Chapter 19
Ramsey~
A fter R.J. and Mad had left my office this morning, my day had been busy enough to keep me from losing my mind completely. We’d had a crisis with one of our energy subsidiaries, and not willing to fly across the country while Emerson and I were on the outs, I’d made my expectations clear. Of course, Deke had jumped in to take the reins when it looked like I might be setting us for a lawsuit, but still. I’d gotten my point across, and that should have been enough.
At any rate, walking into the house should have come with some sort of feeling of relief, but when I noticed the stunning bouquet of flowers sitting on the kitchen counter, I didn’t feel relief at all.
I grabbed the note sitting next to the vase, but it didn’t tell me anything. It was just a quick note written by Julia, saying that they were delivered earlier for Emerson. We had a cleaning service that came by every two weeks, and Julia Tremell was in charge of the crew, and we trusted her like one of the family. She’d been with us for years, and so she had permission to accept deliveries and things like that. Ideally, we’d have a housekeeper for all that, but Emerson had been against the idea. She’d wanted to be in charge of her home, and so we had compromised on the cleaning part since even she’d had to admit that there were only twenty-four hours in a day.
Staring at the beautiful floral arrangement, I set the note back down on the counter, and that’s when I noticed the small envelope tucked between all the petals, but it just had Emerson’s name on it, no indication of who had sent the flowers, but it wasn’t hard to guess. If it’d been anyone in the family, they would have warned me that they were sending Emerson some flowers. They knew how I was, and they respected how obsessed I was with my wife.
Now, normally, I’d opened the damn envelope to see for myself, but since Emerson and I were fighting, I thought it best if she did the honors. She was accusing me of overreacting, so this was her chance to see the shit for herself. No matter the reason, no one could argue that it was inappropriate to be sending another man’s wife fucking flowers.
Grabbing the vase, I made my way through the house, stopping in my office long enough to drop my briefcase off on my desk, then headed straight for Emerson’s office. Because Emerson was a bit of a neat freak, there was a clean space on her desk for the flowers, so I set the vase down as carefully as I could when I really wanted to throw the entire thing against the fucking wall.
Leaving the flowers on her desk, I went to my office, then poured myself a drink, needing to do something before I drove over to Adrian Cossacks’ house. There was no fucking way that the flowers weren’t from him, and if Emerson told me that they were no big deal, I had no idea what I was going to do. This was a man that she had to see every fucking day at work, and I was not okay with his personal interest in my wife, whether she returned that interest or not.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat in my office, doing my best to keep my rage intact, but when I finally noticed a shadow in my doorway, I looked up to see Emerson eyeing the glass in my hand, the bottle of bourbon on my desk.
“How long have you been home?”
Instead of answering her, I set the empty tumbler on my desk, stood up, then walked over to where my wife stood. Without a word, I grabbed her hand, laced her fingers in mine, then pulled her with me towards her office, and as soon as we reached the room, I stepped aside, so that she could see the flowers on her desk.
I let go of her hand as she asked, “What are those?”
“Flowers.”
She shot me a look that would have leveled a lesser man. “I can see that. Who are they from?”
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully with no proof. “Julia accepted the delivery, and so I thought that I’d let you do the honors.”
I watched as Emerson set her briefcase down on her chair before reaching for the little envelope nestled safely between the array of flowers. She didn’t say a word as she opened it, pulling out the cardstock that’d been inside, but then again, she didn’t have to say anything. Like I’d said, I already knew who the flowers were from.
“They’re an apology,” she finally said as she set the card and envelope down next to the vase.
“I’m sure they are,” I drawled out, my anger barely contained.
Emerson looked over at me. “Ramsey-”
“An apology for what?” I asked, cutting her off.
She let out a long sigh, and I could tell that she was doing her best to control her temper as well. “I spoke with Adrian earlier today, letting him know how I feel about the kind of recognition I received at the charity event Friday,” she answered. “I explained how I prefer for the attention to remain focused on the reason why we were all there.”
“And how did he take that?”
“He said that he understood and never looked at it from that point of view before,” she replied evenly, her silver eyes daring me, waiting for me to unleash my temper. “According to the card, the flowers are an apology.”
“What else did Adrian have to say?” I asked, my voice clipped in a silent warning.
“Ramsey-”
“Answer me!” I roared.
“We talked about you,” she finally admitted. “I told him that I didn’t appreciate whatever he’d said about me Friday night, and that I wanted to be clear about where I stood with my marriage.”
I walked over to my wife, and she didn’t stop me when I reached up, then wrapped my hand around her neck, my thumb running back and forth against her jaw. “And what did he say to that?”
It was all there in her eyes, but I was going to make her say it. “He didn’t deny or admit anything,” she answered. “He just said that no man deserved my kind of loyalty, and that…that he never pegged Ramsey Reed as a man that needed his wife to defend him.”
I pushed Emerson up against her desk. “And what did you say?”
“I told him that I wasn’t defending you,” she said before licking her lips. “I told him that I was trying to save him from you.”
My eyes bore into hers as I said, “You failed, baby. If that’s what you were trying to do, then you fucking failed.”
“Ramsey-”
“I’m going to fucking massacre the sonofabitch, and I’m warning you now not to stand in my way, Emerson,” I hissed down at her.
“Be careful who you threaten, Reed,” she shot back. “Don’t forget, I’m not scared of you.”
As I stared down at my defiant wife, Liam’s words came flying back, and it really was possible that Emerson had been able to forgive me because she really wasn’t scared of me. She also didn’t care what people thought of her, what people said about her, or about status, money, and power, though she had all three of those in spades now.
Whenever I thought about that morning, all I thought about was how I had humiliated her in front of everyone. However, when I thought about how she had walked down that hallway with her head up, then had undressed in front of everyone, walking out of Windsor like we’d all been beneath her, maybe I hadn’t humiliated her at all. After all, if I’d had, how would she have been able to return? How would she have been able to go back to Windsor and rule the school the way that she’d had if I had ‘humiliated’ her?
“No, I don’t suppose you are,” I conceded. “I don’t suppose that you’ve ever been.”
“I’d also never stand in your way,” she added. “And fuck you for even suggesting that I’d choose another man over you, even if you’re wrong.”
I squeezed on her neck, and she winced when I applied too much pressure on her hickey. “But I’m not wrong,” I pointed out. “Tell me that he’s not interested in you, I dare you.”
“I already told you, he didn’t deny it, but he also didn’t admit it,” she repeated.
“Which is an answer in itself,” I bit out. “If he had no personal interest in you, then he would have made that clear, both as your supervisor and a decent human being.”
“Ramsey, I can’t control how someone else may or may not feel about me,” she stated reasonably. “Besides, I don’t care how someone else feels about me. I only care about you, and that is something that you better come to understand, and you’d better do it soon.”
“Or else what?” I taunted, squeezing her neck tighter.
“Or else you’re going to ruin this marriage,” she answered scathingly. “And if you think that I’m going to stick around to live in the destruction, you’re wrong.”
My other hand gripped her hip, and I didn’t care how hard I was squeezing her. “Threaten to leave me again and see what happens, Emerson.”
“Ramsey-”
“I will fucking kill you, I swear it on my life,” I hissed, my anger taking over again.
Emerson’s lips parted, and we really were fucked in the head.