Chapter 29
Violet
Ridge took me out at least twice a week since that fateful night when he hijacked my dinner with Justin.
The past few weeks felt like a whirlwind between the dates, parenting, and therapy sessions.
In all honesty, I didn’t think we needed the therapy sessions anymore, but I was afraid to discontinue them because part of me worried that Ridge hadn’t dealt with what was done to him.
It was something I planned to broach at our next session.
“Can we bring Liam with us, tonight?” I asked.
“You never have to ask if our son can tag along with us, Vi. Of course, he can.”
“Good because he’s been a bit off all day. I think maybe he’s teething or something.”
“Do we have one of those frozen rings? We can bring one with us.”
“Yes!” I called out as I handed Liam off to him and made my way to the freezer.
It felt normal. From the “Do we have...” statements, like we were a family living together again.
I knew that Ridge didn’t even realize how he slipped like that all the time.
He treated my apartment like his own until it was time to leave at night.
The only times he ever got to stay past our goodnight routine for our son was on date nights.
Even then, he usually went back to his own place -which I recently found out was a mixture of his parents’ house and the couch in his office - by midnight.
I wondered why he hadn’t bothered to get a place of his own, but I thought I knew.
He was waiting for us to get a place together.
As much as I wanted that, it also worried me.
I didn’t want to go back to a place where we made our marriage vulnerable again.
I didn’t want to get attached to another house only to have something go wrong and him to sell it out from under us.
It wasn’t fair because I was the one to walk away, to file for the divorce, but the sale of our home was still a wound that felt a bit fresh.
I supposed there was more than one reason to continue with therapy, but we would get there eventually.
“Did you find one?” Ridge asked as he bounced our son gently on his hip.
“Sorry, yeah, I did.” I turned with it in my hand and shut the freezer door.
“You looked lost in thought there for a minute. Everything okay?”
“Sure,” I said quickly. Then, I thought better of it. “Actually, no. Can we cancel and stay in? I think there are a few things we need to talk about, and I don’t want to do that while we’re out in public.”
The smile dropped off his face in an instant, and I reached out to put my hand on his free arm to reassure him. “I promise, it’s not a ‘We need to talk’ moment.” Neither of us laughed as we made our way back to the living room and placed Liam in his bouncy seat.
“Let’s hear it.”
“There are some things that I didn’t even realize were still bothering me, but in the spirit of therapy and open communication and all that, I guess now is as good a time as any to get them off my chest.”
“Okay,” Ridge agreed.
“First, the house. Earlier you said, ‘Do we have any…’”
“About the frozen teething rings?” Ridge asked, obviously confused by where I was going with that.
“Yeah, but it was just that it sounded for a minute like we lived together again.”
“I’m not going to lie, Vi. I wish we did.” When I didn’t say I did as well, Ridge reached over and grabbed my hand. “Is that not something you want?”
“I don’t know. It led me to the other issue I had. You sold our home.”
That stopped him cold. He dropped my hand and stood up to pace back and forth across the room. Our son thought he was playing a game and gurgled happily at his father.
“I sold the house because I didn’t think you wanted to come back to all the reminders that were there.
Jesus, I lived with those party remnants for weeks, Vi.
I didn’t want to stay in that house much less go back to the place where our marriage ended.
I may not have remembered the conversation we had there, but I felt the loss in my gut anyway. ”
“You got rid of the house because of the memories, but you still work at the same place.”
Ridge shook his head. “No, sweets. I work in the same building, but my office has been moved upstairs. The old office is being combined with the conference room next to it and will become a daycare facility for some of our employees. I don’t even go near that level, let alone to the place where my old office used to exist. It was one of the first things I did after Fiona was caught there. ”
“Oh. So, you just basically burned it all down to start new?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I did.”
“Then why don’t you have a place of your own?”
“I do. I bought a house, but I’ll only live in it when you agree to live there with me.”
“You already bought a house?”
“Yep. Your bestie fed me info about all the things you loved about the houses she showed you.”
“Oh my God, Duri, is nothing sacred?” I yelled into the living room. It startled Liam and he jumped, started to cry, and stopped immediately when his father swooped him up in his arms and tossed him around a bit. Little baby giggles lit up the room. “Sorry,” I whispered.
Ridge wasn’t bothered in the least. The man loved the role of father and he played it well.
“I can take you to see it next week, if you want. The previous owners are moving out this week, so I don’t take the keys until then. If you want to move in with Liam for now and wait on adding me to the mix, we can do that, too.”
“What happens if we hit another snag in the road?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Will you sell that house, too?”
Ridge sighed and put Liam back in his bouncer now that he forgot I startled him.
“Sweets, if there are ever more stumbling blocks along the way, I hope like hell we have learned that we can communicate about things. If we decide together to move, separate, or whatever else, it will be a decision we make together. As far as the house goes, it is in your name alone, so I couldn’t sell it if I wanted to.
I want you to feel secure, no matter what. ”
We sat on the couch and turned so our knees touched, and Ridge held my hands in his. “Is there anything else you need to know?”
“One more thing,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Who is your assistant now?”
Ridge laughed. “It was Nancy Rodrigez, but she stayed behind to head up the studio and production teams in Melbourne.”
“Isn’t she married?”
“Yes, but her husband retired and moved there to be with her.”
“Oh, that’s lovely for them. They always wanted to travel,” I said. I meant it, too. I always liked Nancy. “That doesn’t answer my question, though.”
Ridge chuckled once again. “My new assistant is someone you will love. I had both of our fathers sit in on interviews because I didn’t trust my own judgement after the Fiona bullshit.”
“My father, too?” I asked.
“Yes, because I needed a neutral party who doesn’t work in the business and a jaded one, like my father, who warned me about Fiona from the beginning.”
“That’s kind of smart. How come you didn’t ask me?”
“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d want to touch that process even if there was an ocean between you and the potential candidates.
And some of them would have been very problematic for you.
” I raised a brow at his admission. “They were immediately dismissed, but I did not want to put you through that stress.”
“Don’t leave me in suspense here, who did you end up choosing?”
“My new assistant is forty-three years old with a life partner who he has been with for the past fourteen years. They have two adopted children, and I think I’ll pay anything to keep him on, because so far, he’s been a life saver.”
“Ridge, you buried the lead on that one a little bit.”
“Yeah, I did, sweets. Rest assured, though, I’m not making any decisions without you in mind ever again. Keeping our peace is my top priority.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I felt like a bit of an asshole bringing all this up. I never wanted to be the jealous, bitter wife.”
“As long as you want to be my wife again one day, I don’t care what other adjectives you place before it.
” Ridge winked as he teased me, but I knew at least part of what he said was true.
He wanted me to marry him again but hadn’t officially asked yet.
Up until recently, I wasn’t sure what I would say if he did, but he just annihilated the last of my fears and I didn’t think there was anything else to hold me back.