Page 14 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

KARA

Dierdre's machinations come to roost just before dinner.

Mick arrives while I'm still working with Fitz on the word list he needs to recognize by sight going into first grade. He learned to read last year, but there are still words on the sight list he's unfamiliar with.

That was an interesting conversation with his Kindergarten teacher.

She was annoyed I'd taught Fitzy to read, saying it made things more difficult for her. As she had to keep him occupied while teaching the skill to the rest of the class.

I suggested the teacher allow my son to read books at his reading level on his own while she worked with the rest of the class.

Mick shocked me by saying maybe we should send Fitz to a military academy with advanced academics near Boston. I countered that if Fitz went to Boston to go to school, he wouldn't be living in the dorm, because I was going with him.

For a couple of weeks, I thought that was what was going to happen. Then my father negotiated a marriage alliance between my cousin, Róise, and Don De Luca's brother, Miceli.

Suddenly, there was no more talk of sending me and Fitz out of state and Mick gifted a library of age-appropriate books to our son's Kindergarten classroom.

I found out later that Mick wanted to get us out of New York in case war broke out between our mob and the Cosa Nostra.

Not that he told me that at the time.

No, he just let me think my company was disposable.

I never told Fi or Róise that's what went down. There's a lot I don't share about my marriage with my innocent sister and cousin.

Mick ruffles Fitz's hair. "Get washed up for dinner, mo leanbh . I want to talk with your mam for a minute."

"But look, da!" Fitz points to the stack of flashcards on his side of the table. "I won all of them."

Fitz loves to learn, but add an element of competition by making it a game where he "wins" the cards he gets correct? And my sweet son gets laser focused.

Mick's smile for our son reaches his eyes, the pride there easy to read. "That's grand, mo leanbh . You'll be the smartest boy in first grade."

From someone else, that might be hyperbole. But not Mick. He doesn't give empty praise to our son. Or anyone else. He genuinely believes Fitzy will be the smartest kid in his class.

Chances are, Mick's right.

There are a lot of things I still don't know about my husband after seven years of marriage and having a child together. But how scary smart he is, isn't one of them. If only his emotional intelligence was equally impressive.

"Mommy taught me," Fitzy is quick to point out.

"Aye. Your mam is smart as they come, isn't she?"

Teaching our six-year-old to recognize words by sight makes me smart? Who knew? I would have said it indicated patience.

A few minutes later, Fitz is playing in his room while his da and I get ready for dinner.

And talk, apparently.

I'm not feeling either smart or patient now. But angry? I'm fizzing with it.

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. "Are you seriously asking me to apologize to your ex-girlfriend for her misunderstanding and causing an issue?"

"You don’t need to be jealous of her, Kara. You’re my wife." Mick adjusts the cufflinks on the new shirt he changed into for dinner.

Why? Was the other one sweaty?

What from?

His chat with Dierdre?

"I know who and what I am," I grit out. "And I’m not jealous of her."

Okay, that’s a total lie. But it was true before this conversation started.

Mostly.

"When you repeatedly refer to her as my ex-girlfriend, that tells me you’re jealous. And you know there's no reason to be."

Do I though? Do I really know that?

"Believe what you want." I turn away to brush my hair into a sleek ponytail.

Why do I straighten my natural curls?

There's no answer to that question in the eyes of the woman staring back at me from the vanity mirror. But the man pulling on a suit jacket in the background might be one.

I started straightening my hair right after we got married. I thought it made me look older. Now, it's habit.

But somehow the sophisticated woman staring back at me, eyes pools of uncertainty, is a stranger.

I smooth my dress and face my husband so our gazes meet.

So, there can be no question I mean the words I'm about to say. "I am not going to apologize when I did nothing wrong."

"Perhaps she misinterpreted something you said."

"You said that already."

Mick's lips flatten. "We both know you have a tendency toward jealousy. It's not unreasonable in the face of an ex, but it is unnecessary."

My eyes narrow to slits. "I had pregnancy and then postpartum hormones raging through my body when my jealousy was an issue. I'm nearly twenty-five now. And I'm not walking around looking like I have a ball shaped condo attached to my front."

"You were beautiful pregnant."

Mick so rarely turns the Irish blarney on me. But really?

"False flattery isn't going to convince me to apologize to Dierdre. She was in the wrong. I don't expect her to say she's sorry, but I will not say those words to her."

"You admit there was an argument then?"

"I admit that your ex-lover ," I say the word with deliberate emphasis, daring him with my eyes to comment on it. "Tried to convince me you're screwing around on me."

"Are you sure that's what she said, and not the way you interpreted it?"

"Gah!" I throw my hands in the air. "Even if I did misinterpret her words, nothing I said to her could be construed as me telling her to get out of my father's house."

"It's not about what you said, but how she took it. I'm not asking for you to abase yourself. Just say you're sorry and that you want her to stay." Mick's expression says he clearly expects me to give in.

I don't. "No."

His head jerks like I landed a strike right under his jaw.

Why? Because I’m standing up for myself? Allowing the real me that's been hiding behind the Stepford wife and daughter he and my father expect me to be to show herself.

He takes a calming breath, which I know is for effect because the only time Mick isn't calm, is when we're naked in bed together. "You know this is hard for Dierdre, being away from her family and everything she knows."

"But she’s not is she?" I pick up my perfume to spritz myself. "She has you."

"Don't do that." Mick indicates the bottle of Portrait of a Lady in my hand.

Róise got it for me as a gag gift after I started doing things like breaking into our security feeds so we could leave the mansion undetected.

You've played the lady too long, cousin mine. It's time you spread your wings a little . Róise's words, infused with love and acceptance, ring in my head.

I wear the perfume as a reminder that being a lady isn't all I am. I'm also a secret student. A mom. And a darn good friend to my sister and cousin.

Besides I like the woodsy scent with floral hints and just a suggestion of raspberry and cinnamon.

I almost ask Mick why not, but then a burst of saltiness has me defiantly spraying the perfume on the back of my neck and pulse points.

He grimaces.

"You like this perfume. Or did you lie about that too?"

"Too? I don't feckin' lie to you and I do like it. It's just…" He shakes his head. "Never mind."

Shrugging, I put the perfume bottle back on the vanity and slip on my heels. I don't wear heels during the day around family, but I always wear them to dinner.

It's expected.

And darn if my feet aren't itching to kick them off at that mental reminder.

Mick lays his hand on my shoulder stopping me from leaving our bedroom. "She’ll be uncomfortable at dinner if you don’t make things right with her."

I shrug off his hand. "If her comfort is so important to you, then you apologize to her."

"I already told her I wanted her to stay."

Did he really?

He doesn't see the wince his words cause. "She should be fine then."

This sigh isn't faked for my benefit. It's filled with pure, Grad-A masculine irritation. Wow.

This is really important to him. And that? Makes me dig my heels in like they're set in concrete.

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."