Page 180 of Sins of Arrogance

If I didn’t step in and do the so­cial­iz­ing, her need to es­cape ev­ery so­cial gath­er­ing would be­come more ob­vi­ous.

“I’m go­ing to talk to my ther­a­pist about this. I can’t re­act that way in a so­cial set­ting where oth­ers could see it as a weak­ness.” I am Kara Fitzger­ald, rank­ing fe­male in the Shaugh­nessy Mob.

“Now that I know that type of noise is over­whelm­ing for you, I will not al­low you to be placed in a sit­u­a­tion where you have to deal with it,” Mick says res­o­lutely.

I sigh. “That’s not re­al­is­tic.”

He stops and faces me. “You need to un­der­stand that I will pro­tect you in ev­ery way I learn you need it. Ev­ery. Sin­gle. Way.”

“I’m a grown woman. I should pro­tect my­self.”

Mick’s an­swer is to kiss me. Right there on the side­walk. He takes his time and when we start walk­ing again, plea­sure and warmth are pop­ping like bub­bles in my blood­stream.

We walk down 9th and are turn­ing down W 15th Street be­fore I ask where we are go­ing.

“Pier 57’s Rooftop Park.”

“You had a backup plan for my to­tally un­ex­pected re­ac­tion?” I ask with dis­be­lief.

“I had planned to take you to the park to see the view of the har­bor af­ter din­ner.”

Wow. When he de­cides he’s go­ing to take me on a date, my hus­band doesn’t half-ass it.

“And if I’d wanted to dance at TAO’s night­club?”

“Se­cu­rity was in place and the door­man ap­prised of our pos­si­ble in­ten­tion.”

“I’m im­pressed.”

“I’m good at lo­gis­tics,” my so­ciopath says not-so-mod­estly.

“You are that.” I look around us but don’t see any­one I rec­og­nize. “Your guys are fol­low­ing us, aren’t they?”

“Aye. Two went ahead to scout a safe lo­ca­tion for us to eat.”

“Are we go­ing to sit on the grass?” I’m not sure how I feel about that in my dress.

“There are benches.”

“We’ll be lucky if any of them are empty.”

“I’m the un­der­boss to the Shaugh­nessy Mob, mo stór. We don’t need luck.”

That’s new. Mick usu­ally calls me trea­sure and I’m be­gin­ning to un­der­stand he means that lit­er­ally, but call­ing me my trea­sure makes it more per­sonal.

I de­cide I like it.

Mick’s right of course. There is an empty bench with a ra­dius of about ten feet around it free of other peo­ple when we get to the south side of the park.

Not hav­ing planned to do any real walk­ing in my four-inch pointy-toed heels that do great things for my calves while squish­ing my toes, I can’t wait to reach the bench. My feet nearly cry with grat­i­tude when I sit down on it.

The view is too beau­ti­ful to fo­cus on my sore toes though. We’re about a quar­ter of a mile out over the wa­ter and what­ever di­rec­tion I look is a feast for my eyes.

The sky­line of Lower Man­hat­tan. The Hud­son River and New York Har­bor. I can even make out the Statue of Lib­erty in the dis­tance.

“It’s beau­ti­ful here,” I breathe.

“Noth­ing is more beau­ti­ful to my eyes than you mo chuisle.” Mick’s hand clasps the back of my neck the way he does so of­ten lately.