Page 94 of Sins of Arrogance

“She tried to make me be­lieve Mick has other lovers be­cause he has feral needs.”

Róise gives the faint red marks on my wrists a pointed look. “I think you’ve got that one cov­ered.”

The first time my cousin no­ticed the marks, she was livid and threat­ened Mick’s life. I had to ad­mit I like what we do in bed…to a four­teen-year-old. I never gave specifics, but I promised it was some­thing I wanted.

I won­der if Róise has dis­cov­ered her own kinks now that she’s hav­ing sex with Miceli. As close as we are, it’s not some­thing I’m go­ing to ask.

“Yeah. The one area of my mar­riage I don’t worry about is keep­ing Mick happy in the bed­room.” I pause. “They’re hav­ing lunch later.”

“Lunch?” Róise echoes, out­raged. “Your hus­band agreed to lunch with his ex while she’s liv­ing un­der your roof?”

I shrug, not feel­ing as san­guine as I’m try­ing to pre­tend. “It’s busi­ness.”

She doesn’t an­swer right away, but her eyes nar­row. She watches me too closely. I look away.

“Kara,” she says gen­tly. “I’d burn Miceli’s suits if one of his old flames showed up to stay in our home.”

“That’s not me.” I’m the good girl, and we all know it.

“Be­fore you stood up to da and re­fused to apol­o­gize, I would have agreed, but now, I think Mick might want to start watch­ing out for his wardrobe,” Fiona jokes.

I get a pic­ture of mak­ing a bon­fire with Mick’s suits on the beach and the im­age is way too sat­is­fy­ing. “Maybe.”

My sis­ter grins but it slips into a scowl pretty fast. “I hate her.”

A year ago, I would have ad­mon­ished my sis­ter that hat­ing peo­ple is wrong. But that was the old Kara. The per­fect lit­tle door­mat.

I don’t want to be her any­more. “I hate her too.”

“We could ac­ci­den­tally tie her to a train­ing dummy.” Zoey cracks her knuck­les.

Fabi­ana gets a pos­i­tively glee­ful gleam in her eye. “Maybe I give her an ob­ject les­son in the dif­fer­ence be­tween tak­ing a fall the right way and one that ends up with a bro­ken limb.”

The laugh that slips out of me is real. The ache be­hind it is, too.

Róise steps closer and squeezes my hand. “Any­thing you need. We’re here.”

“Yeah, we are uniquely qual­i­fied to get rid of the body.” Zoey winks.

I nod, blink­ing fast.

“Next les­son, you pre­tend your op­po­nent is the vin­tage cling wrap,” Fabi­ana says sar­don­ically. “I have a feel­ing you’ll at­tack harder.”

Fiona grins. “Oh, I like that game. Next time, you’re a skinny brunette with a lack of tact. You just see how hard I hit.”

We all laugh. But in­side? I’m wish­ing I could throw Dier­dre on the mats, just one time. And maybe step on her hand be­fore help­ing her up.

“I’ve seen women lose fo­cus be­cause of other women,” Fabi­ana says, go­ing full on se­ri­ous. “But the real threat is never the ex who flaunts. It’s the man who lets her.”

I go com­pletely still, the words sink­ing into my gut like a knife.

She’s right.

That’s ex­actly what hurts so much. Not Dier­dre’s glossy hair or her per­fect model’s body. Not the ca­sual digs or the way she tries to ma­nip­u­late me into a cor­ner. No. It’s Mick.

It’s his tol­er­ance. His po­lite­ness. His ra­tio­nal­iza­tions.

It’s him ask­ing me to apol­o­gize to a woman he used to have sex with. It’s the way he jus­ti­fies it all by say­ing it’s busi­ness.