Chapter 22
Ridge
I was thankful for the jet and the full crew who planned to get me straight to Georgia in roughly fifteen hours.
Despite the nerves and anger burning inside me, I knew that I’d be no good to anyone when I landed if I didn’t get some sleep.
When I wasn’t sleeping, I was working on ways to make the transition to Nancy taking over for me in Melbourne.
My mind stayed occupied when it wasn’t asleep. It was necessary.
I was fucking shattered by the fact that Violet felt it necessary to hide her pregnancy from me all while I was stuck playing a sick fucking game of cat and mouse with Fiona over her fake pregnancy.
What made it worse was that everyone in my life knew about the baby - the real one - and kept it from me because they agreed.
That, above everything else, made me realize I hadn’t just broken Violet’s faith in me, but the rest of my family’s as well.
If anyone had stepped up to tell me about the baby, I would have put an end to the charade with Fiona and been there for my baby.
I didn’t even know if it was a boy or girl. Had it been born yet?
They all said Violet and the baby were doing fine, but was the baby born or was it still inside of her? Had I missed every damn thing?
I was exhausted, frustrated, and nervous as hell by the time we landed. As soon as I got into the waiting car, I instructed the driver to take me to the hospital.
“Did you have any luggage, sir?” he asked.
“No, just get me to the hospital.”
We drove there in silence with me trying to figure out what to say and how to keep my calm about being left in the dark where my real baby was concerned.
If anyone had told me, I could have made sure that my wife and child were safe.
I would have had charges brought on Fiona, and her child - if there had been one - could have been born in the prison system, where a DNA test would have been required by the courts anyway.
The more I thought about it, I wondered why in hell’s name I hadn’t done that from the beginning.
I didn’t want my child, if there was one, to be born in a prison.
I tried to tell myself that was the excuse I had, but truthfully, I hadn’t started the process when it should have happened long before Fiona told me she was with child.
I didn’t do it because court seemed like a step too far.
It felt like an invasion all over again and not just for me.
Ugly things about the situation were going to come out, and I didn’t want anyone to judge my wife for how she handled the situation, especially when they couldn’t possibly understand where her anger was coming from.
I had fucked up in so many ways.
I managed to get up to the maternity ward, but that was where I was stopped from getting to Violet. “I’m sorry,” a nurse told me. “We can’t let you inside without express permission from the patient and she is unable to give it at this time.”
“What do you mean she’s unable to give it? Where is my wife?”
The nurse stepped back at my tone. “Sir, you need to calm down. You are not on the approved visitor’s list. As soon as I am able, I will check in with the patient.”
“Why aren’t you able?”
She must have realized that she said a bit too much to me, and she turned and walked back through the doors that only opened when a code was punched. I didn’t bother to try to slip through, as I knew that would get security called on me immediately.
“Ridge?” I turned to see Mark Dupont standing at the end of the hall.
“Thank God! They won’t let me in to see Violet and the nurse said she wasn’t able to give consent right now. What the hell is going on? My parents said she was fine yesterday.”
“She was,” Mark told me as he moved closer. The man could only be described as haggard. His eyes held dark circles, his hair was a mess of silver and brown sprigs that stood on end everywhere, and his mouth was pulled tight. It looked as though he had slept in the rumpled suit he wore.
“Was? What happened? Is the baby okay? Is Violet?”
Mark snapped back in shock. “How do you know about the baby?”
“My parents mentioned that there was a baby that was doing okay. They wouldn’t tell me anything more, just that I needed to get on a plane and get here as fast as humanly possible.
Has the baby been born? Was it a girl or a boy?
Can I see the baby? Where is Violet and why can’t she consent to seeing me? ”
Mark held his hands out to get me to stop and then grabbed hold of my elbow and guided me toward the elevator. “I don’t want to leave,” I informed him.
“We’re heading up one floor to Drake’s room until there’s more news.”
“More news?”
“Violet had a bit of a setback this morning. She had a moderate concussion from the accident along with a broken arm. Something happened and she developed a bleed in her head. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but I do know they rushed her to surgery just a bit ago.
We’re waiting to hear, but the doctors know to find us in Drake’s room for updates. ”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” My legs almost gave out from underneath me.
I would never forgive myself if the last conversation I had with my wife was the one I couldn’t remember seven months ago.
What had I been thinking? It had been too long.
She needed time to come to terms with what happened and heal, but it had been too much.
All of it wasted. And because I was too fucking stubborn to even check in, I missed her entire pregnancy with our first child. “The baby?” I finally asked.
“Not born yet. At least, not that I know of.”
“Girl or boy?”
“Don’t know.”
“Violet never found out or she didn’t want to tell anyone?”
“She never found out. Stubborn woman told us that her only concern was that the baby was healthy, whether it was a boy or girl made no difference because they were a blessing made from love.” Mark swiped at a tear that fell from his eye.
“Sorry, it has been a difficult couple days. We were worried more about Drake in the beginning, but now…” Mark choked back what sounded an awful lot like a sob.
“What the hell am I supposed to do if I lose my daughter or grand baby?”
“We’re not losing them,” I said.
“We don’t get to make that decision,” Mark reminded me. I couldn’t form a response because he wasn’t wrong. It was out of our hands completely. “Come on. You’re here, might as well say hello to my son. Fair warning, you aren’t his favorite person anymore.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t think you do. If my son managed to get a weapon, I don’t think you’d come out of this room alive.”
“Why are you speaking to me then?”
“I know life is complicated and there’s more to the story than all the speculation that’s been thrown out there.
” Mark glanced from the door to me and back again.
“Why don’t you go on in and I’ll try to keep Wendy out here for a bit while you have a conversation with Drake. She should be back up here soon.”
I gave him an appreciative nod and then entered the hospital room belonging to my wife’s little brother - the same kid who once hero-worshiped me and now, according to his father - would just as soon shank me as speak to me.
“What are you doing here?” Drake’s question was immediate and hostile.
“I came to see your sister, but she’s in surgery.”
“No thanks to you,” he spat at me.
“You’re right. I should have had Fiona locked up from the start.”
“Why didn’t you?” Drake looked younger than I’d seen him in years. Maybe it was how vulnerable the hospital gown made him look or all the bruising, but it pained me to see him this way especially when all he could do was spit venom at me.
“Two reasons. I thought the publicity would embarrass your sister more than she had already been and…” I huffed out a frustrated breath as I carefully took the seat beside Drake’s bed.
“Fuck,” I growled. “I was embarrassed and ashamed. What she did…” I had to take a minute to work through the bullshit clogging my throat.
“She fucking took from me. Not just my choice, either. She took the fact that my wife was the last woman I was ever with. She took my marriage. She took so much more, even though I didn’t know it then. ”
“Then why would you hug her and take that bitch to Australia with you? Why did you divorce my sister?”
“I divorced your sister because she asked me to, and I was told it was for the best for the short term. As for Fiona, she came to the airport that day because she was somehow still able to see my calendar. She told me she was pregnant and that the baby was mine.”
Drake nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”
“No, it really fucking doesn’t. I thought it did at the time.
I thought if I could keep an eye on her until we had a paternity test done, that I could at least protect the child in case it turned out to be mine.
There was no point in time where that woman received an ounce of my attention outside of me trying to demand a paternity test and making sure she was alive and well for the baby’s sake.
Turns out, there may have never been a baby to begin with.
That’s my fault for not having it verified by a doctor of my choosing. ”
“None of that explains why you never spoke to our daughter after all this time,” Mark said from the doorway. His wife, Wendy, nodded her head as she entered the room with him.
“Actually, your wife can probably explain that better than I can.”
“What? How would I know?” she asked, but the nervous way she bit down on her bottom lip said everything to Mark.
“What did you do, Wen?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You told me not to contact Violet. You said it was her request that I give her time to heal. Every time I reached out to you to ask about her, I got the same response.”