Page 193 of Sins of Arrogance

“You want me to work for you?” I ask.

He shakes his head and my heart squeezes painfully.

“I want you to work with me. I don’t share your fa­ther’s an­ti­quated views of a woman’s place in the syn­di­cate.”

“So, you’d be okay with our daugh­ter grow­ing up to be a sol­dier like Zoey?” I ask.

Mick yanks me right into his lap, our gazes locked. “You want to have a daugh­ter?”

He re­mem­bers what I said that ter­ri­ble day when I re­al­ized my grand­fa­ther had or­dered all the girl em­bryos to be thrown away.

So do I. And I re­mem­ber the feel­ings that made me say that. That made me be­lieve there was noth­ing worse than bring­ing a girl into this world.

“You would never take away our daugh­ter’s voice, or al­low any­one else to,” I say with con­vic­tion.

“No, I wouldn’t. And no daugh­ter of mine is get­ting mar­ried right out of high school ei­ther.”

“She gets a say about who she mar­ries and when she does, if she ever does it,” I say.

Mick nods. “Chances are, it will be an al­liance mar­riage be­cause she won’t be ex­posed to men out­side our world.”

I know he’s right and I don’t dis­pute that. But there’s a dif­fer­ence be­tween be­ing told who you must marry and be­ing given a choice about who it will be.

Or if you ever will marry.

“And Fitz?” I ask.

“Will al­ways have a say in his fu­ture. We are born to this life, but that doesn’t mean our des­tinies are writ­ten for us. Mine changed when I mar­ried you.”

And mine changed when I mar­ried Mick. No other man would ever have held my heart like he does.

“I might not have a girl,” I warn him.

“But you do want to get preg­nant with me again?” he asks, his tone more hes­i­tant than I’ve ever heard it.

“Yes. I love you, Mick. And I know you will love our daugh­ter like a child de­serves to be loved.”

“Like I love her mother.”

My heart swells in my chest as tears wash into my eyes. “You love me?”

“I have since the be­gin­ning. I didn’t rec­og­nize it for what it was. Ad­dic­tion I un­der­stood, but love? That was a to­tal mys­tery to me.”

“Then Fitz was born.”

“And I knew I loved our son. Ev­ery feel­ing I had for him was fierce­ness tem­pered by ten­der­ness.”

“Not the way you felt about me.”

“Nah.”

“I don’t love you the same way I love our son ei­ther. Or Fi, Róise or moma, for that mat­ter.” That love is fierce, but it’s not pas­sion­ate.

It’s not ac­com­pa­nied by a need I don’t think I’ll ever be able to deny.

“Or your fa­ther.”

“Or him.” Yes, I love my fa­ther.