Control

“I’d love to go away,” I told her. “I can get Spike to run things for a couple of days.” Spike was my righthand man at the store, and I didn’t anticipate any problems with him heading up operations for Friday and Saturday. My shop was closed on Sundays. The only issue would be Robert, and whether or not he would have a problem with me going away.

That was another thing that bothered me about my husband on occasion: as much as he had his own life and traveled a lot on his own, he didn’t like me to travel without him. He didn’t outright tell me I couldn’t go somewhere, but when I returned he would complain incessantly about how much he’d missed me, how the house hadn’t been the same without me, how there was an event in Charlotte he would have liked to have taken me to—if only I’d been home. It used to drive me crazy.

I learned to seek Robert’s approval first, and not just tell him I was planning to go somewhere with a friend. More times than not he would find some reason to object to my plans. And more times than not, I ended up staying home because I didn’t want to disappoint him.

But this weekend Sharon wasn’t the only one who could use some time away.

“If you can, that’d be great,” she said, sounding better already. “I need a change of scenery, you know?”

“Of course you do. Robert’s been in the office all week, but I’ll run it by him tonight. I know a great place in Charleston we can stay, this quaint bed-and-breakfast where he and I stayed the last time we were there.”

“I’ll wait to hear back from you.”

As I hung up, I mentally prepared myself for broaching the subject with Robert. I’d take him to the club tonight, where we would have a nice dinner and he could unwind. If I could get him to relax and be happy, then he’d be more likely to say yes to me going away.

I climbed out of bed and headed for the shower, a niggling thought bothering me.

That I was Robert’s wife, not his child—and I shouldn’t have to get his permission to take a short trip with a friend.

Chapter Five

I called Robert at lunchtime and told him I’d made reservations at the club for seven. “You’ve been working hard all week and I’ve hardly seen you. I’d love to have a nice dinner with you tonight.”

“That’s a great idea, Elsie. Thank you.”

Robert looked harried when he arrived at home, but once we were seated in The Peninsula Club’s dining room, I could see the stress begin to fade from his face.

Good. The better his mood, the more likely he would be favorable to what I was going to suggest.

Everyone knew us here, and shortly after we were seated, Robert’s usual glass of Remy Martin Louis XIII was brought over—an outrageously priced cognac considered to be one of the best in the world. There was also a glass of Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir for me—much more reasonably priced by comparison. This is how we always started our order, so the staff knew there would be no complaints.

Robert took a sip of his very pricey drink, and I could almost see more of his stress dissipate. He felt comfortable here, his home away from home. Perhaps also because—unlike The Melting Pot—it was full of people he could relate to: rich older men with wives who knew their place.

Wives who didn’t want to lose, by way of a nasty divorce, the luxuries they’d become accustomed to. I saw some in the dining room who I believed should have left their marriages ages ago. Ruthie Davenport. Agnes Long. They were older, in their sixties, but it was long rumored that their husbands had had affairs with several younger women. Ruthie’s husband apparently had gotten not one, but two mistresses knocked up.

Felicity Williams was in her early thirties, and her husband was a philandering pro athlete. They’d been college sweethearts, and the word was that she wasn’t going to let some “skank-ass ho” steal her man.

There were even a couple rumors of physical abuse. But through it all, those wives had stayed.

I had always pitied the wives of such husbands. And I’d never seen Robert as a man who would abuse his wife either emotionally or physically. And yet here I was, a little fearful of asking if he would be okay if I went out of town with a dear friend for a few days.

How had our marriage gotten to this point? For the first couple of years, I never would have been afraid to ask Robert anything. He had been thoughtful and patient—at least with me. I’d heard him argue with his ex-wives on occasion, and had always thought it odd that he could be so cruel with them, yet loving with me. Once, when wife number two was dropping off their teenage daughter, she’d murmured, “Enjoy Robert while he’s nice. Because once he turns…”

She hadn’t finished her statement, but I’d dismissed her warning as a comment from a bitter ex-wife.

Now, as I looked around the busy dining room, I couldn’t help wondering if anyone there pitied me? The wait staff? The managers? The other wives? Had any of them seen something in my marriage that I had missed?

Robert smiled brightly and waved at someone across the room. He was charming and pleasant. Definitely likable. Successful.

Though I’d been having some doubts about my marriage over the last several months, I now found myself flip-flopping. Robert’s irritability, and his occasional rude behavior, such as he displayed at The Melting Pot—they had to be effects of getting older. Either emotional or physical—or both.

Approaching seventy, he could no longer ignore his mortality. And maybe there were changes in a man’s body that made him more irritable as he hit a certain age. If there was some physiological reason for Robert’s behavior, how could I hold it against him?

And there were so many happy memories from early in our marriage that I clung to.

Like the time we were in Paris, and I was in the hotel suite alone while Robert was at a business meeting. There was a knock on the door and I’d opened it to find Room Service delivering a cart with three trays on it. The waiter wheeled the cart into the room and lifted the silver lids to reveal fresh fruit slices and chocolate fondue.

I’d assumed Robert had simply sent the fruit to the room as a treat for me—but the real surprise came when he suddenly appeared in the doorway as the waiter was leaving.

Robert had ordered the fondue platter not so much for the fruit, but for me. For my body. He put the chocolate on my nipples, licked it off slowly. He put it on my ass, then ate it off with his tongue and his teeth. And he made me come—over and over—when he’d licked chocolate off my clit with tender, hot strokes…

“Cindy,” Robert was saying warmly.

At the sound of his voice, I was jerked from my memory. I glanced upward at Cindy, a waitress we knew well. He greeted her by squeezing her hand. “How are you?”

“Better now that you’re here.”

A flirtatious comment? Perhaps, but I didn’t take it seriously—and I certainly would never get mad at Robert for it. Unlike how he had treated Alexander.

Robert chuckled. He proceeded to joke with Cindy and make conversation about her studies. She was putting herself through UNC, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and one day hoped to become a lawyer.

Cindy smiled as she answered his questions—and yet I would never consider her anything other than professional. She was being nice to a customer. The same thing the waiter at the other restaurant had been doing.

Cindy or any of the waitresses here could easily have designs on some of the rich regulars at the club. And they’d be in a far better position to try and undermine a marriage than a waiter we were likely to see only once in our lives.

Forget what happened at The Melting Pot, I told myself.

But the hypocrisy bothered me—even if I could forgive Robert’s behavior.

I glanced around as he continued to chat with Cindy. And when my eyes landed on a pair of wide shoulders beneath a black blazer, my heart pounded in my chest.

The shoulders…that golden-brown skin…the shaved head.

Oh, my God. Was it him?

My pussy began to throb.

“Elsie,” Robert said urgently.

I jerked my eyes back to his. “Sorry.”

“Cindy wants to know if you’re having the steak.”

“Yes. Yes, the steak is fine.”

My eyes ventured across the dining room again. Disappointment came crashing in.

It wasn’t him. Lord, it wasn’t him.