More blew me a kiss and tossed a playful wink my way. “Love you! He’s going to be so fucking shocked that you pulled this off!”
I didn’t get the chance to answer because my husband’s cousin-slash-best-friend was gone before I could muster a proper goodbye. That sucked butt. He was supposed to be there for the surprise. It felt like a bad omen that Moreland wouldn’t be there for the party, but just as quickly as the thought came to me, I tried to push it to the back of my mind. We had planned too hard over the past couple months. There was no way everything – minus my husband’s best friend not being there – could go wrong.
Chapter 7
Ridge
“Yes, I know the timetable,” I heard my assistant huff. Her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose as she stood there and once again attempted to get off the phone with whomever had called. “You need to go take a Xanax or something, your anxiety is about to stress me out.” I watched as she rolled her eyes. I hoped like hell that wasn’t one of our clients she spoke to that way. Not that some of them didn’t deserve it, but still. “Yes, he will be there on time.” That time, Fiona didn’t bother to wait for whatever else the person on the other end of the line said. She hung up and then snapped to attention the minute she noticed that I stood there.
“I hope that wasn’t a client.”
“No, um, no, of course not.” She stumbled over her words and seemed flustered which was not at all like my usually put-together assistant. “Sorry, my sister wanted me to get her husband to a party without him knowing about it.”
“A surprise party?”
“Yeah, exactly.” Fiona offered up one of her sweet-as-pie smiles to me. For a while after the incident last year, those smiles made me uncomfortable. Today it seemed like a balm to the shitty start I’d had.
“I’ll be in the office. Make sure our clients don’t ever overhear you telling someone to take a Xanax. They might take that as permission.”
“I would never,” she started to say, but I dismissed her response with a wave of my hand as I walked into my office.
“What are you doing here today?” I glanced over my shoulder toward the door and saw Fiona there in the same position she had been in a year ago when she propositioned me. It bothered me that my mind kept flashing back to that. Maybe it was the day, or the fact that everyone in my life seemed to have forgotten what day it was, but I had been unsettled by the way things had turned out. Not only was it my thirty-fifth birthday, but it was my ninth wedding anniversary, and my tenth anniversary of being with Violet. No one had acknowledged any of those things. Violet had once again performed a disappearing act before I could even wake up. She had left a note on the counter this morning in her place.
Ridge,
I had to run some last-minute errands for this party. I’ll see you tonight when you get off work.
Love,
Vi
What the hell was that? She knew I never worked a full day on our anniversary unless it was an emergency, as had been the case the year before. It was our day to celebrate us. There would be no getting around shit when I got home. She was going to tell me who the hell she was working for or where the hell she was really running off to all the time. I couldn’t believe that she thought someone else’s party was more important than our special day.
“Ridge?”
I glanced up to see that Fiona still stood in the doorway.
“Sorry, did you ask me something?”
“Yes,” she drew out slowly. “I asked what you were doing here today. Don’t you normally take the day off?”
“Normally, I do. Today, I was told to go to work.” That wasn’t exactly true, but considering the note my wife left me, I took it to mean that she expected me to work all day, as per usual on a day that wasn’t our anniversary. It rankled that Violet had probably done it so she could go to work and not feel guilty about it. She could have at least woken me up before she left and offered a kiss, a happy birthday, happy anniversary, or something. Wasn’t it the man who was supposed to forget the important dates? My wife had never forgotten before. Whatever she had been up to lately had taken over everything in her life, including the part where she was supposed to remember that it was our special day.
“Well, that’s shitty. I bet you got a good morning breakfast and a kiss or maybe even more than that, right?” When Fiona asked, it was almost as if she knew what my answer was going to be.
I shook my head, and my assistant made her way into the office, but then seemed to think better of it. “Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll be right back. I have something for you.” Before I could say a word, she shuffled back out the door and took off.
I hoped like hell she hadn’t left to go put on a negligée or something to up her game from last year. If that happened, I would have to fire her for sure. There was no way I’d put up with her propositioning me twice.
As I sat behind my desk, I went to pick up my office phone to call my wife but then wondered why. She was the one who left me alone this morning with nothing more than a note. I was entitled to be a little angry about that. I’d taken her note seriously and ended up in the studio with one of our clients earlier in the morning. I helped the sound guys in the booth for the majority of the day and thought for sure that when we were done there would be a message for me. I hadn’t heard a thing from Violet or anyone else. It was like the rest of the world outside of work forgot I existed for some reason.
After the studio, I made my way back to the office. It was a ghost town. Everyone knew I always took this day off, so it had become a bit of an office holiday. I was surprised to find Fiona there when I got in, but I guess I shouldn’t have been since she had also been there the year before. Granted, I had popped in last year to handle a last-minute emergency with a client, so I wasn’t sure why she had come in then either.
“Maybe Violet is getting me back for missing out on part of our day last year,” I thought out loud just as my door slid open again. Fiona came in with what looked like a bakery cake and a gift bag.
“What’s this?”
“It’s your birthday.” She shrugged as if it was no big deal. “You ended up here for a while last year. I thought I’d bring this in, just in case you showed up again. If not, I figured you could get it tomorrow.”
