From Broken Trust To Unbound Love

Flora STARED BLANKLY at the glass of red wine in front of her. Her heart hammered in her rib cage. She could feel her chest tightening; an awful tension building between her sternum and stomach.

She was dreaming. She had to be. There was no way this was actually happening.

No.

Fucking.

Way.

Not to her.

"I've been wanting to tell you for so long," Richard almost pleaded. "But I didn't want anything to interfere with your work. That's why I waited until after you made partner."

Did he really think he was justifying this shit?!

Flora cut her eyes at her husband; her wonderful, loving, devoted husband of twelve years. He was playing her. He had to be. His eyes, so dark and velvety brown they looked black, reflected very real regret and pain. His thick, black brows were drawn in concern.

He reached out and took one of her hands in his. "Flora, say something please," he said, kneading her stiff digits.

Flora noticed her stomach moving in and out. It clenched painfully. She snatched her hand away from her husband, jumped to her feet and backed away. No. No. No. She had to stop him; to stop this. It wasn't part of her plan; their plan. "This is a joke, right?" she asked shakily. Her eyes were wild and manic. She smiled. A smile made everything okay. It did. It had to.

Richard stood. His lips were whitish-pink in their pinch; his brows furrowed, deep lines between them. Worry and fear were the smell of his cologne.

Oh god, this was real. Flora wrapped her arms tightly around herself to keep her insides from spilling out. "Please tell me you're joking. You have to be joking. You have to be," she begged. "Please tell me it's not true Richard . Please," she implored.

Richard watched her. He shook his head slowly.

Flora felt the rumbling; the tingling of a sob from the bottom of her feet. It was a full roar by the time it reached her mid-section. She dry retched, sick to her stomach. Hot tears burned a trail down her face, dripping onto her shirt like pellets of a sudden rainstorm.

Richard stepped forward to wrap her in his arms.

"Noooooo!!" Flora howled, her cry a sudden blast of rage.

Richard landed against a wall, the thud making her realize that somehow she had moved him. Was it the sheer force of her fury or had she actually made contact with his body? She couldn't remember.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed.

Richard caught himself on the arm of the couch as he bounced off the wall, trying not to fall onto the large, glass coffee table in front of the leather couch in their living room. "What the hell?!" he snapped, looking back at a wine glass that crashed against the wall where his head had been a second ago.

"How dare you! How dare you fucking do this to me!" Flora thundered, her body trembling from head to toe.

"Flora, wait, let me-"

"I will let you do nothing. Ever again!" she screamed, spit dripping down her chin as she advanced on him.

Richard backed away, the look in her eyes told him this wasn't his Flora.

Backed into the same wall she'd pushed him into seconds ago, Flora brought her hand up and landed a slap to her husband's left cheek, the sharp sound like a gun at the start of a race. She took off – balling her fists up and hitting him as hard she could as fast as she could, as if she was in a race to get in as many punches as she could before some timing device expired.

"Flora stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!" Richard said, grabbing her hands.

He twisted her around, held her hands crossed in front of her, and felt her heaving as she lay back against his chest.

Flora kicked and fought as if her life depended on it.

Richard grunted and steadied himself against the wall, holding his wife until she exhausted herself.

"You did this. Look at what you did to me," Flora sobbed, her body going limp.

"Baby I'm sorry," Richard said, loosening his hold on her. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Against all reason, Flora turned to him and sobbed in the circle of his arms. It had always been where she found comfort whenever things went wrong.

She cried for everything that had been ... and everything that could no longer be.

"HOW YOU HOLDING UP?" Stuart asked.

"It hasn't been an easy few weeks, but I'm fine," Carrington said, swiveling the leather chair that had belonged to his father around with one hand. He could still smell his ole man in the office; in the leather of the chair.

"This is all yours now," Stuart said, his arms outstretched in the spacious corner office that had belonged to the premier founder of Shelby, Long, Anderson, and Wasserman; affectionately known as SLAW by all of its associates. Although competitors made fun of the acronym "SLAW," nobody laughed at the results they got for its clients. The attorneys were top-notch, and they covered every niche – from immigration, to corporate and environmental law. Flora was a corporate attorney, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. She'd chosen it because it paid well, and she was good at it. A natural stickler for detail, it served her well in her profession.

"Will you be taking an active role at the firm, maybe go back to practicing? I know nothing would have pleased your father more."

"I won't go back to practicing, but I will join the board; take father's place because it's what he wanted."

"That's true. A Shelby has sat on the board of directors since SLAW was founded. At least that tradition will never change. I know your father is looking down, proud of you."

"I'm afraid that tradition is in jeopardy. Alexandria has no interest in the law, and I wouldn't want her to sit on the board out of some morbid sense of duty to me. Even father wouldn't want that. He'd want his only grandchild to pursue her dreams."

"That he would. He doted on his granddaughter – and his only son," Stuart smiled, looking up at Carrington from the bush of his wise brows. "But the tradition doesn't have to die. You're still a young man. You have time to produce an heir who would be interested in taking over this firm one day."

Carrington laughed. "Stuart, the way you talk, I think you still think of me as the little boy scrambling in and out of father's lap. I'm forty-two – beyond the age where I care to have another child, especially as the only one I have is, thankfully, grown and desperately independent," he smiled, thinking of his daughter. She was a lot like her grandfather. Fiercely independent, but steadfastly loyal.

"I remember Jeb telling me about the day you told him your girlfriend was pregnant. I thought he was going to have a stroke right then and there," Stuart said, slapping his knee as he laughed at the memory of a teen-aged Carrington and his teen-aged pregnant girlfriend.

Carrington winced, recalling that day only too well. Now he could make light of it, but almost twenty-five years ago, it had been none too funny. "That is the very reason I only have one child. He made sure that I shouldered full responsibility from day one; threatened to disown me if I didn't do right by my child and her mother."

"And he meant it too! He had an alternate will drawn up. It cut you out completely."

"I never knew that," Carrington said.

"It's because the entire time he was ordering me to draft it, I was trying to talk him out of it. I knew he didn't mean it. He was just angry and disappointed, especially when you refused to marry Alexandria 's mother."

"We were both too young," Carrington said. "It never would have lasted. Even at eighteen, I knew that. I think father realized it too as time went on."

"I know he did. Just dictating the will did away with a lot of his anger, but the disappointment remained – until the day his granddaughter was born. Then he forgot all about you being a teen-aged father. He forgot that you refused to marry her mother. He forgot everything but Alexandria 's smile. She had him wrapped around her little finger from day one."

"And it lasted until the day he died. Lucky for me," Carrington said, sighing as he remembered the watery smile on his father's face at his only grandchild's birth. "But he didn't forget to make me live up to my responsibility. I had to work a full-time job, go to school and be involved as a father. He cut me no slack."

"Because he knew that if he started cleaning up your messes at eighteen, he'd likely be cleaning them up for the rest of your life. You meant everything to him Carrington, and he wanted you to live up to your potential; not like some of your spoiled compatriots whose parents bailed them out of every scrape they got in. Look at you now compared to a good number of them. Lazy layabouts. In and out of drug rehab. Sucking on the tit of their parent's money. Your father worked for everything he had. It would have been a disservice to his father – and all those who came before him – if he had cut you any slack, especially when you became a father so young.""I know. We had many conversations about it. But as a lad of eighteen, of course I didn't see it quite that way," he chuckled. "There was a time I was pretty sure he hated me."

Stuart, his father's long-time friend and attorney, chuckled. "Of course you thought he was a crotchety old bastard who just wanted to make your life a living hell. And for a time, I'm sure he did; to make sure you got the message that children are a responsibility and just because you come from wealth, it was no excuse for you to breed without taking responsibility ... Maybe that's why you don't want more children. You're enjoying the freedom you didn't have as a young man."

"Never gave it much thought, but that makes sense. I think of it more along the lines of Alexandria 's perfection. She broke the mold; no need for another child," he chuckled.

"She is something – beautiful and smart. Jeb was as proud of her as he was of you. He didn't even care that she didn't want to be a lawyer."

"I think he felt guilty for pushing me into it."

"He just wanted what was best for you."

"I know, and that's why I followed his wishes and went to law school. It wasn't because he pushed me into it. I knew it was a way to provide for myself and my daughter. After all, a good lawyer can always make a living, right?"

"I think he felt guilty for pushing me into it."

"He just wanted what was best for you."

"I know, and that's why I followed his wishes and went to law school. It wasn't because he pushed me into it. I knew it was a way to provide for myself and my daughter. After all, a good lawyer can always make a living, right?"

"That's been my experience," Stuart said. "Especially when the name Shelby is attached. ... So no more children, huh? But what about a wife? Why haven't you settled down? A man of your age should be ready to settle down."

"You are a nosy ole coot Stuart."

"I am. But as your godfather – and your attorney – I would be derelict in my duties if I wasn't," the old man smiled.

"I was wondering when you were going to pull the godfather card."

"Well now it's pulled. So when are you going to get married? Now that Jeb and your mother are gone -" Stuart said, letting the sentiment trail off. He missed his friend; they'd been more than business associates. They'd been a part of each other's lives since they were in college. Jeb, Carrington's father, had been friends with him and his wife, Rita, for over five decades. As young couples, before Carrington's mother's death, the four of them had been best friends.

"I know," Carrington said, as the acceptance of loss settled in. He knew Stuart almost as well as he knew his own father. Other than he and Alexandria , he was sure no one felt his father's loss as deeply.

"I never felt the need to get married," Carrington said in answer to Stuart's question. "Besides, my lifestyle is not exactly conducive to it, especially now that father's passing has added more to my plate. I'm never in one place for long, and I quite enjoy that. Most women want to nest – get married, have children. I'll just have to leave that to fine men like you," he smiled as he patted the old man on the back. This had been an ongoing conversation over the last few years between him and his father. And now, apparently, between him and his godfather.

"Hmmm ... I see your dilemma,' Stuart pondered as he rubbed his whiskery chin. "You are at the age where the women you spend time with are ticking time bombs of impending motherhood. But the world can be a very lonely place Carrington, and there's nothing like the love of a good woman to come home to. To be honest, I don't remember what it's like not to be married. I married Rita when I was barely out of my teens, right around the time Jeb married your mother. He grieved her til the day he died."

"Father never hid the fact that she was the only woman for him. I remember a woman or two here and there, but really, he married his work after mother's death from what I remember."

"You remember correctly. And the few women you remember were probably very nice ladies that my wife introduced him to. But he never took to one because he never got over Margy, and for a good reason. She was quite the woman. Irreplaceable – like my Rita. Marrying her was the smartest thing I ever did. That could be another reason you don't want to have another child – you haven't met the right woman yet. What about the one you brought to Thanksgiving? She's a looker. Classy, and it was obvious to anybody with eyes that she was two sheets to the wind smitten with you."

"I'm afraid we decided to part ways," Carrington grimaced, thinking that 'we decided' was a polite way of putting it.

"Already?" Stuart asked.

"Yes," Carrington said, refusing to expound.

"You're as stubborn as a mule; just like your father."

"Having a child at eighteen gets you crystal clear about what you want in life. After Alexandria , I knew I didn't want more children. If you do parenthood right, it's a hard job. Knock wood – thanks to father – I think I made a pretty good stab at it. I have no desire to start from ground zero. I may not be as lucky next time," he joked.

"Then you best start dating older women, because the ones in your age bracket want Young's – and usually more than one."

"So I've been told – by more than one," Carrington kept chuckling. "And that's why I'm perfectly fine remaining single. Maybe I'll wait until I'm your age to settle down. Then there'll be no chance of this being a problem."

"That's either the smartest thing you've said today, or the dumbest. I'll decide on my way home," Stuart said.

Carrington couldn't help but smile to himself. He'd always been close with Stuart, never realizing how much he valued that until this very moment. Stuart understood him as his father did. They had the same sense of humor. They ribbed him the same way. It's no wonder they were best friends, and why his father had chosen Stuart to be his godfather.

Now that his father was gone, the steadying presence of Stuart gave him more comfort than his pain let him realize.

AFTER STUART LEFT, Carrington sat in his father's chair in his office in the law firm he founded fifty-four years ago. He missed his ole man. Their talks about business. Their long walks in Central Park. Playing chess. Conversations about books they read. The polarizing politics of the day. Stuart was right about one thing – the world could be a lonely place.

He'd given some thought to settling down with Catherine, his last lover. She was beautiful, smart, sophisticated, and they were highly compatible sexually. But he knew she wanted children. Even though she'd said that she could give up that dream, he knew that wasn't something a person could – or should – give up. It would always be between them and one day she'd resent him for it. He knew it. So he'd broken things off, even though he enjoyed her company – particularly in the bedroom – immensely. She was a hard one to let go and he knew it would be a while before he found another who satisfied him on so many levels.

Carrington readjusted his manhood. Just thinking about her made him aware of how much he liked having a woman in his bed. But he didn't want just any woman. He could easily pay for that kind of companionship, but that had never been an option he exercised.

He wanted someone he liked out of the bedroom just as he did in the bedroom. Someone he could eat hot dogs with as they walked the streets of New York and accompany him to a charity ball at The Met – and be equally at ease. Those kinds of women were rare. He knew he'd done his share of looking. He sighed in frustration.YOU'RE A SELFISH BASTARD Carrington," Catherine leveled at him. "What you want are the trappings of a relationship without the responsibility of one. You don't want to get married and you don't want more children. But you want me at your disposal when you fly into town, and for me to magically disappear and not expect even so much as a regular phone call when you're away. Why don't you just hire an escort or pay some street whore? At least those are arrangements a woman can understand. But this ... the way you act, no woman with an ounce of self-respect is going to stand for it!" she said, slamming the door on the way out of his luxury hotel suite.

CARRINGTON CRINGED at their last encounter. Catherine had been right, he begrudgingly admitted. He did want a woman who was both marriage and motherhood material, but he didn't want to be the one to put a ring on her finger or a baby in her belly.

Maybe Catherine was right. Maybe he was a selfish bastard. Next time, he'd be sure to be very clear about his wants – and demand that she does the same.

Whomever 'she' was.