Читать книгу Control - Kayla Perrin, Kayla Perrin - Страница 11

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.

The guest had turned, and now I could see his face. He wasn’t the man I’d been fantasizing about.

As Cindy walked away, I brought my wineglass to my lips and sipped. But the wine didn’t wash away my discontent.

I tried to push the sexy stranger out of my mind as we enjoyed our dinner. Tonight was about getting Robert to agree to my trip with Sharon.

By the end of the meal, two glasses of cognac had had their effect on Robert. His business problems forgotten, he was smiling and laughing and telling me stories about the early days of his company.

It was the perfect time for me to ask him about my trip.

“Darling.” I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine. “There’s something I want to talk about.”

Robert swirled the dregs of cognac in his glass. “Yes?”

“You know Sharon’s been having a hard time ever since…ever since Warren’s death.”

Sharon was one of the first women I’d met in the neighborhood after marrying Robert. A stunning, dark-skinned beauty, she could have easily passed for a high-fashion model. I’d been pleasantly surprised to find her completely down-to-earth. She was a couple years older than me, and had married Warren the month after their college graduation. Warren had gone on to start an Internet business, which he’d sold for millions and millions before the dot-com bust. He took part of that profit and began a telecommunications company, which was also a huge success.

Like Robert, Warren had been a self-made millionaire. But the difference between Sharon and Warren’s relationship and mine and Robert’s was that they’d met and fallen in love before either of them had any money. And from everything Sharon had told me, Warren always treated her as an equal in their marriage.

“Yes, of course. Such a tragedy.”

That was an understatement. The one thing that had kept them from being one hundred percent content was their inability to have a baby. Sharon had been pregnant six times, but miscarried each one. For a few years she’d gone on the Pill, giving up her dream altogether. Then they’d decided to try again. Six months after going off the Pill, she miraculously got pregnant.

And then she’d lost her husband.

“Understandably, Sharon is feeling glum. Oh, she’s putting on a brave face. She’s been incredibly strong since losing Warren.” I knew she was trying to be extra strong, not wanting anything to cause her to miscarry again. “But she could use a change of scenery. And who could blame her?”

I paused. Swallowed. Asking my husband if I could go away with a friend for a weekend shouldn’t have given me such anxiety, but it did.

“She wants to go away?” Robert asked.

“Just for the weekend,” I quickly said. “Probably drive down to Charleston, or Myrtle Beach. You know. To get her out of that big, empty house.”

“And she wants you to go with her,” Robert stated.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“This weekend. Tomorrow until Sunday.”

“So you’ve already planned it,” Robert said.

“No.” I tried to sound casual. “Nothing is planned. I told her I would run it by you first, but that as far as I know we have no plans, so hopefully…”

“I think Charleston would be the best option,” Robert said. “I don’t think a pregnant woman has any business at Myrtle Beach. There are too many horny college kids there. It’s not a good scene.”

My anxiety ebbed away. I tried to mask my surprise when I met Robert’s eyes. “So, you don’t mind that I go with her?”

As Robert sipped the last of his cognac, I wondered if it had magical powers. For the price, it certainly should. And in this case, if it had put him in such a good mood that he was offering no objections, it was well worth the money.

“Why would I mind?” he asked. “I’m sure you’ve been bored all week. I’ve been working more than usual. And you’re Sharon’s closest friend here. Of course she would want to go with you.”

I felt a smile break out on my face. “Thank you, Robert. She’ll be very happy.”

“What about the shop?” he asked. “It’s not a busy weekend?”

“Not particularly. Spike can handle all orders, and Tabitha is always asking for more hours. I’m sure between her, Maxine and Olivia, the store will be appropriately staffed.”

“Sounds like it’s all set. You should stay at that wonderful bed-and-breakfast where we went the last time we were there.”

“The Barksdale House Inn. I’ll call them to see if they’ve got room.”

“Very good, then.”

My lips curled in a soft smile as I stared at Robert. This was the man I’d fallen in love with—the kind and considerate man.

My doubts about our marriage seemed to float away.

Robert had his flaws, sure.

But no one was perfect.