Page 39 of Sins of Arrogance

School­ing my fea­tures to hide the emo­tions jum­bling my in­sides like rocks in a tum­bler, I turn and look back at him over my shoul­der. “I have noth­ing to make right.”

Mick’s gaze turns cal­cu­lat­ing. Seven years ago, I wouldn’t have known what his nearly blank ex­pres­sion meant. I do now.

So, I’m pre­pared.

Or I think I am un­til he opens his mouth. “If Dier­dre’s un­com­fort­able around you then maybe she and I will have to have din­ner pri­vately un­til things set­tle down.”

Ex­pec­ta­tion fills his green gaze. He thinks he just laid down a Royal Flush to my Full House.

My stom­ach cramps and my throat goes tight. No mat­ter what I claim to my­self, or to him, we both know I’ve never com­pletely rid my­self of the jeal­ousy that turned so self-de­struc­tive af­ter Fitz was born.

I do my best to pre­tend, even to my­self, that it does not ex­ist. And Mick is in­ten­tional about do­ing noth­ing to trig­ger it. Usu­ally.

I used to think that meant some­thing.

That he cared, at least a lit­tle, about my feel­ings.

Right now, this minute, I know it never meant any­thing at all. Be­trayal stings my in­sides, a swarm of wasps bent on de­struc­tion.

My hus­band is will­ing to use in­se­cu­ri­ties that stem from cir­cum­stances nei­ther of us can change to ma­nip­u­late me into do­ing what he wants.

Mick didn’t choose me. I didn’t choose him. Love wasn’t part of the equa­tion when we got mar­ried and love on only one side only makes that equa­tion im­pos­si­ble to solve.

We never had a ro­mance. De­spite the white dress, hun­dreds of guests who wished us well, and all the trap­pings of a woman’s dream day, our vows sealed a busi­ness trans­ac­tion.

Not our hearts.

No mat­ter how much I wish we’d started out dif­fer­ently, I will al­ways be the clause in the con­tract he couldn’t strike out.

But his threat to have din­ner with Dier­dre isn’t a sin­gle shot fired. It’s the whole darn mag­a­zine.

Be­cause he knows how im­por­tant eat­ing din­ner to­gether is to me. Mick’s not just a mob­ster, he’s sec­ond in com­mand for all the Shaugh­nessy hold­ings as well.

He works long hours. Un­like our son, I can’t go to Mick’s of­fice and de­mand his at­ten­tion. I used to…well, not de­mand his at­ten­tion, but just hang out with him. Read­ing. Play­ing on my phone.

Just be­ing there. So freak­ing pa­thetic, but it took an un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt to end my life and some­one ask­ing me in group ther­apy at The Mar­lowe Cen­ter what I did when I spent all those hours in Mick’s of­fice be­fore I re­al­ized it.

Be­cause I didn’t do any­thing. Not any­thing that re­quired be­ing in the same room as my hus­band.

I had no other rea­son to be there than my pa­thetic be­lief that if we spent enough time to­gether, the feel­ings get­ting so big in­side me would jump to him by os­mo­sis or some­thing.

Look­ing back, it shocks me he never asked me to get lost. An­other ac­tion I mis­in­ter­preted.

But now that I’ve stopped haunt­ing his of­fice like a teenaged bride specter, din­ner is pretty much the only time I see Mick un­til he wakes me in the night for sex.

Not mak­ing love. I can’t lie to my­self about that.

It was never mak­ing love.

Just sex. Sex that causes seis­mic shifts in my heart, mind and body, but still…just sex.

And even sex that good isn’t enough to make up for the lit­tle bits of my soul I lose ev­ery day in this mar­riage.

“Do what you want, Mick, but don’t ex­pect me to make ex­cuses to Fitz. If he asks, I’ll tell him you’d rather have din­ner with your friend than your fam­ily.”

Chap­ter 12: The Door­mat Has Left the Build­ing

MICK