

The only thing that mat­ters is pro­tect­ing my son and right now, Mick is in the way of that be­cause of Dier­dre’s fix­a­tion on him.

Is it fair to blame him for that? Maybe not, but I can and do blame him for not send­ing her pack­ing.

“Get her out of here be­fore I have to take you up on the of­fer to help me hide the body,” I say from be­tween clenched teeth.

Mick winces.

He didn’t like me say­ing that and re­veal­ing to the woman so in­tent on be­com­ing his sec­ond wife that he made the of­fer. Not that she be­lieves it.

The look of su­pe­ri­or­ity on her face does not wa­ver, un­til she turns to­ward Mick. “Don’t worry. I’m leav­ing.” Then she gives me an in­sin­cere look of sad­ness. “I’m sorry if what I said of­fended you.”

“Fuck you, Dier­dre.”

Her eyes widen com­i­cally.

She didn’t ex­pect that.

The stiff­en­ing of my hus­band’s spine says my words sur­prised him too.

He frowns at me. “What has got­ten into you, Kara?”

“Fuck you, too, Fitzger­ald. Or bet­ter yet, why don’t you both fuck right off to­gether?” I spin on my heel and rapidly walk away.

They both think I’ll fight to keep a mar­riage that is noth­ing but lust and con­tracts? That I’m jeal­ous of him?

Not any­more.

I’m done.