Her actions were not at the heart of why I filed those divorce papers, though.
Ridge chose to keep her secret. He chose to believe the worst in Moreland and me. He chose to go to her when everything in his life seemed off kilter. It wasn’t his wife he ran to. He didn’t ask me questions or try to get to the bottom of things. Sure, he had made some off-handed comments, but we didn’t sit down and have a real conversation. I would have given up the idea of a surprise party if he’d come to me with true concerns about where I’d been and with whom. He didn’t, though. He chose to get drunk with her. To have cake with her. To celebrate and commiserate with her. All of that happened before she took advantage, and that was what I couldn’t wrap my head around. Those were the reasons I filed for divorce.
I loved my husband with all my heart, and it was tearing me apart from the inside out to think of a life where we weren’t married and living happily ever after together. I didn’t know how to stuff all those threads back into the box anymore. It was like once they fell out, they grew in size and no longer fit. How was I supposed to move forward and forget that those threads existed for that woman to tug on long before she pulled the final one and unraveled everything?
Chapter 14
Violet
Ridge signed the papers.
The man I loved with every bit of my soul sold our house and deposited every penny of the money he made into my personal account along with a sum of money I couldn’t even think about.
He gave me everything I never asked for. It was all done without me ever having to lay eyes on him again. The last time I saw my husband was when I walked out the door of our house on our anniversary – his birthday – after I had seen him in an intimate situation with his duplicitous assistant. I wasn’t sure what everyone expected me to feel, but to say I was devastated would have been an understatement.
Ridge never fought for us.
He didn’t call or show up. Nothing.
Out of all the expectations I had with the divorce moving forward after he was served, his complete radio silence and disappearing act hadn’t been on the list. It was as if he had no cares in the world about the woman he’d been married to, and I had a very hard time wrapping my mind around that. My heart - she was shattered completely. Pulverized. I didn’t even think there was any dust left by the time I received the final notice from my lawyer.
“Are you going to be okay?”
It took a minute for me to register the fact that Margarette Atwater had spoken to me. When I finally clued in, my eyes snapped up to meet the warm brown ones staring back at me with so much pity, I felt as though I could drown in them.
“I’m sorry, what did you ask?”
“Are you going to be okay? Can I call someone to be here for you?” I didn’t miss the way her eyes shifted from her phone to the door. No doubt, she had more cases to win, news to deliver, checks to collect.
“I’ll be fine. Thank you for bringing this all the way here,” I said as I lifted the envelope filled with the papers that signified the end of my marriage. “I appreciate everything you did for me.” That was far from the truth. My lawyer had done her job, and from the looks of things, she had done it well. I didn’t want her to do it, though. I didn’t want my husband to agree to any of it. I needed him to fight for us, and he hadn’t. So, this win my lawyer was so cheerful about when she got to my place felt like a final slap in the face.
“If you need anything, you know how to reach me,” Margarette mentioned as she scooted toward the door as quickly as she was able in those sky-high heels of hers. I gave a slight nod and managed to get to my feet and make my way to the door behind her. Once she passed over the threshold, I closed and locked it. I stood there for a minute with my head leaned against the cool wood and tried to process everything, but that was when the nausea hit and I had to run for the bathroom.
The whole time I ran, while I puked, and when I sat on the bathroom floor completely numb, I kept repeating that one line over and over.
“If you need anything…”
What I needed was for my husband to fight for us, to explain how all of this was possible, to tell me where we went wrong and how we were going to fix it. He never showed up, though.
He never showed up.
I never knew a person could hurt so much and still survive. How was that possible? How did people go through this type of thing and continue to breathe?
How could I continue to breathe when my heart stopped beating?
How could Ridge stop loving me?
I didn’t know how I would ever trust him again, but part of me wanted him to fight for us and give me reasons why I should.
The only thing I could think was that he had been so angry that I wasn’t there for him after what happened, that he decided he was done with me as well. There was a part of me that didn’t blame my husband - ex-husband - for that. Still, I thought… It didn’t matter what I thought.
My marriage was gone.
My husband was a ghost.
And I didn’t know how to continue living.
Three days later, I woke up and immediately had to vomit up what little I had in my stomach. After crying on the bathroom floor for an hour in between dry-heaving spells, I finally called my mom to come take me to the doctor. Something was wrong, and on the off chance that it wasn’t my broken heart trying to kill me, I figured it was time to find out what the hell was going on.
