Control. Kayla Perrin

I got in trouble more than once for picking tulips and roses from a neighbor’s garden.

      Meeting and marrying Robert had enabled me to open Distinct Creations, a shop in downtown Cornelius, just north of Charlotte.

      We had a beautiful house, luxury cars, lots of money in the bank. We’d traveled on yachts, and to exotic and exclusive places all over the world.

      And yet something was missing.

      I hadn’t given a second thought to what it would mean to marry a considerably older and powerful man, or that anything would ever go wrong. Yet the fact that he’d been married and divorced twice was testament to the fact that money and security didn’t guarantee a lasting marriage.

      No matter what happened, I would always be grateful to Robert for the life he had given me. But I couldn’t deny the reality that we didn’t seem to be on the same page anymore. There were times I wondered if we were even in the same book.

      It wasn’t about his age. I loved my husband the day I married him, and I still loved him now. And yet there had to be some reason I was so vividly making love to a stranger in my mind.

      Maybe it was because the passion with Robert had undeniably faded.

      I’d married him for better or for worse. I’d known that “worse” would be the age issue—and I had never expected that we would be able to fuck like bunnies. That kind of passion hadn’t mattered to me then, and it didn’t now.

      It was the intimacy I craved most.

      I almost wouldn’t mind if Robert chewed guys out for staring at me, if he followed up that proprietary attitude with some genuine attention. Some romance and affection.

      Something that showed he viewed me as more than a possession.

      I wanted Robert to hold me and kiss me, even if he couldn’t make love to me. I wanted him to assure me that he wanted a baby as much as I did, even if it meant adopting. He never said those words, and there were times I got the feeling that he didn’t care at all if we had one.

      It was one of the things that made me wonder if we were on the same page—and with that thought came the question as to whether or not there would be a happily ever after for us, after all.

      Don’t think it, Elsie, I said to myself as I stared at the ceiling. You did not get married to get divorced. You married Robert because he was the first man who made you feel that he could give you the emotional stability you needed.

      He wasn’t a man interested only in hot sex. I’d had hot sex with the younger men I’d dated, but had always felt cold in those relationships. Probably because sex was the first thing—and seemingly most important thing—they wanted from me. Being seen as desirable should have made me feel confident, but instead it brought out my insecurity.

      Because it reminded me of my childhood with my mother.

      My mom had treated sex like a sport, breaking my father’s heart over and over again as she engaged in meaningless rendezvous with man after man. As a young child, I didn’t understand what was going on. I would overhear heated arguments between my parents and know that something was wrong. And there were days I would come home from school to find my mother gone, and my dad crying. Even the bouquets I made for him didn’t help to cheer him up.

      As I got older I understood what caused most of their marital conflicts. In the bits I overheard, my mother always claimed the other men meant nothing to her, that for her sex didn’t mean love.

      I don’t know why my father stayed with her. Much later, I began to suspect there was some emotional issue about my mother he understood that I did not. But I always felt for him, was brokenhearted for him.

      I was fourteen when my father asked one day how I would feel about going with him to Texas for a long visit, just me and him. He had a sister there. I had been elated by the idea. It was a chance to get away, escape my parents’ arguments for a while.

      Two days later, my mother hurriedly made me pack some things while my dad was at work. She ushered me into the cab of a Mack truck between her and some guy I didn’t know, and suddenly we were off to God only knew where.

      The trucker, as it turned out, was my mother’s boyfriend. He took us to Philadelphia, where we moved into his small apartment. They fought, too, but I heard them screwing every night in the bedroom next to me.

      I was devastated at the way I’d been uprooted. And knew I would never be able to forgive my mother for leaving my father behind.

      I had always known that I didn’t want sex to be the first priority in any relationship of mine, no doubt because of my mother, and that’s why I’d grown wary of men my own age. Robert was older, far more mature than any of the men I had dated, and genuinely seemed to want to make an emotional connection with me first, instead of a sexual one.

      It hadn’t taken me long to realize I could have emotional security with him—something I desperately wanted after my parents’ fucked-up marriage…

      My bedside phone rang, startling me from my thoughts. I rolled over to my night table and plucked the cordless handset off its base. “Hello?”

      “Morning, Elsie. I hope it’s not too early to call.”

      “Sharon.” My spirits lifted. Her call was the distraction I needed. “No, it’s not too early. How are you?”

      “So-so. I’ve been mostly up. I really have. But last night I was way down.”

      “Oh, sweetie.”

      “It gets to me sometimes, being in this big empty house.”

      “Of course it does.”

      “Maybe I need to get out and volunteer. Do something so that I’m not home alone so much.”

      “You know your doctor said you’ll have to take it easy for this pregnancy. You don’t want anything to jeopardize carrying your baby to term.”

      Two months ago, Sharon’s husband had been tragically killed in a plane crash on his way back from a business trip. As if that wasn’t devastating enough, Sharon had just learned she was pregnant. She’d been able to share the thrilling news with Warren over the phone, and had been looking forward to celebrating with him upon his return. Only his company’s private plane had gone down shortly after takeoff in Virginia, killing all on board, including three members of the firm’s executive team.

      “I know…and I want this baby more than anything. Warren and I both did. I keep trying to look on the bright side. I’m financially set and I don’t have to travel to a job every day, which means I can take it nice and easy and make sure to carry this baby to term. I’ll be able to hire a nanny, which will be great—as much for the company as for the help. But the truth is…the truth is I keep thinking about what a wonderful father he would have been, and how much he wanted this baby. I miss him so much, Elsie. I can’t believe I’m finally pregnant and he’s not here…”

      Sharon was one of my closest friends, and she sounded as if she was about to fall apart. “You want me to swing by your place on my way to work?”

      “No. No, I’ll be fine. But I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind getting away this weekend. If Robert can spare you, will you go to South Carolina with me? We could drive to Charleston, or Myrtle Beach. Stay from Friday to Sunday. It’s not quite bikini weather yet, but I might put one on anyway—before my stomach gets too big.” Sharon laughed, but the sound morphed into a whimper.

      “Shh,” I soothed. It broke my heart what she was going through. She had mentioned being financially set, but all the money in the world couldn’t ease a loss like this. “Maybe I should stop by.”

      “No…you have to go to work. I just want you to give me something to look forward to. But if you can’t because of the shop, I’ll understand.”

      “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