Page 19 of Sins of Arrogance

No one else at the ta­ble knows where it ac­tu­ally is. Ex­cept Mick.

My hus­band sucks in a breath and I feel the bulge against the back of my hand grow. That quickly.

Dier­dre’s eyes nar­row. I’m pretty sure she can guess where my hand is right now too.

I smile back, all teeth.

Hav­ing made my point, I go to pull my hand away, but Mick twines his fin­gers through mine and keeps it against him.

Show­ing she is and will al­ways be on my side, moma pushes the bas­ket of yeasty rolls to­ward Dier­dre. “Here, take one and pass it to Mick.”

“I don’t eat carbs at din­ner, even when the meal hap­pens at lunchtime,” Dier­dre replies, but she takes the bas­ket, hav­ing to re­move her hand from my hus­band’s arm to do it.

Show­ing no such com­punc­tion, Mick snags two, putting one on my plate, be­fore pass­ing the bas­ket over to Enoch.

“I love the smell of freshly baked bread and the taste even more,” I say, tak­ing a bite.

“Enough of that, we’ve yet to say grace,” my fa­ther protests as he sits down.

Un­con­cerned, I fin­ish chew­ing the yeasty good­ness as I bow my head and let my fa­ther’s recita­tion of the fa­mil­iar Gaeilge words wash over me as Mick’s pe­nis grows steel hard against the back of my hand.

I smile to my­self. This is my fam­ily. Our tra­di­tions.

No mat­ter what they shared in the past, Mick is my hus­band.

Un­sur­pris­ingly, our new house­guest dom­i­nates the con­ver­sa­tion over din­ner. Though ev­ery time she looks in my di­rec­tion, it’s like she sucked on a lemon.

Mick hasn’t let go of my hand and he’s still hard.

I won­der if Fi and Zoey are up for some nephew time af­ter we’re done eat­ing?

As we’re fin­ish­ing up, Hope asks Dier­dre, “What brings you to New York, Miss Kelly?”

“The Odessa Mafia tried to snatch me right off the street. Who knows what they would have done to me if my body­guards hadn’t stopped them?” Dier­dre replies dra­mat­i­cally.

Hope’s in­no­cent gaze turns hor­ri­fied. “That must have been aw­ful.”

“It was ter­ri­fy­ing. My fa­ther sent me here be­cause he knew Mick would keep me safe.” Dier­dre puts her hand right over Mick’s heart and gives him a look that I’m sure is meant to con­vey fright­ened vul­ner­a­bil­ity.

It doesn’t sit nat­u­rally on her face. The woman’s a viper, not a mouse.

Un­for­tu­nately, the mask I can see through so eas­ily is opa­quer to my son. He leaps from the over­sized chair he shares with my grand­mother and rushes to­ward me.

Throw­ing him­self against me, he bursts into tears. “They can’t have you mommy!”

Climb­ing right into my lap like he hardly ever does any­more, he clings to my neck with both arms.

Fi­nally shak­ing off yet an­other un­so­licited touch from Dier­dre, Mick shoves his chair back and drops to one knee be­side our dis­traught son. “No one is tak­ing your mam from you. I promised you, didn’t I?”

“Is it wise to make prom­ises to a child like that?” Dier­dre asks sotto voce. “I don’t know a lot about chil­dren, but mak­ing empty prom­ises to calm them down isn’t a kind­ness.”

“If Mick makes a prom­ise, he keeps it,” my fa­ther says firmly, con­cern soft­en­ing his harsh fea­tures as he watches my son sob in my arms.

At least he’s not telling Fitz to pull him­self to­gether like he did me af­ter my mom died.

“I’m only point­ing out that our world is dan­ger­ous and our chil­dren need to re­al­ize that. As the miss­ing fam­ily mem­bers from this ta­ble can at­test.”

Al­lud­ing to the vi­o­lent deaths of my beloved aunt and un­cle at a ta­ble full of peo­ple who still miss them is a low blow I won’t for­get. But I’ll never for­give the way she’s so clearly try­ing to in­crease my son’s hys­te­ria.