Chapter 14
Emerson~
I was torn between genuine heartache and anger, and it was anyone’s guess on how tonight was going to turn out. I also knew that I was partly to blame for this mess. Though we’d never really spoken about that morning at Windsor, I’d always known that Ramsey’s regret from that day ran deep. I’d always known that it was a touchy subject for him, so I could have chosen my words more carefully, knowing fully well that he’d already been in a mood tonight. Nevertheless, I wasn’t about to let him turn my happy life into one of pointless regret. After all, regret really was pointless. Since we didn’t have the ability to go back in time, what good was regret to anyone?
Besides, Ramsey was wrong about me not having any regrets, because I had plenty. I’d been seventeen when my father had killed my mother, meaning that I’d been old enough to call the police about the abuse, tell a teacher, anything. Instead, I’d kept silent because my mother had begged me to. Since she had the inability to leave him, had I reported the abuse, I would have been placed with CPS, and who knows what would have happened then.
Still, be that as it may, I didn’t beat myself up over it because I’d been able to accept that we were responsible for our own choices years ago. My mother had chosen to stay with my father, and if him beating me hadn’t made her leave him, then me being sent to foster care wouldn’t have changed her destiny. My mother had chosen to stay with my father, and I had chosen to accept her choices in life.
So, why couldn’t Ramsey do the same?’
“I’m not trying to ruin anything,” he said. “I’m just explaining why Cossacks is a problem for me.”
“If you trust me, it shouldn’t matter that another man is interested in me, Ramsey,” I insisted. “Just like how other women interested in you shouldn’t matter.”
“I do trust you,” he lied. “That’s not what I have an issue with.”
I let out a deep breath, trying my best to calm my rising anger. “Adrian is irrelevant. He only matters as my supervisor and nothing more.”
“What do you want from me, Emerson,” he snapped, his anger peeking out. “I’ve always been like this, and I’ll always be like this when it comes to you.”
It was true, so maybe we were both losing the point here. From the day that Ramsey and I had worked our shit out, this had been him for twenty-five years. However, Adrian wasn’t just some random stranger at the bar or stranger passing me on the sidewalk. Adrian was my supervisor, so he wasn’t going anywhere. No matter how Ramsey felt about him, I was still going to have to work with Adrian, and the dull ache in my neck couldn’t be the way that we dealt with that fact.
“I already told you what I want from you,” I snapped back. “I want you to forgive yourself. I want you to be happy, Ramsey. I don’t want your love for me to be an albatross around your neck. I don’t want you to look at me and see nothing but regrets. Jesus, how do you think that makes me feel?”
“I don’t see regrets when I look at you,” he said. “I see grace whenever I look into your face. I see how God gifted me with the best thing to ever happen to me, but I also see how I don’t deserve that much mercy. Baby, I was already headed to Hell before you came into my life, so don’t re-write history to make me the hero, because I’m not.”
“I’ve never asked you to be anyone that you’re not, Ramsey,” I reminded him. “I’ve always loved you unconditionally, and that hasn’t changed. You act like I wasn’t very aware of who I was marrying when we got married, and that’s not true. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I’d do it all over again if given the same choice. You also need to quit acting like I’ve been perfect throughout all this, because I haven’t. My baggage is just as heavy as yours, though I do my best not to let it define us.”
Ramsey’s dark gaze flashed, and the dynamics were different now that we were home. So, I wasn’t surprised when he walked around the counter, not stopping until he was standing directly in front of me, his large frame looming over mine. Once again, it was a good thing that I wasn’t intimidated by strong men or other strong women. In fact, I wasn’t intimidated by much.
“Since when have you had to carry your baggage alone, Emerson?” he asked, his voice a gritty mess of anger. “Since when have I ever let you carry your fucking baggage alone?”
“You’re deliberately missing the point, Ramsey,” I bit out. “We’re supposed to be in this together, so if you’ve been feeling like this all these years, then why did I not know about it?” As soon as he opened his mouth, I threw my hand up to stop him. “Yes, I’ve always known how that morning has been an issue for you, but not to this degree; not to the point that you’d actually be jealous of another man. Honestly, after our wedding at Casa Romantica five years ago, I thought the past was finally really behind us.”
For our twentieth wedding anniversary, Ramsey had planned the most stunning wedding ever at Casa Romantica, and it’d been just us and family. Everyone had been in on it, and it’d been the sweetest surprise that Ramsey had ever done for me. Even though I had no regrets about the way that we’d gotten married at eighteen, he’d been feeling as if he had cheated me out of my dream wedding, so he had hired a very gifted wedding planner to put together a wedding that still made me feel emotional whenever I thought about it.
“I did that because I’d been too stupid to give you what you deserved at eighteen,” he said. “I never should have married you at the fucking courthouse.”
“That’s where we all got married,” I pointed out. “None of us had a wedding.”
“That’s not the fucking point, and you know it,” he snapped.
“Then what is the fucking point?” I snapped back.
I watched as Ramsey let out a deep breath, doing his best to calm down. However, I knew Ramsey well enough to know that it wasn’t going to work. Ramsey had always had a problem dealing with heated emotions, and now was no different. Since Ramsey cared about very little, he’d always been able to serve his anger on a cold silver platter of revenge, so when we were arguing like this, he had difficulty ironing out our issues like an adult. Granted, so did I, but still.
After taking a calming breath of my own, I said, “Maybe we need to table this until the morning. It’s been a long night, and it’s clear that we’re not going to get anywhere tonight.”
“Oh, I think we got plenty far tonight,” he replied, his voice dark and dangerous.
Starting to get pissed off all over again, I said, “You’re right about that. After twenty-five years, I finally learned that my husband loving me actually makes him unhappy, which paints me as the biggest fool in history, don’t you think? I mean, who in the hell is blind for that long?” I stepped back from him, instant tears coating my lashes. “I thought that we were happy!”
Ramsey reached out to grab me, and before I could swing on him, he had me turned around with his strong arms wrapped around me, caging me in, his warm breath on my right ear. “Now who’s deliberately missing the point?”
“Let me go,” I bit out.
“Not on your fucking life,” he spat. “And I supposed that’s the point, Emerson. Despite it all, I will never fucking let you go, and that’s why it doesn’t matter what I’ve been feeling all these years. I would gladly walk in Hell for a fucking eternity and not give one fuck how hot the fire is at my feet as long as I’m walking behind you. Loving you doesn’t make me unhappy, Emerson. Loving you makes me feel unworthy, and there is a difference.”
“Let me go, Ramsey,” I repeated, beyond caring about his bullshit right now.
Before I knew what was happening, Ramsey had me hunched over the counter with his hand pressed down between my shoulder blades, and with his other hand, I could hear him undoing his belt, and all that did was piss me off further. While I wanted to go talk this out or just go to bed, Ramsey was going to remind me why I’d never be able to stay mad at him.
“You’re a bastard,” I practically snarled, though doing nothing to stop him.
“I’m worse than that, baby,” he replied roughly, not caring what we were doing to each other right now. “I’ve always been a lot worse.”
I let out a strangled cry when Ramsey filled me in one brutal thrust, and I was lucky that Ramsey hadn’t let me clean up earlier. The mix of our releases had kept him from tearing me, and that was such a fucked-up thing to be grateful for. A normal couple would be talking things out or ignoring each other while they each slept on the edge of the bed. A normal wife would not be letting her husband manipulate her with sex, and a normal husband wouldn’t be fucking his angry wife as a way to shut her up.
“None of it matters, Emerson,” Ramsey grunted behind me, his right hand moving upward to wrap around my neck, pinning me in place, his other hand gripping my hip painfully. “Happy or not, forgiven or not, regretful or not…none of it matters. I will never fucking let you go, and over my dead body will another man ever take you from me, whether I deserve you or not.”
“Ramsey…” I gasped when he yanked me up by my neck.
With his breath hot on my cheek, he said, “I will fucking kill Adrian Cossacks if he ever does or says anything to cause me concern again.” My body broke out in a violent shiver, and we really were a toxic combination. “I will fucking kill him, Emerson.”
“Ramsey…oh, God…”
“That’s right, baby?” he growled. “I’m your fucking God. Only me.”