Page 18 of Sins of Arrogance

Mamo came over from Dublin her­self to marry my grand­fa­ther over five decades ago at the age of eigh­teen. Just like Mick came here to marry me.

Only I was the teenager in that wed­ding cer­e­mony.

“Micky and I used to sit out like this in the sum­mer. The view from the rooftop of his build­ing was breath­tak­ing,” Dier­dre says with a warm gaze di­rected to­ward my hus­band. “You re­mem­ber those nights, don’t you, Micky? Back then, what we got up to wouldn’t have been ap­pro­pri­ate for a fam­ily din­ner.”

A sick feel­ing in­vades my stom­ach and the breath catches in my chest. But I keep my smile fixed. Pol­ished. Im­per­vi­ous.

They’d been lovers. This Irish beauty and my hus­band.

He had a whole life be­fore I met him, I re­mind my­self. I know he wasn’t celi­bate, but hav­ing one of his ex-girl­friends sit­ting at my fam­ily din­ner ta­ble is send­ing my ap­petite to the bot­tom of the bay faster than a con­crete boat.

Mick’s fin­gers twitch against my chair. But he doesn’t con­firm, or deny Dier­dre’s claims. That’s con­fir­ma­tion in it­self, isn’t it?

Mamo stiff­ens be­side Fitz. “Your con­ver­sa­tion leaves some­thing to be de­sired at the din­ner ta­ble, Miss Kelly.”

Zoey raises an eye­brow. Mamo might scold her fam­ily, but not a guest. She spent years as a mob boss’s wife and hid­ing her ir­ri­ta­tion is sec­ond-na­ture to my grand­mother.

Un­less some­one comes for one of her own. Then mamo’s Irish tem­per sparks.

“Dier­dre, please, Maeve. We’re prac­ti­cally fam­ily.” She com­pletely ig­nores my grand­mother’s ad­mon­ish­ment.

Oh, to have that kind of con­fi­dence for real, and not a put-on façade for the sake of ap­pear­ances.

Mamo’s eyes nar­row to slits.

Fi no­tices be­cause she’s hy­per at­tuned to the emo­tions of the peo­ple around her. She goes still, pulling away from Zoey slightly, like she’s go­ing into self-pro­tect mode. The smile drops from her face.

I want that smile back. My sis­ter is fi­nally happy and the harpy in­tent on stir­ring up trou­ble isn’t go­ing to steal it.

Shak­ing my head in­finites­i­mally at my grand­mother, I fo­cus on the love I have for Fi so my smile is real be­fore I turn it on my sis­ter. I wink at Fi, let­ting her know I’m fine.

That the Irish beauty claim­ing past in­ti­ma­cies with my hus­band isn’t get­ting to me. For a sec­ond, even I be­lieve it.

Then Dier­dre opens her mouth again. “Of course, that was years ago,” She waves her hand dis­mis­sively. “We’ve stayed in touch, though, through texts. And calls here and there. It’s nice to have…his­tory.”

I glance at Mick. His eyes are on me, not Dier­dre. Is he wor­ried I’m go­ing to snap again? I won’t.

I might feel like dump­ing the plat­ter of cold prawns over Dier­dre’s head, cock­tail sauce and all. But I won’t.

The past is the past. And we are liv­ing in the present, as my ther­a­pist would say.

I may not be as con­fi­dent as Dier­dre on the in­side, but I’m def­i­nitely not the same in­se­cure woman at twenty-four that I was at nine­teen.

“I’m sure you un­der­stand.” De­spite Mick’s lack of a re­sponse to her words so far, Dier­dre blithely goes on, the smile she di­rects at me sac­cha­rine sweet and just as bad for you. “Old friends.”

“Sure,” I say lightly. “I’m a big be­liever in keep­ing tabs on dan­ger­ous peo­ple.”

Her smile fal­ters for half a sec­ond, then re­bounds as she places her hand on Mick’s fore­arm. “Well. That’s one way to put it. But Mick knows I’m not dan­ger­ous to him.”

The look she gives me says I’m in a whole dif­fer­ent cat­e­gory.

Mick doesn’t pull away from her touch.

Five years ago, I would have drawn into my­self and spent the rest of the meal telling my­self I wasn’t enough.

That’s not where this is go­ing to­day. I lower my hand be­low the ta­ble and slide it over Mick’s up­per thigh, stop­ping when the back of it brushes against his sex.

Luck­ily, Mick dresses to the right, so I don’t have to reach across his lap and make my move­ments ob­vi­ous. To the oth­ers it looks like I’m rest­ing my hand in my lap.