“No!” Gabby moaned. “No, tell me you didn’t.”
“I felt sorry for myself because everyone ignored me. My wife wasn’t even home when I woke up.”
“Oh, Ridge.”
“I drank almost that whole bottle,” I cried to her. “I don’t remember how we got into…” I hesitated. “I don’t remember it happening. All of a sudden I heard my father-in-law threaten to feed me my cock. Fiona had them on a video call. All of them. She video-chatted my wife at some point while she was on top of me.”
“No. Ridge, tell me you didn’t.”
“The worst thing was that I was pissed at Violet and Moreland for having an affair, so I think I said awful things about how Fiona’s pussy was better than my wife’s. I didn’t mean it. I was so angry and heartbroken. Maybe I didn’t really say those things out loud. I thought Fiona was telling me to say them, but then her words were coming out of my mouth. I don’t know, everything is still so fuzzy I can’t focus enough to find the truth.”
“Imagine how Violet feels now.” Gabby gasped and then it sounded as though she had broken into tears. “Oh God, everyone was there! They all saw what you did. I’m going to pack a bag and come up there. My doctor said I shouldn’t travel too far, but this is an emergency.”
“No, you should stay. My cousin is already going to hate me when he finds out why I did it. He’d kill me if anything happened to you and the baby while he’s away.”
“Ridge, you need to fix this. God, I don’t know if you can.”
“If you were her, and you knew the whole story, would you be able to forgive me?”
“Ridge,” she whined. “I’m not Violet. I don’t…”
“If it was Moreland in this same exact situation, what would you do?”
“I would leave him and never look back.” There was no hesitation that time.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” I hung up on my cousin’s fiancée and two minutes later, we pulled up outside of my house. There were no extra cars, but Violet’s was still in the driveway, though that didn’t mean anything. All I could do was hope that she would hear me out and try to see how everything played out from my perspective.
I could feel my heartbeat in my throat as my bourbon-filled guts sloshed with the water I used to try to tamp down the drunken fog that plagued me. Unfortunately, it felt as though the water did more harm than good.
I started to sweat profusely as I tipped the driver and got out of the car. Each step I took toward my house was an effort. My shoes felt as though the bottoms were made of glue, or maybe cement. Every step felt heavier and stickier, as if to prolong what I knew awaited me on the other side of my front door.
Never in my life had a solitary plank of wood held so much significance. On this side, my marriage was still intact. The minute I crossed over, that would not be the case. I hoped it would, but Gabby was probably right. I knew my wife well enough to know she wouldn’t tolerate being humiliated so publicly, and in such a horrific way. There was also no way in hell she would ever forgive me fucking another woman and saying the things I thought I might have said. I really hoped like hell that wasn’t a real memory lifting to the surface.
Chapter 10
Violet
I will not break down.
I will not...
The truth of the matter was, I had already broken. I didn’t even know how I managed to get home or how in the hell all the decorations from the party that never happened ended up stashed in my living room. I stared at the awful reminder. The cheerful balloons floated in the middle of my living room as if in mockery of how happy the day was supposed to be. They bobbed with the air currents from our vents and taunted me with the knowledge that they weren’t there to commemorate a birthday or anniversary. They had become silent witnesses to the worst day of my life instead.
I had to think. It was hard to do when my heart was breaking on repeat every time that stupid video call started to play over again in my memory. It was pure torture, but one I seemed incapable to stop.
Why would he do this to me-to us? Ridge always said we were soulmates. My definition and his were obviously very different things. I wondered again if it had been the first time or if this was something he had been up to with his assistant for a while. Maybe some of his other assistants had been fired for reasons beyond what my husband admitted to me. I had no clue what to believe any longer. My whole life with Ridge felt like a lie. Instead of being the most important person in the world to him, I had suddenly become nothing special.
I was the forgotten wife at home on our anniversary while he fucked his secretary and told her how much better she felt than me.
He said she was better than me.
I couldn’t even bring myself to think about which part he claimed was better.
What had I ever done to deserve that?
I loved him with every piece of me. For about the millionth time since I convinced everyone to leave me alone, I couldn’t stop the sobs that wracked my body. The pain doubled me over as I dropped the rest of the decorations that were a slap in the face to the way my heart felt. My house appeared as though a celebration had imploded inside it while my insides were liquified with overwhelming sadness that refused to stop leaking from my eyes.
The blue heart balloons were the worst. I wanted to punch holes in every single one of them so they would stop mocking me with their cheerfulness. All the things they stood for originally – our hearts, his favorite color, the love we found in one another on his birthday, our marriage.
