“I brought you here this weekend to start a new dynamic with you where I will be your Daddy, and you will be my Little girl. You will submit to me and my rules, as well as my discipline, which you badly need.”

Cassie sprang to her feet. “What the fuck, have you lost your mind?”

Brady stood and walked toward her, grabbing her wrist as she tried to walk out of the living room.

“Cassie, sit down right now before I put you over my lap and give you your first spanking,” he said sharply.

Cassie turned and looked up at him. She wasn’t afraid of Brady, but she could sense he meant what he’d just said. His grip on her wrist was firm but not painful, and the look in his eyes was dark, as though he was ready for whatever she threw at him. Cassie moved toward the couch and sat down again with a huff, Brady holding on to her wrist the entire time.

“Do you want our marriage to work, Cassie? Do you want to be married to me?”

She felt a lump in her throat form as he asked that question. She felt guilty that he would even ask that or assume she didn’t want to be married to him.

“Of course, I do, Brady.”

“If we are going to work, things need to change. You act like a child, and I think it would be beneficial for you to get treated like one. I also think it will create a different type of bond between us,” he told her.

“Brady, don’t be ridiculous. That is crazy. We can work things out. I’ll stop being so cranky with you.”

Her mind was reeling as she tried to figure out where he would get such an insane idea, and if he was just trying to scare her. And for whatever reason, that butterfly feeling was in her tummy again.

“No, Cassie. This is not an option. We’ve had talks before about your bad attitude, and nothing ever changes. It’s time for a serious change. If you want to stay married and be my wife, you will submit to me and do this. You would have a safeword so if you ever felt like you were in danger or needed things to stop, you’d be able to say the word, and everything would stop so we could talk about it and readjust as needed.

“Either you agree to trying this and be my Little girl and submit to my discipline, or we need to go our separate ways. I can’t live like this anymore.”

His voice sounded so broken, and it made her ache. She wouldn’t agree to this crazy idea of his, though. She was a grown woman. And the idea of being spanked by her husband? And calling him Daddy? That was just insane. Right?

“I’m not doing it. No fucking way,” she replied.

Her irritation returned as she realized she’d wasted her whole day coming out here with him for him to give her this ultimatum. Brady was quiet for several minutes. He looked as though he was trying to process what had just happened and what to say next.

“We’ll drive home tomorrow; it’s too late to drive home tonight. I’ll contact an attorney when we get home and move out of the house and stay with my brother or something. Go ahead and sleep in the main bedroom. I’ll take the second bedroom,” he said quietly.

Brady stood, grabbed his suitcase, and walked down the hall. She heard a bedroom door shut softly behind him.

Cassie slumped on the couch as tears began to fall. The love of her life had just told her he was filing for divorce. How had things gotten this bad? Why was she always so horrible to him?

Standing up from the couch, Cassie rolled her suitcase toward the master bedroom. Sitting down on the massive bed, she grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest as she cried quietly.

Hours passed, and Cassie felt numb from the inside out. Replaying their conversation in her head, she realized just how horrible she had been to him the past couple of years. He was right about her acting like a spoiled brat, and her attitude getting worse. The worst part was that she didn’t even know why she acted that way. He had always treated her like a princess, even when she was terrible to him.

She heard Brady walking around the cabin, and then the sound of the fridge door opening and closing. Tiptoeing to the bedroom door, she peeked out to listen to what he was doing. She closed the door quickly when she heard him walking back toward the hall and into the guest room.

Opening the door again, Cassie walked down the hall toward the guest bedroom. She needed to talk to Brady and get him to change his mind. She needed to convince him she wouldn’t act like that anymore.

As she stood in front of the door, Cassie realized she didn’t think she could make that kind of promise. She had no explanation for why she acted the way she did, much less how she would change it. As she turned around to walk back to her room, the door suddenly opened. Brady nearly crashed into her as he walked into the hall.

“Oh, sorry. I… Uh… I was just gonna grab something from the kitchen. Did you need something?” he asked.

He looked like he’d been crying, too, which only broke her heart even more.

“No, I was just going to come talk to you,” she said, not looking him in the eye.

Brady leaned up against the doorframe. “What’s up?”

Cassie didn’t know what to say, so she started rambling.

“Brady, I don’t want to get divorced. I love you, and you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I know I’ve been a bitch lately, and my attitude has been bad, and I will work on changing that. I don’t want us to end.”