Page 174 of Sins of Arrogance

We take the he­li­copter back into the City be­cause Kara likes Asian Fu­sion food and the restau­rant with the best re­views is here.

Al­though there is vir­tu­ally no noise in­side the cabin of the S-92, we don’t try to talk. Kara watches out the win­dow, her ex­pres­sion rem­i­nis­cent of the one Fitz got when we took him to the fair in the sum­mer.

Now, that was a lo­gis­ti­cal night­mare, but Kara was de­ter­mined to take him. So, I made it hap­pen.

Does she un­der­stand that was as much for her as it was for Fitz? My gut tells me she doesn’t.

We’re about twenty min­utes into the flight when she turns her gaze on me. I haven’t had my eyes on any­thing but her the whole flight.

Her eyes widen, like she’s sur­prised to find me look­ing at her. Where else would I be look­ing when she’s so feckin’ sexy?

Her black dress has sleeves that reach right past her el­bows, but her shoul­ders are bare and there’s a deep V show­ing off her cleav­age. She’s wear­ing the neck­lace I gave her ear­lier, the bot­tom tip of the heart just touch­ing the top of the deep crevice be­tween her gor­geous baps.

It’s some kind of stretchy fab­ric, so it clings to all her wom­anly curves and my dick is telling me what an id­iot I am for this date thing. If we were back at the house in Martha’s Vine­yard, we could be get­ting naked.

We have nom­i­nal pri­vacy in the pri­vate lounge of the he­li­copter, but the di­vider be­tween the other part of the cabin with our se­cu­rity team and the lounge is half wall, half cur­tain.

Not sound­proof.

Re­gard­less, if we were still in Martha’s Vine­yard, Kara wouldn’t have that sweet smile play­ing over her lips. Her eyes wouldn’t sparkle like they’re do­ing now.

And no mat­ter how hot our chem­istry, she’d be as apt to douse the flames be­tween us as fan them.

I fucked up roy­ally with the Dier­dre sit­u­a­tion. That’s no rea­son to ask her fa­ther for per­mis­sion to di­vorce me, but I hurt her. And that is not okay.

She doesn’t feel val­ued and she’s one of the two peo­ple I trea­sure above all oth­ers.

When the psych books talk about peo­ple like me find­ing their per­son, they’re talk­ing about Kara.

A strange look comes over her beau­ti­ful face.

“What is it?” I search her eyes, try­ing to fig­ure out what she’s think­ing.

Just lately, that’s not as easy as it used to be.

“It just hit home that my hus­band of seven years is tak­ing me out on a date for the first time,” she says wist­fully.

“We’ve been on dates be­fore.”

“No, we haven’t. You’ve taken me out to din­ner for our an­niver­sary. Out of duty, but this is the first time it’s a real date.”

And she likes that it is.

I may not know why it’s so im­por­tant to her, but I can see that it is. “It won’t be the last.”

“Is that a prom­ise?” Sud­denly she’s look­ing vul­ner­a­ble.

I don’t hes­i­tate. “It is.”

“Zoey and Fiona date, even though they don’t leave the house.” Kara’s hands fid­get in her lap.

There’s a mes­sage there and I take my time fig­ur­ing out what it is. I don’t jump to a lot of con­clu­sions. That’s not how my brain works.

But it’s more than that. Get­ting it right mat­ters.

Be­cause I am not giv­ing my wife a di­vorce and I’d much rather she was okay with that than fight­ing me on it.

“If I had re­al­ized that dat­ing was im­por­tant to you, I would have taken you for a pic­nic on the beach.” Zoey and Fiona did that at least once a week dur­ing the sum­mer.