Page 165 of Sins of Arrogance

“We’ll have daugh­ters one day.” It’s the only thing I can think to say.

But she shakes her head. “No. I won’t give birth to a child who will have no voice in her own life.”

Is she talk­ing about her­self? “You have a voice, Kara.”

“No, I don’t. I never have.”

“You do with me.” It’s a vow.

Lethar­gic and ac­qui­es­cent she lets me help her dress.

It takes more ef­fort than nor­mal to keep my nor­mal mob­ster façade in the face of the rage that fills me at the lost look in her eyes.

The Present

I would re­mem­ber that haunted look six months af­ter Fitz’s birth, when I walked into our en suite to find my pre­cious wife un­con­scious on the cold mar­ble floor, an empty bot­tle of pills by the sink.

“I don’t break my prom­ises.”

“What do you call this?” She lifts her bound hands with a scowl.

“Ex­pe­di­ent.”

“You would re­ally kill one of your men for try­ing to stop you from kid­nap­ping me?” She bites her lip, eyes nar­rowed as she stud­ies me.

“Aye.” I could pre­tend to feel badly about that, but there’s no point.

My true self is on dis­play for my wife and there’s no putting that ge­nie back in the bot­tle.

“Fine,” she grum­bles. “I’m not go­ing to let you keep my son from me.”

“That was never go­ing to hap­pen.” I send the com­mand for the safety shut­ters to re­tract.

She har­rumphs. “Like our di­vorce is never go­ing to hap­pen?”

“Ex­actly like that.” I bend down to lift her, but she rears back.

“You can take the cuffs off. I al­ready promised not to scream.”

“But you did not prom­ise not to run.” And my wife is just wily enough to have done that on pur­pose.

“I’m not go­ing to run. I want to see Fitz. Make sure he’s okay.”

“You know he is.”

“Maybe.” Her ex­pres­sion is not friendly. “But I still want to be sure.”

“Good.” That should make get­ting her into the SUV with­out in­ci­dent eas­ier.

She lifts her bound hands and wig­gles them in my face. “So, undo me.”

“No.” I lift her into my arms again, this time hold­ing her tightly so she can­not try to throw her­self from them.

Her ex­pres­sion muti­nous, she holds her soft curves in rigid­ity against me.

Which does not make them any less tempt­ing. I re­gret­ted miss­ing our an­niver­sary this sum­mer, but never more so than now when I see the tempt­ing night­gown she bought to wear that night.

Ap­par­ently, her plans changed when I stood her up for din­ner.