Page 8 of Sins of Arrogance

“That hap­pens when you’re swim­ming.” Do I sound as unim­pressed by the prima donna as I feel?

“It’s Dier­dre, please,” she says, ig­nor­ing my com­ment. “We’re prac­ti­cally fam­ily, af­ter all.”

“We are?” I ask, non­plused. “How?”

“Micky’s fam­ily and mine are very close.” She gives Mick an ap­pre­cia­tive once over. “Though we aren’t ac­tu­ally re­lated. We’ve been friends since I was a wee lass in pig­tails.”

I can’t imag­ine this so­phis­ti­cated woman wear­ing pig­tails, even as a lit­tle girl.

And the way she looks with a lit­tle too much in­ter­est at my hus­band in his board shorts, his tat­too cov­ered mus­cles glis­ten­ing with wa­ter from the bay, makes it clear she def­i­nitely doesn’t see him like a brother.

Who­ever this woman is to my hus­band, she and I are not go­ing to be besties.

The coolly as­sess­ing look Dier­dre turns on me makes me wish I had stopped to put on my swim wrap and not just my san­dals.

My wet tank­ini doesn’t hide any of my body’s im­per­fec­tions. Well, ex­cept the faded stretch marks on my stom­ach from my preg­nancy. They’re the rea­son I wear a tank­ini in­stead of a bikini.

I’m rarely un­com­fort­able in my own skin though. I like my curves, even if I’m too rounded and jig­gly to be mis­taken for a gym bunny.

But right now, stand­ing be­fore the per­fectly coiffed woman al­most as tall as my dad in her heels, it’s hard not to feel short and pudgy.

“What are you do­ing here?” Mick asks Dier­dre.

Dier­dre’s mouth turns down in a pout. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Of course,” Mick replies with a smile.

I draw com­fort from the fact it’s his charm­ing per­sona smile, not a gen­uine one. I didn’t used to be able to tell the dif­fer­ence.

When we were first mar­ried, I mis­took Mick’s charm for some kind of af­fec­tion for me. Af­ter our son was born, I learned the dif­fer­ence be­tween the façade and real af­fec­tion.

Mick adores our son.

Which makes it im­pos­si­ble to lie to my­self about him ador­ing me. He doesn’t.

But some­times when he smiles at me, it reaches his eyes. So, I know he likes me. Maybe even holds some af­fec­tion for me.

Like my dad.

Not love.

Ca­sual af­fec­tion that doesn’t im­pact ei­ther of their thoughts when I’m not di­rectly in front of them.

My ther­a­pist is help­ing me work through that too.

“Let’s go in­side and I’ll tell you all about it.” Dier­dre shoots a sig­nif­i­cant glance my way. “It’s not some­thing for the ears of a stranger.”

If my sis­ter were here, she’d be rolling her eyes at the drama queen. I’m tempted, but the six years be­tween me and Fiona means I have to con­trol the urge.

I’m a ma­ture woman with a child.

Some­times that re­minder isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Mick jerks his head in ac­knowl­edg­ment and heads to­ward the house with­out an­other word. Or a look back at me to see if I have Fitz in hand.

Why would he? Our son is my re­spon­si­bil­ity dur­ing Mick’s work hours.

And I never shirk my re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.