Rules for a Happy Life
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Chapter One
Rule No. 1: Thou shalt address thy husband as “Sir.”
Actually, he sprung this one on me the night he proposed, so it may as well have been, “address your fiancé as ‘Sir.’” After a charming and romantic proposal, he couldn’t have surprised me more if he’d have pulled out a gun and put it to my head.
“What?” I squeaked, my mouth dry and my face blushing to match my fancy red cocktail dress. I immediately looked around to see if any of the nearby tables in the elegant restaurant had heard his ridiculous statement.
“What, Sir,” he corrected calmly, his gentle eyes gazing into mine with such open love that it put me off balance.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Troy took my hand in his and used his thumb to massage the precious diamond he’d placed there only moments before. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
It didn’t, and he wasn’t.
He let go of my hand and stared at me in surprise. “Jenny, of course I expect you to vow to obey me. Just as I will vow to cherish, honor, and protect you. You already do a good job of obeying me, why would you take issue with it now?”
Do a good job of obeying him? I gulped down almost my entire glass of wine, stopping only when Troy gently took hold of the glass and placed it on the table, just out of my reach. “You know,” I said, with more than a hint of sauciness in my voice, “I do not do a good job of obeying you. If I happen to take your advice once in awhile, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to go around doing your bidding like a little puppy dog.”
I stared forlornly at the ring on my finger. It was a gorgeous princess diamond, and it would be extraordinarily difficult to remove it from my finger. All I wanted was a wedding in a big church wearing a pretty white wedding dress marrying a guy who could afford a nice house with a pretty picket fence. Troy’s mini-mansion was merely a bonus.
“In fact, I’d sooner obey a puppy dog than obey you.”
The look he gave me, I thought he was going to snatch the ring clear off my finger. I didn’t want him to take it, though. I wanted to throw it in his face, but then I didn’t really want to let go of it at all. I’d like to say I’m not a materialistic freak, but what girl doesn’t love a diamond?
“Sir,” I tested, just to see if I could say it. I nearly choked up the yummy piece of filet mignon that had just melted on my tongue.
Troy suddenly looked like a proud rooster strutting around a farm. Even in his business suit. “That’s not so bad, is it?”
I tried to tell him otherwise, but I was choking. He didn’t seem to notice. I coughed and reached for the bottle of wine, filling my glass again and gulping it down—not just to wash away the offending piece of meat.
“This is some joke, right?”
He leaned forward. Unfortunately, he didn’t whisper, but he did talk low enough that I could hope the nearby tables couldn’t hear. “I can take you out to the car right now, and we’ll sit in the back and have a good discussion about me not joking. I’ll bare your little bottom, and you can finally get the answer to your question of why I always keep a hairbrush in my vehicle.”
I blushed hard. So hard that I felt my face was going to burst from the pressure. I looked over to the neighboring table and a pretty young woman in a black dress and a diamond choker around her neck pointed to my finger and then smiled and gave me the thumbs up. She had clapped when I’d put the ring on my finger after the proposal, which had sent up a round of clapping around the restaurant.
If only she knew.
I looked at Troy’s hands and tried not to imagine them on my bottom. He’d done that a lot lately, come to think of it—rub my bottom in slow, lazy circles until I fell asleep. It was soothing, and at first I had resisted because it made me feel a bit too little-girlish, but the comforting massage had won out.
Now I wasn’t sure if I wanted my bare bottom anywhere within ten feet of this man.
“In fact,” he said …
“I guess that’s more of a promise than a rule, huh?” Troy clinked his glass with mine, as if I should be excited about that promise.
“Spanked?” I squeaked, guzzling down my third glass of wine that night to stop choking on yet another piece of filet mignon. I was beginning to hate my beloved filet mignon.
“It’s not like I haven’t spanked you before.” He winked a blue eye at me that set off his beach-blond hair. He had the tan to go with it, too. “Or taken you to task, when necessary.”
“Yeah,” I hissed, growing more concerned by the minute at the close proximity of the other tables to ours. Ignoring the latter comment, I countered, “But I was drunk and so were you, and we were just having some kinky sex.”
“Oh,” he said with a loving grin. “I had more of a spanking in mind than kinky sex. I expect you’ll shed a few tears every Friday night.”
I looked at him in astonishment, my jaw working to find some words to express my disbelief. “But why … why in the world would I ever, ever,” I repeated, “consent to that?”
And what planet are you from? twisted the ring on my finger, a bit horrified (and slightly relieved, if I’m to be honest) that I couldn’t get it off.
He grinned at me. “For the security of it.”
“Have you gone bonkers?” I asked a bit too shrill, because a few diners turned their heads to glance over at our table. “Have you gone bonkers?” I asked again, this time in a whisper.
“It’s Friday tonight, isn’t it?”
I just stared at him, open-mouthed.
“I think we should start tonight.”
