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.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday, I wouldn’t have been in until Monday.”
She pursed her lips in annoyance for a fraction of a second before she turned it around and offered a bright smile. “Forgot about that. Good thing you came in today, otherwise the cake might have gone bad waiting for you until Monday.”
I chuckled at that. “What do you have there?” I asked as I nodded my head to indicate the gift bag in her hand.
“Just a little something to show my appreciation. You’ve been an amazing boss, and you deserve to have the best birthday ever.”
“Thanks,” I hummed. If only my family felt the same.
Not even Moreland had sent me a text. He was usually the first, besides my wife, to send something.
In fact, he made it a tradition to send me something by one minute after midnight every year, so he could rub it in Violet’s face that he told me before she did.
Her argument was always that she told me before I got to read his text.
It was all done in good fun, and something I never thought I’d miss until today when it didn’t happen.
“Come sit down,” Fiona moved to my couch and patted the seat beside her.
I followed because this didn’t feel the same as the way things happened the previous year.
We had spent the entirety of this past year working side-by-side in a healthy boss-employee relationship, so it was clear we were past her attempted come-on from the year prior.
She might have claimed it was all a joke in good fun, but I wasn’t stupid.
If I had accepted, she would have made the offer very real.
There was a twinge in my gut as I acknowledged that because it came with a bit of guilt.
A few of my previous assistants had been let go because of improper behavior with me.
I always told Violet the minute something like that happened.
We had an agreement since one of my clients tried to get too close, and far too handsy, at a party we threw in her honor.
That took place in the first year I was married to Violet.
My wife had put the woman in her place, and I backed her up.
Ever since, I’d made it a common practice to put a clause in contracts that said clients would be in breach if they behaved inappropriately with me.
Any time an employee attempted to step over those boundaries, I talked it through with my wife, and we made a collective decision about whether it warranted them being moved to a different position or fired altogether.
I had listened to her every time except with Fiona.
I had no excuse for not telling my wife what happened the previous year.
By the time I got home, I only wanted to enjoy our special day together.
When the next day rolled around, I had entirely different reasons to not bring up Fiona’s attempt.
It honestly boiled down to the fact that I didn’t want to train a new employee as Fiona had only been with me about six months at that point.
The other part was that I wanted to see what would come of her attempt without any interference.
Every single woman who worked for me couldn’t have an agenda to sleep with the boss.
I wanted to prove them all wrong. My father didn’t like the looks of Fiona from the beginning.
He said she carried herself in a sexual way and dressed inappropriately.
I had to remind him that my clients were all celebrities who made Fiona appear as though she dressed conservatively.
When Moreland met her, he felt the same as my dad and told me she would end up being trouble.
I disagreed because she was competent and went above and beyond at her job.
Violet had never spoken ill of her. The only thing my wife ever said about my assistant was that if something changed, I should tell her and handle things as we always discussed in the past.