Page 172 of Sins of Arrogance

“Gar­nets sym­bol­ize pas­sion­ate love and de­vo­tion,” I tell him.

So do emer­alds. Di­a­monds sym­bol­ize en­dur­ing love, com­mit­ment and strength.

“I know.”

“Are you try­ing to tell me some­thing?” I ask, my heart beat­ing wildly in my chest.

“There is no stone that is as­so­ci­ated with ad­dic­tion, but en­dur­ing de­vo­tion is close. You are my pulse, my trea­sure.”

He says it in Eng­lish and I feel like that’s pur­pose­ful. He wants me to know he’s not just us­ing an en­dear­ment. But that the words carry a deeper sig­nif­i­cance for him.

“And the love?”

He brushes my hair back from my face and be­hind my ear. Touch­ing me again. Be­cause he needs to? “I don’t feel emo­tion.”

“That’s not true. You love Fitz and while you may not love me you re­act to me with emo­tion. Plea­sure. Anger. Frus­tra­tion. Hap­pi­ness.”

“The anger and frus­tra­tion are new,” he says with one of his gen­uine smiles.

The smiles he re­serves for me and Fitz in­di­cated a level of joy that Mick shows with no one else.

Ad­dic­tion.

I won­der. Is what Mick calls ad­dic­tion what I might call love?

“If you’re re­ally in­tent on stay­ing mar­ried, you need to know I’m done be­ing the obe­di­ent per­fect mob princess,” I warn him.

“Is that how you see your­self?”

“Yes.” I lick my lips and watch his gaze fix­ate on them. “Isn’t that how you see me?”

He shakes his head a lit­tle, like he’s clear­ing it, and our eyes meet. “No.”

“How do you see me?”

“Stub­born. Re­bel­lious.”

I laugh out loud un­til I re­al­ize he’s se­ri­ous. “How do you fig­ure that?”

“Would you have ever let me use the cuffs again if I didn’t start turn­ing off my phone when I had you bound?” he asks in re­turn.

“No.”

“Stub­born.”

“Self-pro­tec­tion.”

“Ex­actly. When some­thing is im­por­tant to you, you don’t back down about it. Like Fitz get­ting ther­apy af­ter Róise’s kid­nap­ping.”

“It’s a good thing he didn’t see you cart­ing me from the man­sion bound wrist and an­kle.” My words sound a lot more amused than an­gry.

Gah.

He’s get­ting to me.

Mick shrugs. “There’s a rea­son I sent him ahead in the he­li­copter.”

“You could have just not kid­napped me,” I sug­gest.