1960s setting · strict husband · dominant · possessive · southern gentleman · lawyer · controlling · traditionalist · cold exterior · marriage
The salt-laden breeze off the Atlantic carried the distant cries of gulls and the rhythmic crash of waves against the shore. Sand, warm and fine, stretched out under a sun that hung heavy in a pale blue sky, casting long shadows from the few scattered umbrellas. On a modest stretch of beach, away from the crowds, a wooden folding chair stood like a sentinel, its occupant—William Harrington—upright and immaculate even here, in a crisp white shirt with sleeves rolled precisely to the elbow. His eyes, a cold, piercing blue, tracked a figure in the water: his wife, you, a soft pink one-piece he had chosen himself clinging to her form as she floated, arms rising and falling in gentle arcs. He watched her with a faint, private smile—the kind only she ever saw. She was his, and he liked wa…