I turned to see my 16-year-old brother’s eyes fill with tears while his fists clenched at his sides. He was furious, but also heartbroken. Ridge had been his hero up until about five minutes ago.
Chapter 9
Ridge
I stared at the phone in my hand. Pink. Stupid pink and jeweled case. She had purposely put it on a video call. I turned an ugly stare on Fiona who sat mostly naked, with her knees to her chest on my couch like she had something to hide.
“What did you do?” My words came out almost whisper-quiet because it took every bit of brain power that had come back online to process.
“I…”
“What did you do?” I screamed at her, though my words were still difficult to form.
“Ridge, it was for the best.”
“The best for whom?” I yelled again as Fiona slunk back into the sofa as if she suddenly feared being in my presence.
There was good reason for her to fear me. Even as I thought that I knew that what she had done wasn’t the issue. It was what I had done. I had just imploded my marriage based on a stupid suspicion that my conniving assistant helped to plant. Even if my wife and cousin had cheated on me, I should have never done the same thing in the heat of the moment. It might have been a liquor-fueled heat of the moment, but that was no excuse.
I shook my head to try to clear the fuzzy haze that seemed to layer my every thought. The effects of the liquor tried to drag me back under again, but it was a feeling I had never associated with drinking before. My eyes worked hard as they tracked back to Fiona again. I couldn’t be sure if it was my imagination or reality when I saw her duck her head as she tried to hide the smug smile on her face.
I looked around for my phone and couldn’t find it. My pants were still on, pockets empty, and then I remembered that I hadn’t planned on staying at the office long. I needed to write myself a note about how the session went at the studio and schedule to get…
Fuck I couldn’t remember. Something important that needed to be handled Monday. That was why I’d come back up to my office, but not with my phone. Had I left it in the studio or my car?
I pulled myself together as best I could and stumbled downstairs to the parking garage. After I retrieved my phone and realized it was dead, I ran back up to my office. Fiona was no longer inside, but I heard someone shuffle around in the bathroom down the hall. She must have been cleaning up.
I jumped into the shower in my office and cleaned the stench of sex and liquor off my body. It was only then that my brain kicked in enough to realize I hadn’t been wearing a condom. I also hadn’t orgasmed judging by the way my nuts were left in a rather uncomfortable, blue-ball state. Thank God for small miracles. I got back out of the shower, dressed in a spare suit I kept at the office, and felt as though I could go home and have what would probably be the worst conversation of my life with Violet. I walked back into my office to find Fiona waiting for me by the door.
My mind flashed back to a year ago, when she stood in a similar position and propositioned me for my 34th birthday. I should have let her go then. Even a joke of that nature had been inappropriate. Everyone warned me that Fiona had designs on getting me into bed, but I failed to believe them because beyond that one blip, she never once said another inappropriate thing to me. I was a fucking fool.
Worse, I was now someone I loathed. I was a cheater. I had broken my vows to the woman I loved. She would never forgive me. I knew my wife. There was no way she would accept this, especially since it wasn’t even a private thing we could keep between us. Both of our families, and most of our friends from the glimpse I’d gotten, had been at a party with her when she discovered the loathsome thing I’d done. The thing I couldn’t remember being a part of…
“Obviously, you’re fired.”
“W-what? You can’t fire me!” Fiona screeched. “Do you know what kind of a lawsuit I could bring against you? You’re my boss!”
“You’re my assistant. One who was tasked with getting me to a surprise party if I heard my wife correctly.” Judging by her guilty flinch that was correct. “You liquored me up, showed me pictures of my wife and another man, and…”
“So? I didn’t force it on you. I didn’t do anything but give you some gifts and show you some pictures. Everything else you did all on your own.”
The crazy thing was that I didn’t remember doing the “everything else” part. I remembered the pictures, taking another swig from the bottle, and then… Nothing. The shouts from the phone were the next thing I was aware of and even that was only a hazy memory that I had to try very hard to hang onto. Something wasn’t right.
“And you took advantage of a man in his inebriated state. I drank almost that entire bottle by myself and then you…” I hissed and pulled at my hair. “Fuck, I was so out of it, I don’t even remember how I got from that last drink to you riding my dick.” I spat the words out at her and made sure they were as full of disgust for the act as I felt.
“You came on to me. You wanted me. You basically attacked me!” Fiona shouted.
“Yeah? So, when I look back at the recording of my office security feed, I’m going to see myself attacking you?”
Her eyes widened and she stood ramrod straight as her gaze tracked every corner of the office. She never knew there were cameras in here because she wasn’t supposed to. “You don’t have cameras in here.”
“I do. There are six of them, to be exact, so every inch of my office is surveilled at all times. I run a multi-billion-dollar business. That’s how things are done when everyone wants a piece of you.”
“Ridge,” Fiona whined.
“Feeling guilty?”
She shook her head but there was no doubt that I wouldn’t like what I saw when I played that video back. There was also no doubt that my assistant had set everything into play, from the presents to the pictures… I wondered again how she managed to get those pictures without anyone noticing her there. Then I wondered what those pictures really meant. I shook it all off, or rather, it was hard to hold onto any single thought as my brain swirled and fogged over. It felt like the adrenaline surge from hearing my in-laws screaming at me was fighting the effects of the liquor.
