Page 147 of Sins of Arrogance

Fuck. “You know I have no in­ter­est in Dier­dre.”

“Why keep her here then?” Kara de­mands.

“I told you. Busi­ness.”

“Ex­plain what kind of busi­ness re­quires keep­ing that viper shar­ing our liv­ing space.” She says it like a dare.

One she knows I can’t take up.

“Mob busi­ness.”

Her laugh is harsh and with­out a drop of hu­mor in it. “Be­lieve it, or not, Mick, but I’m not stupid. I know it’s mob busi­ness.”

“Then why are you ask­ing?” Frus­tra­tion bleeds into my voice.

“Be­cause I want to know specif­i­cally: what busi­ness could be more im­por­tant than…” She shakes her head. “I was go­ing to say than me, but we both know any­thing to do with the so-called good of the mob takes prece­dence over me.”

“If it’s good for the mob, it’s good for you too, a stór.” What is go­ing on with her?

“Don’t call me that. You don’t trea­sure me. You never have and you never will.”

“What the feckin’ hell did Dier­dre say to you?” I reach for Kara.

But she jumps back, mak­ing it very clear she does not want my touch. “You re­ally want to know?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

“She wants me to di­vorce you so you two can get mar­ried.” Kara waits for me to re­act.

But I’m not sur­prised and frankly, I’m sur­prised she is. “Did you have to refuse with your foot on her neck?”

Not that see­ing that tableau when I came in wasn’t a hell of a turn on. But once Dier­dre goes cry­ing to her da, I’ll be the one ex­pected to sort it.

“That’s not when I took her to the floor.”

My sweet wife ut­ter­ing those words takes my semi to fully hard and my in­ter­est in what Dier­dre said is smashed un­der an anvil of lust.

But it’s ob­vi­ous Kara is not on the same page as me.

So, I ask, “What did she say that had you re­act­ing with your new self-de­fense moves?”

I wish I’d thought to train my wife in self-de­fense. That could have been a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll ask if she wants to prac­tice on me.

“Your not-so-ex-girl­friend threat­ened to kill me as a more ex­pe­di­ent route of get­ting me out of the way.”

Dier­dre’s too spoiled to get her hands dirty with vi­o­lence. “Are you sure you didn’t mis­con­strue some­thing she said?”

“Yes.”

“Did she use the word kill?”

“No.”

“So?” I ask lead­ingly.

Kara is a rea­son­able woman. She’ll get there.

“So, how else am I sup­posed to take: Di­vorce isn’t the only way to end a mar­riage. It’s not even the most ex­pe­di­ent?”