Page 12 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

It's probably the part where I'm not intimidated by her. Insinuations of Mick's supposed roving eye don't hold any weight after the way he wrecked me last night…and the night before that…and the night before that.

"I just think it’s sad, that’s all. For both of you. A man like Micky? He should be with a mature woman who doesn’t get all teary eyed when he gets cold or quiet."

"Mick doesn't do cold and quiet with me, and even if he did, it wouldn't send me crying into my pillow."

"You're very loyal, but you don't have to pretend with me. I know him." She pauses. " Intimately ."

"Correction you knew him." I leave off the intimately.

"You know we stayed in touch after he left Ireland. And not just through texts. He's been back to Dublin many times since he came to work in New York."

She wants me to believe Mick has been having sex with her when he visits Dublin?

Not likely.

Allowing myself to believe otherwise would be way too detrimental to my mental health. But I’m not burying my head in the sand.

Mick's a starving man with an insatiable sexual appetite the first few days after he gets back from any trip, including the ones to Dublin.

No way is he getting his rocks off while he's away.

Ignoring her blatant innuendo, I choose to focus on something else Deirdre said. "He didn't just come to work for the Shaughnessy mob. He married into it. New York is Mick's home now."

She doesn't like hearing that, but the anger glinting in her gaze quickly turns to calculation.

"It worries me," she says, clearly intent on ignoring the words she doesn't want to hear, just like I did. "He's a powerful man who deserves someone who doesn't flinch when he gets a little brutal in the bedroom."

One thing I never do, is flinch away from Mick and his sexual appetites. However, I'm not about to discuss my sex life with this woman, or any other one, for that matter.

Neither my sister, nor my cousin, knows about the early months of my marriage when I wasn't allowed to have my husband inside me until the male embryo had implanted in my womb through IVF.

I lost my virginity to Mick's thick, long fingers. It was both amazing and overwhelming at the time.

But that doesn’t mean I ever want to discuss the lack of penetrative sex in my marriage until I was pregnant with the great-grandson Fergal Shaughnessy was so adamant on getting.

One to carry the Shaughnessy name into the next generation.

Not that seanathair planned that particular outcome to begin with. I think, at the time, he still hoped my uncle would remarry and give him more grandchildren.

But then Uncle Derry was murdered while I was still pregnant and my father ascended to the position of heir apparent. My father renegotiated the deal with Mick, offering more than a chance to run his own crew.

He offered Mick the chance at being underboss and eventually boss if he allowed our son to take the Shaughnessy surname.

Mick insisted on Fitzgerald for a first name so our son would carry Mick's surname too, even if it wasn't as a last name.

"Nothing to say?" Dierdre taunts with some impatience when I've been lost in memories too long.

"About?" I feign ignorance.

"Micky's bedroom proclivities." She makes her eyes comically wide. "Are you trying to say he doesn’t let that side of him out with you? Oh…I then…I shouldn't have said anything."

That ship sailed thirty seconds after she arrived and she called my husband Micky.

"I'm not saying anything at all. I was raised to respect the privacy of others. Weren't you?"

"I wasn't trying to pry. I'm just looking out for my friends . That's all." She does the whole wounded routine.

Accusing eyes. Hunched shoulders. Caught breath.

And none of it lands because of how blatantly false her claim is. If she was looking out for Mick, we'd be having a very different conversation.

If she considered me a friend…I can't even create a scenario with that one.

We aren't friends and never will be.

No friend would try to make me doubt the strength of my marriage. What she doesn't know, is I don't need any help in that department. I go there all on my own.

Way too often.

But trying to make me believe Mick is having sex with other people? That's a nonstarter.

And I'm definitely not picturing her red painted nails digging proprietarily into Mick's forearm.

Huh. Looks like Dierdre's not the only one playing fast and loose with the truth today.

I'm done playing. "But we aren't friends, are we Miss Kelly ?"

Her eyes fill with tears and she sniffs. "I want to be, but it's obvious you don't. I'm so alone here. Even with Micky watching over me, I'm scared."

This piranha scared? In another lifetime maybe. In this one, not so much.

When she sees her amateur dramatics aren't having their intended effect, she stands. "If you think I should leave, I will."

I don't bother to respond. Whatever I say, she's going to twist to fit the narrative she's already created of this discussion. I'm just a bit player; this drama wasn't for me at all.

It was for someone not even in the room: Mick.

Who I'm sure Dierdre will seek out, her crocodile tears shimmering in her eyes and wearing her wounded dignity like a snug fitting hoodie.