Page 41 of Sins of Arrogance

If she wants me to hold her hand, I’ll hold her feckin’ hand.

And when she tries to step away from my touch again, that’s what I do, keep­ing her pinned to my side with her hand in mine.

“Da!” Fitz ex­claims mid sen­tence on rea­son twenty-four that broc­coli is not a su­per­food. “You’re hold­ing mommy’s hand.”

“Aye. So are you.”

“Yeah, but I al­ways hold mommy’s hand. You never do.”

KARA

I al­ways hold mommy’s hand. You never do.

Fitz’s words echo in my mind, ping­ing against ev­ery lonely mem­ory from my mar­riage.

No, my hus­band never holds my hand and I have no idea why he’s do­ing so now.

I want to rip it away, but our son is watch­ing us both, his dear lit­tle face lit with joy. At least some­one’s happy about my hus­band’s small dose of pub­lic af­fec­tion.

When we reach the din­ing room, Mick pulls my chair out for me like he al­ways does. I sit down, forc­ing a smile and a greet­ing for ev­ery­one al­ready seated.

Mamo taps the bevel of her Tiffany watch and my smile turns to a gri­mace.

Then I mouth, “Sorry.”

We’re five min­utes late sit­ting down, which means ev­ery­one else is al­ready here. Ex­cept Fi. She and Zoey are hav­ing a pic­nic on the beach for two.

My sis­ter prac­ti­cally gets hives at the idea of go­ing to a restau­rant, or any­where else with a lot of peo­ple. So, her girl­friend ar­ranges ro­man­tic at home date nights.

It’s in­cred­i­bly sweet. And Fi is so happy, she glows. That’s all down to our cousin Róise, who ne­go­ti­ated Fi’s free­dom from an ar­ranged mar­riage by agree­ing to one of her own.

When and if my beau­ti­ful lit­tle sis­ter mar­ries, she will be the first woman in four gen­er­a­tions to do it for love.

“Am I to take it that ev­ery­thing is sorted with our house­guest?” My fa­ther gives me a pointed look. “I as­sume that’s why you’re late.”

“That is­sue is in­deed why we’re a few min­utes tardy for din­ner,” I agree. “But if by sorted you mean, I talked to her. That did not hap­pen.”

My fa­ther’s eyes widen in shock be­fore they nar­row in anger. “I ex­pect—”

His voice abruptly breaks off at the click of heels draw­ing near on the ter­race stones.

Why am I not sur­prised that Dier­dre got over her pique and de­cided to join us for din­ner af­ter all?

In a ma­genta dress that cov­ers very lit­tle of her decol­letage and none of her shoul­ders, she stops the­atri­cally for ev­ery­one to take in the mag­nif­i­cence of her beauty.

Se­ri­ously, did this woman go to the drama school of over­act­ing, or what?

Her ex­pres­sion is ret­i­cent, like she’s been dragged here against her will – de­spite the per­fect makeup and the fact she clearly timed her dra­matic en­trance.

“I wasn’t go­ing to join,” she says with faux-shy­ness, “but your mamo in­sisted.”

Mamo’s snort is not well con­cealed, but she doesn’t gain­say Dier­dre.

Hope leans to­ward me from the right and whis­pers, “Maeve told Dier­dre that she wasn’t hold­ing with a prima donna eat­ing on a tray in her bed­room and if she wanted to eat, it would be at the ta­ble with ev­ery­one else.”

I duck my head to hide my smile. Mamo is my hero.

Bro­gan stands to pull out a chair for Dier­dre. “You’re al­ways wel­come at our ta­ble, my dear.”