Page 37 of I Almost Do

Why was it different when I planned my trip to Los Angeles? Because I was in control. It meant I could turn around and come back the moment she needed me. It meant if it was too hard to live without her, I could change my mind.

What a dick.

“If it’s just that you want to move out, we can find an apartment nearby. My penthouse in Manhattan—”

She shakes her head. “My mind is made up. I’m going to PA.”

“You’re my wife. We should live together.”

The look she gives me is pure, sardonic disbelief. “You were planning to go to the other side of the country for a month at a time. We’re not sleeping together. You’ll barely notice I’m gone.”

She can’t possibly believe that’s true. “You can’t go.” It’s sheer gut instinct to say those words. They rip out of me against my will.

A hint of irritation seeps into her voice. “I am. You’re the one who told me I should have gone in the first place.”

“You expect me to write the check for this?”

She looks confused, as if it truly never occurred to her that I might withhold it from her. “That money is for my education. I get to choose where I get my education.”

When I say nothing in response, her mouth falls open. “Just because I always did what Dad wanted doesn’t mean he’d have kept me a prisoner here against my will.”

I’d thought my adrenaline was at peak level before. But that word, it lands a solid blow. I’ve heard it before—my mother begging, “I’m a prisoner in this house. Let us go. Please. Please let us go.”

I choke on my words. “I’ve never tried to keep you from doing anything or going anywhere.”

“Except for the one place I said I want to go,” she says gently.

She’s right. I can’t ask her to stay. But how can I protect her from… what? Four hours away? Five?

She’s only twenty years old. I’m twenty-nine. Those nine years will be nothing when she’s twenty-five. But right now, the gap in life experience between us is almost criminal. Not just because of the actual years but because she’s done next to nothing. Clarissa has been a princess in her third-floor tower.

She wants to experience what most young women experience. She wants freedom and the right to choose her own path. I’d be a controlling monster to hold her back from that.

I did this to both of us when I told her I was leaving. I thought I’d control the situation, maintain emotional distance while also knowing she was right here waiting for me.

Now she’s flipping the script. She’s taking control of her own life and choices. I recognize that fact with grudging admiration.

I remember her demands on our wedding night. The way she wanted to know if I’d been having sex when I was twenty. Is my refusal leaving her frustrated and wanting to find someone else?

Maybe we should sleep together. If I tell her I changed my mind—that I want a normal marriage with her right now—I know she’d stay.

It would keep her here, safe and away from other guys—but that’s exactly my reason for not sleeping with her in the first place. It would be too easy to control her.

I’m already obsessed with her.

The thought of hurting her like that makes me sick. If she goes and screws around with college guys, that isn’t the same thing as me manipulating her with money and sex.

But thinking of her out there, surrounded by college guys, the most intense jealousy I’ve ever experienced in my life is clawing through me.

“Will you pretend you aren’t married when you’re gone? Hook up with frat boys and football players?” My movements are jerky, my words stiff as I move to the mantle of her fireplace.

She makes a sound of frustration. When I turn to look at her, she rolls her eyes at me.

“Will you?” I insist, and before I realize I’ve moved, I’m close enough that her breasts skim my chest.

She doesn’t back away. Instead, she pushes closer to me. Her skin pebbles beneath her black tank top, nipples perking. And I’m a bad, bad man. Because I like that a hell of a lot.

Those captivating eyes of hers stare up at me intently. She brings her thumb up to rub back and forth across her plump lower lip.

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