Chapter 12 #2
My mother’s sad eyes made me look away as the hand holding the envelope shook.
“Mom?” I questioned. A tear dripped down her cheek as her eyes tracked what was in my hand. “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to be here for you.”
That settled the question of what was in the envelope. “She won’t even hear me out first?” My question was only a whisper.
“Son, your wife had a front row seat to you being intimate with another woman in front of all your family, friends, and coworkers. Not only that, but then she had to hear about how you could have prevented it and apparently hid the truth that your personal assistant, the woman who probably spends more waking time with you every week than your own wife, had offered you sex before. In all honesty, it’s the latter part that made her follow through with the call to her lawyer last week. ”
“I didn’t say anything because it was nothing. I thought it was a fucking joke.”
“Well, speaking as a woman who has always had to worry about her husband’s high-profile position, and the women who wanted to take advantage of that, I’m sure to Violet it didn’t feel like a joke when she heard about it, especially since she also had to watch the fallout of your inaction.
Worse, she wasn’t even prepared for it. She set it up so that Fiona was the one in charge of getting you to your surprise party.
She trusted that woman, despite her own misgivings, because YOU trusted her to work for you all this time.
Your wife wasn’t just blindsided by what that woman did to you.
She was brought to her knees by the fact that you never said a word, despite your promises.
It was a betrayal, Ridge, plain and simple.
In your business, that was the most important promise you ever made to your wife, and you proved that you weren’t capable of holding to that simple rule you both agreed to. ”
“He was drugged, honey,” my dad spoke in my defense and my mother gasped so loudly, it sounded as though it hurt.
“Was he drugged the first time that woman offered to have sex with our son in his office?”
My father’s response was a simple sigh. There was no arguing the fact that I had screwed up initially and in doing so invited trouble into my life.
“She didn’t know I had cameras in the office,” I admitted.
My father ran a hand over his jaw and swore under his breath. “You need to press charges against her. That’s the only way you might be able to salvage your marriage.”
I glanced at my mother and saw the doubt written there. She didn’t think that would help either because it wasn’t just about what happened on my birthday this year, it was about what happened the year before. Had I acted and spoken up about it then, none of this would have been possible.
I sat down beside my father as I pulled the contents of the envelope out with shaking hands.
I glanced over the paperwork and wanted to scream, to throw punches until I killed something - any representation of myself that I could get my hands on.
The physical release needed to vent off some of the frustration, anger, and overwhelming sadness wouldn’t find me, though.
Instead, I fucking cried on a couch in my lonely ass living room with my parents as witnesses to a heartbreak of my own making.
"She doesn't even want anything. I'm a fucking billionaire and she doesn't want the first fucking cent from me.” That admission was a struggle.
It meant that my wife was well and truly fucking done with me.
She wanted out as fast as possible and was willing to start fresh from nothing to make it happen.
"You had a good woman. Why the hell you would fuck that up for some tired, desperate cunt’s supposed joke when we all knew she was trouble, I will never know, son.
What I do know is that you will give your wife this.
You will give her time, and if the good lord is willing, maybe down the road, you will get a second chance with her when she's had time to come to grips with the fact that you allowed yourself to be suckered into that position. "
"You knew?" I said as I turned to look up at my parents. "You knew she was filing and came over to what? Soften the blow or make sure I didn’t bother my wife about it?”
My father nodded. "Violet's family asked us to make sure you didn't try to fight it or find her. She's in a bad place, and they just want to give her time to heal."
"She's in a bad place, so she shouldn't be making decisions like this while she's emotional,” I argued.
“Son, if the roles were reversed, what would you do? If you had to witness your wife being fucked by another man, if you knew she could have prevented it by speaking up a whole year before, if you had to deal with the humiliation of not only seeing it but knowing every single person important to you did as well…”
I swallowed thickly, because I understood where he was coming from.
I put myself in those positions, first by ignoring the red flag Fiona threw out last year with her offer.
Then, I did it again because Fiona convinced me that Violet was having an affair with my cousin.
My reaction to my wife’s strange behavior said enough about how I would have behaved if I’d been in her shoes and seen her with another man.
I would not have handled it well. I didn’t handle the implication that she might have stepped out on me well.
That’s why we were in this situation to begin with.
I knew then that I’d have to do exactly as my dad suggested and give Violet what she wanted, even if it killed me to do so.
"I was drunk off my ass after I just thought I found out my wife was cheating on me with my fucking best friend. My cousin. I didn't mean it…" I tried to defend myself.
"Doesn't really matter what you thought in that moment, as you had no right to those feelings. You should have confirmed things first instead of going off half-cocked."
I sighed because the answer was just as damning as my fucking stupid decisions.
After a long silence, my mom sighed and rested her head on my shoulder.
“Your wife had to bring Fiona in on the party planning because she saw her with Moreland more than once while they planned that party for you.” Mom patted my knee and then leaned back and gave me the saddest look.
“Violet figured it was the best way to get you to the park without you being suspicious, since you’d most likely have to handle a bit of business early in the day as you normally did before taking the whole night off.
Moreland warned Violet about Fiona and how he could see the bad intentions she had. You know what Violet told him?"
I shook my head, feeling sick to my stomach all over again.
"She told him that there was no reason to worry because it didn't matter what that woman said or did, you loved your wife enough to put Fiona in her place if she tried anything, and that you would never let her so much as hint at something inappropriate without there being consequences.”
"Fuck!" I grumbled as I stared down at the divorce papers that seemed to laugh at me.
Her signature on them said that I proved her wrong and she was done with me as a result.
I couldn't blame her. No matter how much I wanted to fight things, my parents were right.
I needed to give her time and space to heal and hopefully miss me.
I also needed the time to put my shit in order and work on a plan to get my wife back.