Page 202 of Sins of Arrogance

Gob­s­macked.

“We’ve al­ways done it this way,” he says and runs his hand over his face. “For their pro­tec­tion.”

“I don’t care how it’s al­ways been done. That’s not how it’s go­ing to work with me and Kara. I can pro­tect my wife bet­ter by telling her the truth when she wants it. There will be no se­crets be­tween us.” The deep sat­is­fac­tion in Mick’s tone when he says those words have noth­ing to do with mob busi­ness.

He is hap­pier than I’ve ever seen him now that he doesn’t have to hold part of him­self back from me. Our love­mak­ing is off the charts.

And com­ing back to the man­sion hasn’t changed that. It was good be­fore, but it’s dif­fer­ent now. We’re both our true selves, hid­ing noth­ing.

Af­ter Fitz left with his body­guards to go to school, Mick stayed. He swooped me up and car­ried me to bed, to the floor, to the wall – any sur­face strong enough to take us. I came hard and fast and of­ten.

And when I told him I loved him again, it felt like the most nat­u­ral truth in the world.

Be­cause it is.

It was his words af­ter that blew a hole in my heart and filled it back up again.

“Thank you for lov­ing me for the so­ciopath that I am and not the man I pre­tend to be for ev­ery­one else.” Then he told me he loved me.

And we made love again. No hand­cuffs. No edg­ing. Just two bod­ies mov­ing to­gether in love filled plea­sure as he said thank you to me over and over again, be­tween kiss­ing ev­ery inch of my face, neck and shoul­ders.

Mick needed the walls to come down be­tween us even more than I did and I’ll never for­get that. I will never al­low him, or me, to erect them again.

Right now, my fa­ther stares at my hus­band like he’s lost his mind. “That’s not how it works in our world.”

“It is in the one I’m cre­at­ing with Kara.”

I’m so pleased by his re­sponse, I turn my head and reach up so I can kiss the un­der­side of his jaw. “Yes, it is.”

“This is what you re­ally want?” my fa­ther asks me.

“Yes. From now on, I get a voice in my own life and the life of this fam­ily.”

“You’re a strong and in­tel­li­gent woman, one I’m proud to call daugh­ter. I’m sure you’ll only make us stronger.” He gri­maces. “But you can’t blame me for wor­ry­ing about you.”

“If you wor­ried about my emo­tional well­be­ing as much as you do my phys­i­cal, we’d have a very dif­fer­ent re­la­tion­ship.”

“If I change, if I show that you and your sis­ter mat­ter to me more than the mob, more than any­thing…” He pauses, al­most dif­fi­dent. “Do you think that re­la­tion­ship can change?”

“If your ac­tions match your words and in­ten­tions, it’s pos­si­ble. I don’t trust you, but if you re­ally want to change that, you will.”

His eyes glis­ten, but he blinks away the mois­ture and nods. “I will.”

For some rea­son, I’m too choked to speak, so I merely nod.

“Darakov thinks the plans for the pro­to­type are in the boathouse,” Mick says with an abrupt sub­ject change.

Done with emo­tional wa­ter­sheds for the mo­ment, I’m grate­ful. “So, we set a trap.”

“I don’t want my fam­ily put at risk,” my fa­ther says. “We need to draw him into tar­get­ing the Bunker again.”

“That will only net us more hired mercs, or his own men.”

“We want Darakov to come, right? So, you can kill him and ex­plain Dier­dre’s death away as a lover’s spat gone wrong,” I say.

Mick’s brows fur­row. “That wasn’t the plan. She dies in the cross­fire when he tries to kid­nap her again.”

I shake my head. “That makes it look like we didn’t pro­tect her like my fa­ther promised to do. But if Dier­dre sets up the assig­na­tion and some­how ends up dead when she changes her mind and re­fuses to leave with him…”