Novel

Chapter One

The shifting of her husband’s body on the mattress woke Jill Stone in time to catch him getting out of bed. It was her first Saturday off from work in months and she’d hoped they’d be spending it together.

“Come back to bed soon,” she whispered, focusing on his delectable tight ass as he walked with nonchalant grace toward the bathroom. Jill was definitely ready for some good morning loving.

Adam stopped and turned to face her. She felt the heat in her body rise as she took in his enticing morning erection. “Can’t. I’m heading into the office today.”

Jill groaned disappointedly. “Not today of all days.”

“Why not? Somebody’s got to make a decent living.”

That remark wounded Jill on so many levels. The very fact that Adam chose to work rather than spend some quality time with her was bad enough. But his insinuation that she didn’t help pull her own weight made her feel insignificant.

All remnants of sleep had been swept away and Jill was now wide awake—and steaming. Her amber-colored eyes narrowed. “That’s an unfair remark.”

“Really? Do you honestly think we could survive on your salary alone?”

“I don’t want to get into an argument. All I want is for us to do something together for a change.”

“Didn’t we sleep together last night?”

“If you meant in the same bed, yeah,” she said with cold sarcasm.

Adam ignored what she’d said. “Why wouldn’t I go into work today?”

“Because it’s Saturday and the first one that I have off in such a long time. Most people don’t work on Saturday unless they really have to. And I doubt you really have to—”

Adam thrust out his hand to stop her. “Please don’t start that tired old argument with me today, Jill. I’m not in the mood to hear how unfulfilled you feel.”

“It wasn’t my intention to argue.” Jill’s voice was hoarse with frustration. “All I want is for us to have a modicum of a life together. With me here and you always at the office, we have hardly a marriage, let alone a life.”

“You know I’m doing this for us—”

“Do I? That argument’s just as old and worn-out. Maybe it sufficed early in our marriage when you had just started your job and you felt you had to prove yourself, but now that you’ve accomplished so much…I don’t think so.”

Jill watched the expression on Adam’s handsome face quickly change from annoyance to anger. That he didn’t know she’d feel this way was simply mind-boggling. And how long did he actually think the I’m-doing-this-all-for-you line would make everything all right? Perhaps if she were a naïve child. However, she was a grown woman with real needs and desires.

“I don’t believe you just said that, Jill,” Adam replied, a critical tone to his voice.

“Why not? You’re not married to me anymore. I’ve been replaced by your precious advertising accounts.”

Adam stiffened as if Jill had struck him and shot her one last penetrating icy-blue look before finally entering the bathroom.

Jill watched him disappear behind the door and lay back down. As tears welled in her eyes, she felt irritated and unhappy with herself for allowing Adam to draw her into another argument. She didn’t want to cry and certainly didn’t want Adam to see her tears. She was done crying over him and the loneliness he left her to suffice as a companion during all the long, empty evenings. He just didn’t comprehend how she felt, and she saw no way to reach him. They just went round and round on a merry-go-round of miscommunication.

At least she knew that it was his work and not another woman that kept him from her. Perhaps if it were another woman, she could fight her…

Adam walked out of the bathroom and picked up the argument where they’d left off. “You’re acting ridiculous,” he said in a tone one would use when speaking to a child.

“I’m ridiculous?” His remark grated on her, causing her anger to bubble once more to the surface.

“Can’t you, for just one moment, look at things through my eyes? Put yourself in my shoes and take a real good look around you. How do you think we’ve managed to buy all this? It’s because of my dedication to my work and the solid hours I give to it,” Adam said, as he swept his hand around him for emphasis before thumping his thumb against his chest. “I worked my ass off to give you all this.”

However, it was the expression on his face that said it all. The tightening of his jaw and the faint pulse to the nerve on the side of his forehead silently shouted out his anger with her selfish attitude. His narrowed blue eyes glared at her like bits of stone. She knew that the conversation was over. Nothing was ever discussed beyond this point. Whenever Adam felt threatened, he shut down, ending any further discussion. By doing so, they never resolved anything and merely left another gaping wound in their marriage. One day they’d run out of Band-Aids to cover those open sores.

“Adam?”

“What is it now?” he said through perfect, white, clenched teeth.

Realizing it would be futile to try to reach him at this point, Jill murmured, “Never mind.”

She slipped back down into the bed and turned over to face the wall. Tears of frustration and anger began to refill her eyes. She refused to let him see how upset she truly was.

Jill listened as he put on his shoes and left the room. Then several minutes later, she heard the front door open and close, followed by the sound of his car engine starting. Adam was gone. Perhaps he’d be home around dinnertime—perhaps not. At that moment, Jill hardly cared. She was too miserable.

As she lay there sobbing in the silence of her bedroom, Jill thought back to how things used to be in the early years of their marriage. It seemed like so long ago, but it had only been eight years.

She and Adam, like any other newly married couple, had been terribly in love and practically inseparable. It was as if they could never get enough of each other. She would be at her teller’s job at the bank watching the clock with one eye and counting the minutes until she could rush home to be enfolded in his loving arms. She’d always find him there waiting to make love to her. Half the time, they hardly made it to the bedroom. Where had all that love and passion gone?

Jill hugged herself as the memory of years past gently drifted through her mind…

They were celebrating their one-month anniversary of being together. Adam had gotten home first and had been waiting for her. He opened the door to their apartment and just seeing him standing there caused a surge of excitement to rush through her. As he swept her into his arms, his nearness made her senses spin. And when his lips hungrily covered hers, she felt a delicious shudder heat her body. Her purse fell to the floor, quickly followed by her coat.

His lips seared a path down her neck and shoulders, eliciting a low moan from her. She eagerly responded with her own feverish kisses. Her restless hands, needing to touch him, threaded their fingers through his thick, blond hair and slipped under his shirt, feeling the smooth texture of his hard back.

Adam had opened her blouse and kissed the swells of her breasts. Hungrily, he reclaimed her mouth. They began to slowly make their way to the bedroom. Clothing dropped as they kissed and bumped their way there. By the time they fell onto the bed with Adam straddling her, they were naked. Jill loved that feeling of skin on skin and had insufficient words to describe what it did to her.

Jill was halfway to heaven by the time Adam entered her. With their hearts hammering in their chests almost beating as one, a sense of urgency dictated their movement. Within moments, Jill's world exploded into a myriad of vibrant colors as noises of pleasure filled the room.

The memory faded and tears of disappointment filled Jill's eyes as she wondered once more, where had all that passion gone?

Jill traced her unhappiness back to that one day following their honeymoon when Adam had gotten out of bed and decided to become God’s gift to advertising. He set his sights on becoming his agency’s director of client services, which was the person in charge of the entire account service team. From that day on, he was transformed into a workaholic.

The effort paid off for him, which she couldn't deny. He worked hard and in short time became an account director, responsible for two important accounts. Six months later, two more accounts were added. Within three years, he held the title of group account director and was responsible for a group of accounts and had other account directors working under him.

The bonuses and commissions he made were intoxicating, but like any drug, they only served to whet his appetite. He desired to sell more. And like any drug, the more money he made, the more he wanted.

At first Jill thought it was all so very wonderful. She couldn’t be any more proud of, and happy for, Adam. They were able to move to the suburbs and buy a beautiful home, one that she’d hoped to fill with children. She also thought that once Adam had established himself, he’d have more time to spend at home and enjoy the fruits of his labor. However, none of this had ever happened.

The reason was simple. Adam was determined to become the director of client services, and because of this, he worked even harder, putting in longer hours at the office. He stopped taking vacations and virtually any time off. Jill couldn’t remember the last time they’d spent two consecutive days together.

Having been replaced by his new mistress, work, Jill tried to tell him how lonely she felt. Either her complaint fell on deaf ears or Adam was too consumed by his job to listen. Perhaps he was too selfish to place her needs above his. Whatever the reason, this discussion would nearly always lead to an argument.

Jill assumed this drive to succeed, which propelled Adam to work incessantly, had to do with his dad being an alcoholic who wasn’t able to hold a job very long. That would explain Adam’s need to achieve. He feared becoming like his father. And he certainly proved her parents wrong.

Her parents, middle-class African Americans, looked down on Adam and his family. To them, he was white trash who’d most likely end up no better than his father. They wanted her to marry a black man and had had several picked out for her. But a handsome, blond, blue-eyed Teutonic god of a man named Adam had come into her life and simply swept her off her feet. And the rest, as they say, was history.

Adam’s solution for her loneliness was far from what Jill had envisioned or desired. He suggested she find a hobby to fill her time. However, she didn’t want or need a hobby. What she needed was a full-time husband who cared about her and her happiness. One who was at home more than doing God-knows-what at work.

Along with everything else, their once wonderful sexual relationship had gone missing. When Adam came home from work he was usually way too tired to even think about being intimate. It would seem that his career was far more important to him than Jill. It hadn’t been long before she grew to hate his job and its intrusion on their lives.

Chapter Two

The week stretched out interminably for Jill. Find a hobby, Adam had told her over and over again. He thought that was the solution to all her problems. It wasn’t their problem, because he found nothing wrong with their marriage. She simply had too much time on her hands and too few time management skills to deal with it. To Adam, Jill was being ridiculous and unreasonable—or worse, needy.

Adam simply blamed her job. Her working in a bank skewed her understanding of the bigger picture. Being in the fishbowl atmosphere of a small bank didn’t allow her to appreciate the big, wide world outside of its confines. Sometimes she wondered if he even thought she had a functioning brain.

It wasn’t as if Jill hadn’t considered taking up a hobby. She had. Nothing seemed to interest her. She hated to sew or knit. And cooking was out. Adam, strictly a meat and potatoes kind of guy, would never appreciate any new dishes. She’d end up eating her own masterpieces and turn into a backup replacement for the Goodyear Blimp or, God forbid, on a weight-loss reality show.

“A hobby is not what I need,” Jill muttered aloud. “What I do need is a more attentive husband,” she said pushing every word through a clenched jaw.

As she stepped out of the shower stall and began to towel herself off, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the full-length mirror. What she saw did not make her happy. She finished drying off her smooth, caramel colored skin, studying her entire body carefully. It looked as if she’d put on some weight, and it wasn’t in places that flattered her figure. That would explain why her clothes were beginning to feel snug.

Jill sighed. Maybe it was time to join a gym. Her job as a bank teller wasn’t helping. Seated behind a window keying numbers into a computer was not much exercise. Her sister, Lynne, who lived in Arizona, swore by her gym membership and loved her personal trainer, Joey, with whom she scheduled maintenance sessions every so often. And from the way her husband, Haywood, looked at Lynne, he definitely appreciated her toned, petite body.

Jill sat down in front of her make-up table and pulled the towel off her long, dark-brown hair. Brushing it as she used the blow dryer, she thought further about the gym idea and pooh-poohed it. She’d hated sports in school, and if she signed up for the gym, she’d probably go a few times and then let her membership lapse. Perhaps, if she watched what she ate and did more walking, she'd be able to shed those extra pounds.

***

Adam was late for dinner. What a surprise, Jill thought sarcastically as she curled up on the den sofa and booted up her Kindle to the story she’d been reading. She might even finish the book while she waited for “his highness” to come home.

A little voice inside her head chastised her for her attitude. It would only press the wrong buttons and start another argument like the doozy they’d had on Saturday. That was the last thing she needed. She wanted peace and harmony. But most of all, she desired to return to the days when they couldn’t keep their hands off one another. Just thinking about it made her horny.

***

As Adam sat on the train taking him home from Manhattan to Locust Valley, an upscale suburb on Long Island, he thought about the arguments he and Jill had been having frequently over the long hours he'd been putting in at work. He knew she was lonely, but there was little he could do to change that.

So many times he wanted to tell her about how stressful his job had become. When he had first joined Roberts, White and Gould Advertising Agency, the firm felt like a second home. The CEO, Joseph Roberts, had taken Adam under his wing, obviously having detected his potential. During that time Adam worked his butt off and was rewarded with handsome raises as he rose from the rank of account manager to account director and eventually a group account director. He was definitely on the fast track to becoming the director of client services.

Unfortunately, Joseph Roberts succumbed to a heart attack and died. The agency continued without Roberts for nearly a year before the economy took a downturn and revenues fell. White and Gould sold the agency to Hartford Advertising, a larger, more global agency.

Everything changed with the sale of the company. Things became very volatile. The director of client services was let go, along with several other account directors. Even though Adam was spared, more stress was added to an already tense situation. The new director of client services was a ball buster and constantly on Adam’s back to speed up the timelines of projects and bring more revenue into the agency. Fortunately, that guy had lasted only several months, but during those months, he’d expected one hundred and twenty percent from Adam and his team of account directors, which had been decimated.

It was as if Adam had to prove himself all over again. It was his responsibility to ensure that all the work for over a dozen accounts was completed on time and within budget. It was his head on the chopping block if the clients weren’t happy.

With the economy so sluggish, most companies had to cut their spending. Advertising was the first expense item to go, and the agency was feeling the pinch. People who had been there as long as he were being let go. For a long while, when he walked in each day, he felt his guts liquefy, wondering if it was his turn to receive a pink slip.

Adam was taught by his father it was a sign of weakness to tell anyone—especially women—of your flaws. “Never tell your problems to a woman, boy. They'll just use them to emasculate and eat you alive,” his daddy had said. And lately things with Jill hadn’t been so hot. So, he'd told her none of what was happening at work. There was no way he'd want to worry her or have her think of him as anything less than a success. He'd rather die than lose his job and fulfill her parents’ low expectations of him. Therefore, he kept all his apprehensions about work to himself.

It mattered little to Jill’s parents that he had provided their daughter with a beautiful home in an affluent area of Long Island, because they’d never forgiven him from taking her away from them and her culture. To them, Adam was white trailer trash and would remain so. They’d tarred him with the same brush as his father, an alcoholic, who couldn’t seem to hold a job for long. Adam was worthless in their eyes and they never turned down a chance to let him know it.

How could he even hint to Jill his job had been in jeopardy? There was no way. He loved Jill, but blamed her attitude on her parents, who he felt had filled her pretty head with unrealistic expectations about marriage. Adam was doing everything he could to make her happy. But, unfortunately, he was human and not a superman. And he doubted that those black guys her parents had hand-picked for Jill were, either.