Page 55 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

I also discovered what showed on his face when my husband looked at someone he loved. Because that softness? It only came over his features when he was looking at our son.

Not me.

When we returned to the mansion, Mick's work schedule was brutal and we stopped connecting except in the bedroom.

Again.

I accepted that being his pulse wasn't the same as being his love and did my best to lock my own feelings deep inside me.

Moma told me later that Mick found me on the floor of our bathroom. She'd reiterated her willingness to protect me from him if I needed it. Something about him scared her then.

Now I realize he let his facade slip.

With her bloodthirsty attitude, I don't know how moma held herself back from putting the Ethelyn Glycol in seanathair's Irish whiskey.

I will take my sociopathic husband over my narcissistic grandfather any day of the week.

"What are you thinking about?" Mick asks me. "You've gone silent."

I tell him, omitting the part about preferring his ASPD over seanathair's narcissism. But I'm pretty sure it's implied.

Mick kisses my temple. "I took care of it for her."

"That should bother me, right? That you..." I look around us. No one is close by, but I still say, "Did that to him. Only it makes me feel protected."

"I will always protect you."

"I'm starting to believe you again."

"There will be times you will have to point out that your feelings are at risk from others. I won't always see it."

He sure hadn't with Dierdre and he hadn't listened when I tried to tell him. "Will you hear me? Will you care?"

"Aye. Now that I understand the cost to you of me putting business ahead of your emotional wellbeing, I will not do it."

"Don't go making promises you can't keep, but if you try...if I come first some of the time, that would be good."

"You don't understand, but you will. I will never again risk losing you."

The words send a tendril of warmth through me and there's nothing I can do to stop it from reaching my heart.

When his soldier arrives with our food, he brings a portable table as well and we eat our dinner looking out over the Hudson River. At least I do.

Mick looks at me.

When we finish eating, Mick hands me a pair of no-show socks and my favorite lightweight tennis shoes that cushion my feet like clouds. "Put these on so we can walk."

"They don't exactly go with my dress." But I'm already slipping off my heels and handing them to him.

He gives the Christian Louboutins to one of his soldiers for safekeeping, then offers me his hand.

I take it and we start walking along the park path.

"Why did you stop coming to my office?" Mick's voice breaks the comfortable silence between us.

"You didn't even notice I was there."

His hand tightens around mine. "I bleedin' well noticed when you didn't come anymore."

"Did you miss me?" I ask facetiously, knowing he didn’t.

"Aye."

I stop walking to stare up at him. "You did?"

He nods, his jaw taut.

"Why not tell me? Why not ask me to come?"

"At first, I thought it was because you needed the time to take care of Fitz. He started crawling and he needed space to play."

I nod. Because that had been part of it. But I would have figured out a way to make it work if I thought my husband wanted me there.

"When I was in group therapy one of the other residents at The Marlowe Center asked me what I did while I hung out in your office all day. Like why was I there?"

"None of his feckin' business."

I smile wryly. "That's not how group therapy works. Anyway, I realized I didn't do anything useful. Anything that had to be done in there with you."

"I didn't care."

"I did." I shrug and then change the subject. "I've never understood how you convinced my dad to let you move to Maine with Fitz to be near me."

"I didn’t. He told me no. That you didn't need us there."

"But you came anyway. With your crew."

"Aye."

"That could be seen as betrayal."

"And he could be seen as dead." Knowing now what I do about how Mick's brain works in regard to taking care of me and anyone standing in the way of that, I don't for a second think he's joking.

Worried Mick is going to start dwelling on his desire to kill Brogan for agreeing to the separation, I return to our earlier discussion against my better judgement. "You said at first it was about Fitz."

"Aye. It took me a few months to realize you were actively avoiding coming to my office."

"And that didn't bother you?"

"Oh, aye, it bothered me alright. But I know what I am and I figured you were looking for some freedom from me."

"Is this an ASPD thing, a guy thing, or just a you thing?" I ask, not so facetiously. "Because that doesn't make any sense to me. Why would I want freedom from you?"

"You didn’t have a choice about marrying me or doing it right out of high school."

"Neither of us had a choice. If you didn't marry me, seanathair would have married me off to someone else."

"Aye, I realized that right off."

"And you weren't about to give up the chance to advance in the Shaughnessy Mob like you couldn't in the Northies."

"I wasn't about to let another man get his mitts on you."

"You said I became your addiction on our wedding night."

"That's when I recognized the threat you were to my self-control. From the moment we met, I knew I wasn't going to let any other man bask in your innocence."

"You have a poetic streak, did you know that?"

"I might be a sociopath." He winks. "But I'm an Irish one."

I laugh softly, content to stand there and look up at my handsome husband for the next millenia.

Which is a ridiculous truth, but it is my truth.

"Anyway, I wanted you to have what freedom I could give you."

"That's why you never told me you knew about me pursuing a university degree." He wanted me to feel the freedom of doing something entirely on my own for myself. "You're a pretty special sociopath. I'll give you that, but I would still rather have known you missed me."

"That's when I started watching you on the security feeds."

"And installed cameras in our apartment."

"Aye." He doesn’t look even slightly repentant.

And that at least is not surprising.