I groaned in frustration. “Do I need to get my dad to come watch Liam for me?” I asked out of anger.
“Of course not. I told you I would babysit, and I meant it.”
We were just over a month away from what would have been mine and Ridge’s eleventh anniversary together, and our tenth wedding anniversary. It should have been a huge celebration for us. Instead, we were coparents to our son and mostly friendly. It was the reason I said yes to the date with Justin. I needed to move on, or those memories would always swamp me when I least expected them.
Justin was an absolute gentleman when he picked me up. He held the door for me, walked me to the table with a hand placed firmly at my lower back. He pulled out my chair and waited until I was comfortable before he seated himself. He looked handsome in his tan suit and brown loafers.
“Thank you for tonight,” I murmured.
“I couldn’t believe my luck when I ran into you and you agreed to a date. I wanted this years ago, if you recall.”
“I remember.”
“I’m sorry that my chance means something went wrong with your marriage.” I could tell by the slight smirk on his face that he knew exactly what had gone wrong, or at least the seedy public opinion side of it.
Ridge’s lawyer had released the tapes, so everyone knew what really happened to my husband. Some of them seemed to think that my husband wasn’t really drugged and just played along so he could maintain innocence when his affair was discovered. It made me wonder if Justin was one of those people.
Worse, the whole debacle forced me to question if I could truly trust a man again. If he smirked like that about what I went through, what did that say about his thought process? About his intent with me? I wanted to throw in the towel then and there, but figured I was already out, so I might as well see the date through to the end and then politely decline anything further with the man.
Before we could even order our food, the air shifted in the restaurant and a moment later, my very angry ex-husband stormed in and stared me down until he managed to get to the table I shared with another man.
Shit.
"I never stopped being in love with you. You are my world. You and our son. I fucked up when I thought you didn't feel the same. Even then, my only intent was to get drunk and forget all the ugly things I thought might be happening. I allowed my anger and hurt to get the better of me, and that put me in a horrible position that someone else took advantage of. But Violet, if you do this, it makes everything final. We can't come back from what she put us through if we never try. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to give her that win or lose one more thing because of what she did to me.”
My heart felt as though he had just stabbed through it with one of the steak knives laid out on the table. He was right that Fiona had taken enough from both of us. I knew enough to understand that my husband made a mistake. It turned out to be a huge one because he never saw it coming. He never intended to cheat and didn’t keep it all from me because he had an agenda. It was all honestly because he didn’t want to have to sift through more temporary employees to find one who would eventually stick.
I understood that.
It was hard to look past that one tiny mistake when a world of hurt piled up around us afterward as a result.
“Ridge,” I whispered his name reverently. My date, Justin, stood up and threw his napkin down on the table which distracted both of us for a moment. Only a teeny tiny minute, though, before my ex-husband quickly seated himself in my date’s chair and grinned over at me.
I rolled my eyes. “That was rude.”
“Going out on a date with another man was rude, Vi.”
“I needed a distraction,” I admitted. As we bantered back and forth, Justin stormed off in a huff.
“From what?” Ridge asked as he ignored the other man’s retreat.
“My life. Our friendship. The fact that our marriage has been over for nearly a year, the up-coming anniversary of how everything fell apart. I needed a chance to do something that didn’t require thinking.”
“Well, that last part was obvious.” Ridge’s eyes tracked over to where my date stomped out of the restaurant and took off. In the car that brought me here. Damn, I’d been abandoned by my date, and he didn’t even wait to see if I was okay with my ex tracking me down. What a dickhead.
“Yeah, well, I guess life has turned me into a shitty judge of character.” I sighed and turned my attention back to Ridge as he spoke.
“You weren’t bad at it when we met.”
“You’re right, I wasn’t,” I agreed. Ridge reached over and grabbed my hand. I stared at the way he engulfed mine as the warmth of his body soaked into my skin. I missed him. I missed his touch. His presence in the way that used to be mine and only mine. I missed my husband.
“We can’t keep tiptoeing around what happened, my sweet flower.”
My heart lurched forward. The damn thing tried to escape my chest, and jump into his, as the old endearment flowed off his tongue like liquid bliss injected straight into my veins.
“I won’t lie and say I don’t want you back. That has always been my goal.”
“Then why haven’t you said that?” I argued.
