Party Lines Read Online Free Page B

her go.
    Lindsay
stood and backed up rapidly, pain and shock still in her tear-brimmed eyes.
    “How
could you?” she asked. “How could   you , when I’ve done nothing to deserve it?”
    They
were both quiet for a moment, Lindsay because she didn’t know what else to say
and Ron because he was genuinely surprised at her reaction. He’d expected
threats of police and lawsuits when he’d let her go. But instead, she’d said
something he’d never figured he’d hear. “How could you when I’ve done nothing
to deserve it.”
    And
then when he looked at her, he knew. And she knew he knew. And it was hard to
say who felt worse.
    Lindsay
leaned against the control panel, quite by accident and the elevator began its
descent once more.
    “Lindsay.”
Ron stepped towards her, wanting suddenly to tell her that she was right, he
had no right. But she looked away with hurt in her eyes, and embarrassment. She
looked so small, so defeated and he wanted to take her and pull her to him and
hold her in his arms. But then the doors opened and she walked out into the
lobby.
    “Lindsay!”
he called again, but she didn’t even look back as she walked out of the
building and into the pouring rain.
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
    Chapter
Three
     
     
     
    Ron
ran after her, and grabbed for the cab door just as she shut it. As the cab
pulled away, Lindsay looked back and his heart twisted again when he saw the
look of pained confusion still etched on her pretty face.
    For
several long minutes he stood in the rain, watching the cab wind through the
street and disappear around the corner.
    Ron
Sharp had always known he was a dominant man. Not just dominant in his approach
to business and life, but also in his personal relationships. And his dominant
streak was more than just the chauvinistic “Me-Tarzan-You-Jane” attitude his
ex-wife had so often accused him of. Ron Sharp was also a confirmed spanker,
not because he liked to hurt women but because he had always thought the answer
to many of the problems plaguing modern relationships could be solved to
upending the female over the male knee.
    Ron
had thought this before he’d given his wife the spanking that had – at
least temporarily – put their marriage back on track. He’d thought it
before he’d even gotten married. Hell, he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t
thought that.
    It
was an odd inclination, he knew, and not something he touted not even in
conservative circles unless it was done in a joking manner. As much as he’d
like to think real old-fashioned values existed, he knew that few men these
days thought like he did, and fewer women.
    A
woman who would acquiesce to a genuine disciplinary spanking were few and far between. In fact, he’d given up finding one since his wife had left
him. After their initial spanking, there had been others. The most memorable
was one he’d given her had been after she’d gone out one night with friends and
neglected to call home to tell him where she was.
    Despite
being a dominant husband, during his marriage Ron wasn’t particularly
officious. In fact, he had relatively few rules in his household. But what
rules he had he expected Tina to obey. And one of the top rules was that –
because they had a child – when a spouse was out they were required to be
accessible by phone, and to leave an itinerary.
    Ron
had understood why his wife had wanted to get away, unfettered, for a girl’s
night out. He was not a jealous man by any stretch of the imagination and had
never called to check up on her. But when Brian began to run a fever he felt
concerned enough to let Tina know what was going on. An hour of calls later –
to her phone, to her friend Megan’s phone, to the restaurant where Tina had
told them they’d be going – he was worried and more than a little bit
angry. What if Brian got worse? Sure, he was more than capable of handling his
son’s fever, but as it got higher he continued to try and reach her