Page 51 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

KARA

When we are at the door about to step into the hall outside my old bedroom, I say sweetly, "You may have forgotten, but I prefer to sleep without panties."

Mick goes absolutely rigid and swears. "Get a blanket to cover my wife."

Conor, who has been waiting in the hall, rushes past us. Soon the throw-blanket from the end of my bed is covering me from neck to ankle. The other man is careful not to touch a single centimeter of skin while he's doing it too.

Are his men aware that I am my husband's obsession? Maybe they are. Maybe they only know he's over-the-top possessive.

Whichever it is, the soldiers under my husband's direct command are careful never to look at me below the neck and they keep their attention brief regardless.

It never bothers me when they're on sentry duty and I'm swimming with Fitz in the pool or sunbathing with Fiona. Some of the other men make me wish I wore a wetsuit to swim in.

"If you'd taken the cuffs off, I could have gotten dressed for this little jaunt," I snark.

"I like you in cuffs," Mick says in a sensual rumble.

My ovaries sit up and take notice.

Darn it.

Even furious with him, Mick is still my ultimate catnip.

He finally removes the cuffs once the SUV we are traveling in clears the mansion's gates.

Then he hands me my duffle. "You'll be more comfortable in clothing that covers more of your body for the helicopter ride."

"You'll be more comfortable if I don't show so much skin to your men, you mean." But he's right.

As respectful as they are, I don't want to flash my cooch to any of his men.

I dig in the duffle, shocked when I see my box from moma in there.

"You could have used the Ethylene Glycol instead of asking for divorce," he says, like talking about his own murder doesn't bother him at all.

Maybe it doesn't.

I pause in my rummage for clothes to wear. "How long have you known I had it?"

"Since the week after we were married."

"You went through my things?" What am I asking? "Of course you did. You're my stalker."

"I am your husband." His tone reminds me he plans to stay that way.

"The knife and the Ethylene Glycol make sense, but what is the blood pressure medication for?

" He doesn't sound the least bit worried I had what amounts to a deadly poison in my possession the entirety of our marriage.

"It's an unreliable poison and the amount necessary to cause death would show up on a rudimentary tox screen after death. "

"It's not meant to kill, or even maim."

"Then what?"

"If a woman's husband is too demanding in the bedroom, I have it on good authority that the right dose will introduce him to his new friend, Ed."

An arrested expression takes over Mick's features. "Erectile dysfunction?"

"You catch on quick." I grab a pair of underwear and slide them on under the blanket.

"You have never used it on me."

"No, I haven't."

"You didn't use the Ethylene Glycol either."

"No." Then a memory stirs. "You're the reason I couldn't find my box when I first got back from The Marlowe Center."

When I'd finally come across it in the top of my closet behind a storage container of mementos from my years at boarding school, I'd assumed I put it there and forgot.

There were a lot of things I forgot or remembered like they were a dream from the months after Fitz's birth.

"Aye."

"I never even thought about using it. When I took the sleeping pills, I wasn't trying to kill myself. Not consciously. I just wanted the pain to stop, for the chaotic and negative thoughts to be quiet for a while."

We've never talked about this. I never thought we could.

I'm not sure why I feel like now is the right time to do it though.

Mick's jaw clenches. "If you had tried, you would have found it completely ineffective."

"You replaced the Ethylene Glycol with a placebo?" I don't know why that shocks me.

He would not have been willing to risk me killing him.

"Aye. The blood pressure medication too. And the knife is so dull, it'll barely cut butter."

I don't know why, but that makes me laugh when really, nothing should be funny right now. "You're very thorough."

"Always. You kept the box on a high shelf, but one day Fitz might have found it."

"I know." I squirm under the blanket, tugging a pair of leggings up my thighs. "That's why I started locking it in the drawer in my vanity. But Fitz was just a baby when you made the switch."

"I wasn't worried about Fitz when I did it."

"You were worried about me."

"Your emotions became erratic when you started taking the fertility treatments."

He's right. They had. "If there was a negative side effect I didn't experience, I don't know what it is."

"You were too young to be put on those drugs."

"I was an adult."

"If I had known about the increased chance of early death for a woman who gets pregnant as a teenager, I would have insisted on waiting until you were in your twenties." A glimmer of something shows in Mick's eyes.

Not emotion. He doesn't feel that as he's pointed out so clearly tonight. But something.

I shrug. "My grandfather would never have allowed it. Besides, I don't see you going without penetrative sex that long."

"If necessary, I would have, but it wouldn’t have been. You could have gone on birth control."

"That would have really sent seanathair into a tizzy fit." I pull off my nightgown and the blanket slips showing my naked shoulder.

Mick touches my bared skin. "You're so soft. The closest I will ever come to Heaven is touching you."

There's a snarky comment about poetic sociopaths on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it back. There's too much implacable honesty in that statement to mock it.

"If I had known, I would have ended his ability to cause you harm before it happened."

"That sounds a lot like regret for a sociopath."

"Apparently, I am capable of feeling it, though this is the first time in my experience."

Like he felt love for the first time when Fitz was born.

"You weren't obsessed with me back then."

"You are wrong. My addiction started on our wedding night. Why do you think I left you alone in our bed?"

"Because my grandfather called you."

"I lied. He did call, but not until later."

"Then why leave?" I ask with remembered pain at the abandonment.

"I never lost control during sex, but that night I came close. I had given my word that I would not come inside you but if I had stayed with you, I would have broken it."

"You don't break promises." Unless the one he makes the vow to breaks faith with him.

Then, apparently, all bets are off.

"And I don't lose control."

"Except with me." And for me.

He killed my grandfather for hurting me, even if Mick justifies it to himself that it was because seanathair had stolen from him. And he's willing to kill my father in order to keep me.

A normal woman would find that reprehensible.

But it warms something inside me that has been cold for too long.

We are all products of the lives we've lived. Mine hasn't been normal and I refuse to feel bad that the way I think and feel don't necessarily fall on the normal scale either.

And one thing I can't deny, if only to myself: I never said red when he was kidnapping me.