Page 38 of Sins of Arrogance

“False flat­tery isn’t go­ing to con­vince me to apol­o­gize to Dier­dre. She was in the wrong. I don’t ex­pect her to say she’s sorry, but I will not say those words to her.”

“You ad­mit there was an ar­gu­ment then?”

“I ad­mit that your ex-lover,” I say the word with de­lib­er­ate em­pha­sis, dar­ing him with my eyes to com­ment on it. “Tried to con­vince me you’re screw­ing around on me.”

“Are you sure that’s what she said, and not the way you in­ter­preted it?”

“Gah!” I throw my hands in the air. “Even if I did mis­in­ter­pret her words, noth­ing I said to her could be con­strued as me telling her to get out of my fa­ther’s house.”

“It’s not about what you said, but how she took it. I’m not ask­ing for you to abase your­self. Just say you’re sorry and that you want her to stay.” Mick’s ex­pres­sion says he clearly ex­pects me to give in.

I don’t. “No.”

His head jerks like I landed a strike right un­der his jaw.

Why? Be­cause I’m stand­ing up for my­self? Al­low­ing the real me that’s been hid­ing be­hind the Step­ford wife and daugh­ter he and my fa­ther ex­pect me to be to show her­self.

He takes a calm­ing breath, which I know is for ef­fect be­cause the only time Mick isn’t calm, is when we’re naked in bed to­gether. “You know this is hard for Dier­dre, be­ing away from her fam­ily and ev­ery­thing she knows.”

“But she’s not is she?” I pick up my per­fume to spritz my­self. “She has you.”

“Don’t do that.” Mick in­di­cates the bot­tle of Por­trait of a Lady in my hand.

Róise got it for me as a gag gift af­ter I started do­ing things like break­ing into our se­cu­rity feeds so we could leave the man­sion un­de­tected.

You’ve played the lady too long, cousin mine. It’s time you spread your wings a lit­tle. Róise’s words, in­fused with love and ac­cep­tance, ring in my head.

I wear the per­fume as a re­minder that be­ing a lady isn’t all I am. I’m also a se­cret stu­dent. A mom. And a darn good friend to my sis­ter and cousin.

Be­sides I like the woodsy scent with flo­ral hints and just a sug­ges­tion of rasp­berry and cin­na­mon.

I al­most ask Mick why not, but then a burst of salti­ness has me de­fi­antly spray­ing the per­fume on the back of my neck and pulse points.

He gri­maces.

“You like this per­fume. Or did you lie about that too?”

“Too? I don’t feckin’ lie to you and I do like it. It’s just…” He shakes his head. “Never mind.”

Shrug­ging, I put the per­fume bot­tle back on the van­ity and slip on my heels. I don’t wear heels dur­ing the day around fam­ily, but I al­ways wear them to din­ner.

It’s ex­pected.

And darn if my feet aren’t itch­ing to kick them off at that men­tal re­minder.

Mick lays his hand on my shoul­der stop­ping me from leav­ing our bed­room. “She’ll be un­com­fort­able at din­ner if you don’t make things right with her.”

I shrug off his hand. “If her com­fort is so im­por­tant to you, then you apol­o­gize to her.”

“I al­ready told her I wanted her to stay.”

Did he re­ally?

He doesn’t see the wince his words cause. “She should be fine then.”

This sigh isn’t faked for my ben­e­fit. It’s filled with pure, Grad-A mas­cu­line ir­ri­ta­tion. Wow.

This is re­ally im­por­tant to him. And that? Makes me dig my heels in like they’re set in con­crete.