30. Emma
Thirty
Emma
M y mother was relentless, sidelining me at every turn with a saccharine smile and serpentine maneuvers. By the time the sun dipped behind the mountain peaks, staining the sky in watercolors of violent and indigo, I still hadn’t managed more than a glimpse of Ridge’s familiar silhouette amidst the mingling crowd.
But the carved stone statue at my elbow remained an inescapable, looming presence.
Jayesh radiated a chill so profound it seeped into my very marrow no matter how I tried to edge away. His obsidian eyes roved my face with undisguised derision, harsh angles and hawkish intensity magnified by the hollows and planes of his austere features. He might have been reasonably attractive in an unbending, patrician sort of way, if not for the supercilious sneer forever affixed to his full mouth.
“So.” The rumble of his deep baritone sliced through the lively chatter ebbing and flowing around us like a razor. “Do you plan to work under your brother’s oversight for much longer?”
My shoulders went rigid at the subtle jab buried in his tone—the implication that assisting Ethan in any capacity was somehow demeaning or inadequate. Gritting my teeth, I threw him a look slanted with withering disdain from beneath my lashes. “I’m not sure what my plans entail at this point.”
Wrong answer, if the tightening of his unforgiving features was any indication. Jayesh’s nostrils flared infinitesimally as he shook his head in a minute, disapproving motion. “You cannot be serious. A woman of your pedigree should have far more ambition than playing at business, surely.”
The patronizing words slammed into me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. Arrogance and disdain radiated off Jayesh in scorching waves as he raked me with that sneering look of utter dismissal.
My hands fisted at my sides as a ringing built in my ears, the cacophony of laughter and music around us fading to a dull throb. For so long, I’d worked to accept that I was different—that my ADHD made me view the world through a unique lens. A lens without the rigid, success-obsessed blinders so many seemed to wear.
I was the dreamer, the free spirit content to embrace life’s small joys over the material trappings of wealth and power. A truth my mother still couldn’t seem to accept, no matter how many heartfelt discussions or therapy sessions it took.
And now here was this pretentious, xenophobic asshole, daring to project his antiquated expectations and ambitions onto me as though they were universal axioms? As if the very notion of a woman evaluating her worth by any other metric was patently absurd?
White-hot fury detonated in my chest, singing along every nerve ending until I was nearly vibrating with it. This pampered princeling wouldn’t know drive or passion if they waltzed up and kicked his porcelain ass into the middle of next week.
Jayesh seemed utterly oblivious to the storm gathering in my eyes, the obstinate jut of his jaw never wavering as he steamrolled ahead. “What do you envision for your future then? Surely not playing chemistry with your brother like a 10th grader?”
The words lashed against my skull like a leather crop, belittling and diminishing with their subtext of disdain for Leo’s business prowess. Of the implication that assisting family was tantamount to codependency—a pathetic crutch in the eyes of this misogynistic boor.
My nails scored crescents into my palms as I battled to keep my mounting rage in check. To simply turn on my heel and stalk away as I longed to, abandoning him to ponder that oh-so-vital inquiry, would be a gratifying release. But I knew my mother—knew the vindictive woman would view it as an act of cowardly avoidance to feed into her warped narrative.
No, this pustule needed lancing, once and for all.
So I held my ground, trembling with the force of my ire, as Jayesh charged onward with his next appallingly presumptuous decree.
“Perhaps after we’re married, you could take a more ceremonial role.” His tone remained as dry and inflectionless as a court stenographer reciting minutes, utterly devoid of empathy or basic human compassion. “Chief Operations Officer, something respectable but not overly taxing. I’ll secure the family’s financial legacy while you remain a figurehead ambassador—”
“Enough!”
The strangled shout erupted from deep within my core, vibrating with the raw fury of a woman pushed well past her limits. All around, the chatter and laughter died in stunned silence, every eye swiveling toward the confrontation suddenly unfolding in their midst.
But my world had contracted down to this singular, explosive moment, with Jayesh trapped in the vortex.
Even the pounding bassline from the bar seemed to fade to a distant murmur as I closed the remaining distance in two strides. With a trembling hand, I jabbed an accusatory finger into the placid center of Jayesh’s pristine shirtfront.
“Listen very carefully.” My voice emerged as a seething whisper, every iota of self-restraint focused on leashing the violence humming through my limbs. I leaned into his bastard space, near enough for the words to sear his skin. “I don’t give a solitary fuck what lies my mother has been spreading to find me a suitable…acquisition.”
His beady black eyes blew wide in shock as I spat out that final word like venom. Good—let the misogynistic prick get a taste of his own degrading medicine.
Throwing my arms out in a sweeping, all-encompassing gesture, I raked him from crown to toe with naked derision. “This? Is never going to happen. Not in a million fucking years. Over my dead body before I’ll submit to your antiquated notions of wifehood.” My voice dropped to an incinerating hiss, every syllable dripping venom. “Do I make myself unmistakably, crystalline clear?”
For a suspended eternity, Jayesh could only gape at me in openmouthed incomprehension, those impassive features finally fracturing beneath the onslaught of stunned outrage. His once-sneering lips worked uselessly as angry blotches of scarlet mottled his swarthy complexion.
Repulsed, I stepped back, slicing my hands through the superheated air in finality. “I didn’t think I could convey my stance any cleaner than that. So congrats, I guess—you’ve officially wasted both our nights.”
With a derisive snort, I pivoted on my heel and stalked away, the crowd parting before me like a churning sea. I paid them no heed, too laser-focused on locating my smug, insufferable mother to reacquaint her with a few home truths of her own.
After that, I had every intention of salvaging my evening with a certain smouldering cowboy who never failed to spark joy in all the right ways. Ambition and material success be damned—my definition of a life well-lived was simple, honest, wrapped in the arms of the man I loved.
And not a single cardboard cut-out prince would ever convince me otherwise.
I approached my mother with measured strides, the confrontation with Jayesh still simmering like shards of volcanic glass beneath my skin. She sat amidst his parents, lips curved in that trademark social smile as she gesticulated animatedly, clearly regaling them with tales of Leo’s latest successes.
“Mom.” My voice sliced through their insulated little bubble with all the subtlety of a hammer through stained glass. Three identically bemused expressions swiveled toward me, broken only by a minute tightening around my mother’s elegantly lined eyes. “We need to talk. Now.”
Without awaiting a response, I pivoted and strode away, making for the hushed alcove beneath the grand staircase. The way her polished heels clacked over the inlaid marble announced her precise trajectory long before she stepped into my periphery.
“Well?” Those coolly arched brows formed perfect accents over her look of patented mild disapproval as she folded her arms across her diaphragm. “I’m listening.”
My molars ground together hard enough to shatter granite as I struggled to corral the maelstrom of emotions roiling through me. How to start unpacking this entire mess of willful denial and dashed expectations?
Closing my eyes, I sucked in a steadying breath through my nose, focusing on the distant thrum of music and laughter as a grounding anchor. When my lids slid open again, my mother’s prim features had blurred into an expression of thin-lipped impatience. “You can’t be serious about Jayesh! He is entitled and controlling. We haven’t even known each other for a day and he already is telling me I should be more ambitions, and not asking, telling me that I’ll be the COO after marriage and not play chemistry like a 10th grader!”
She shrugs “So what he’s right, you should be more ambitious and do something serious in your life.”
“I get it, Mom,” I started in a low, controlled tone. “I understand you had all these grandiose dreams for Leo, Ethan, and me from the moment we were born. That you wanted your children to be wealthy and successful, to stand as pillars of ambition and material accomplishment for all to envy and admire.”
Her chin notched higher, but she remained utterly silent—watching, waiting for whatever objection or excuse would surely follow. I refused to take the bait, pressing onward with measured cadence.
“But I can’t be Leo, just like he can’t be me. We’re different people, with different strengths, different paths. And that’s okay.” My hands opened in a pleading gesture, as if to physically soften the blows that were still to come. “You’ve worked so hard to avoid this truth, but I have ADHD. It’s a core part of who I am—not some…some deficiency I can simply wish away, no matter how badly you might want that.”
Her mouth tightened into a cramped rictus of distaste, as if I’d lapsed into profanity. My own frustration bubbled upward, scalding the insides of my arms and throat.
“But even if I didn’t have ADHD, even if I was perfectly, 100% neurotypical, why is it so goddamn difficult for you to accept that I’m my own person? That I can’t simply shape myself into the glossy, ambitious trophy who has it all together!”
The sweeping arc of my arms seemed to cleave the very air as the vitriolic words spilled forth in a torrent. “This thing with Jayesh? It’s never going to happen. Not in any reality, Mom.”
I wheezed against the conflagration raging through my chest, twin spots of fury-blazed color scorching my cheeks. “Did you actually listen to a single xenophobic word out of that misogynistic douchebag’s mouth tonight?”
Trembling with disgust, I stabbed an accusing finger toward the nearby room Jayesh had so recently vacated—that den of antiquated toxicity now thankfully abandoned. “He’s just like you, Mom. So assured of his own delusional standards and expectations that anyone diverging from that narrow-minded path must be inherently flawed or inferior.”
The scalding syllables kept pouring out in a blistering deluge as I fought to catch my breath, ribcage straining against the seething waves of revulsion and hurt crashing through me. But my mother’s sleek, imperious facade remained frozen in its typical unreadable haughtiness—that flat, aristocratic blankness proclaiming her refusal to truly hear me.
With a ragged sound that could have been bitter laughter or a wounded, keening whine, I shook my head, numb resignation seeping into the hollows where my fight had guttered out like a snuffed wick.
“You’re never going to understand, are you?” My fingers found thorny purchase in my disheveled hair as I pivoted away, suddenly unable to so much as look at that polished, pampered visage anymore. “No matter how I try to explain it, no matter which angle…You will always want me to be something I am not.”
My rubbery legs carried me only a few wobbling strides before my back collided with the blessed solidity of the outer hallway’s stone surface. I slid gracelessly down the rough-hewn planes, crumpling in a crumpled, boneless heap as the first wrenching sob tore free of my core.
Why? Why did that visceral longing to be seen and accepted—to be truly loved as I was—still linger with such desperate tenacity after all these years? Shouldn’t the scars and wounds have scabbed over and healed by now? Shouldn’t I have become inured to this specific, annihilating brand of maternal rejection?
Heavy footfalls and the rumbling baritone of a familiar drawl reached me through the keening wail of my desolation. “Em? Darlin’, you out here?”
I barely registered the solid warmth of Ridge’s broad arm encircling my waist before he hauled me against the vast expanse of his chest. The heady, masculine amalgam of woodsmoke, worn leather, and sheer virility enveloped me in the fortifying sanctuary I’d come to crave with every molecule.
“Easy now, little flower.” The worry carved canyons into the craggy terrain of his beloved face as he ducked his head, snagging my chin between ruggedly callused fingertips. Storm-tossed green eyes swam with tender concern as they frantically mapped my features. “You’re okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
Ridge cradled me against the reassuring wall of his chest, his palm sketching soothing circles over the taut knots of my shoulders. Salty tracks of anguish carved glistening rivulets down my cheeks as I struggled to leash the wildfire of emotions raging just beneath the surface.
Gradually, the tsunami of sobs subsided to a mere undertow of hiccuping gasps and sniffles. Leaning back, I swiped the heel of my hand across my blotchy, swollen face and offered him a tremulous, watery smile—an apology and benediction all in one.
A rueful chuckle rumbled up from the depths of Ridge’s broad chest. With infinite tenderness, he brushed away the remnants of my breakdown, the rasp of calloused thumbpads smearing moisture and errant tendrils of hair alike.
“There’s my girl,” he murmured, a world of sympathy and steadfast love contained in those molten green depths. Cupping my face between his palms, Ridge leaned in to dust whisper-soft kisses over each tear-stung cheek—a benediction of his own.
“Hey now, you wanna tell me what’s got my little flower so sadlike?” His sandpaper rasp wrapped around the endearment with layers of gruff affection.
A tremulous noise hitched in my throat as I burrowed deeper into the sanctuary of his broad chest. His arms tightened in instant response, that solid wall of muscle and sinew banding around me like a haven amidst the crashing waves of my distress.
“I…” The words emerged in a hiccuping sob as I clutched at the sturdy planes of his back, wishing I could simply meld into his unwavering strength. “Why can’t I…why do I still want her approval so badly? Still crave her acceptance, even after all this time?”
The dam shattered completely, hot brine spilling over my lashes in fresh torrents as the pain lanced through me anew. “Why does it still hurt so damn much when she’ll n-never…?”
A helpless, wounded sound tore free—an animal keen of abject desolation. My fingers knotted in the soft fabric of Ridge’s flannel, fisting the material in a white-knuckled grip as I shook against the cataclysmic force of my anguish.
Ridge exhaled a low, textured rumble, the baritone reverberation sinking into my bones in a full-body caress. His jaw dropped atop my crown as one broad palm stroked a languid path up and down my arched spine in soothing sweeps.
“Because she’s your mom, darlin’,” he rasped at last, with all the gentle compassion of a man who understood this particular trauma intimately. “For better or worse, she’s always gonna mean everything to you.”
Muffling a shuddery sniffle against his shirt, I leaned into the solid comfort of his touch, letting the truth of his words sink in beneath the scalding topsoil of my ire. No matter how deeply that failure to be loved unconditionally had cut…my mother was still my mother. An elemental bond that neither time nor distance could fully sever.
After several steadying cycles of his hands mapping the tense contours of my back, Ridge drew away just far enough to dip his head and capture my watery stare.
“You remember what you told Lily about how folks show their love?”
Sniffling harder, I offered the barest of nods—the reminder of my own advice to her little girl wisdom enough to quiet the worst of my hitching breaths. Of course I remembered.
Everyone expresses their feelings in different ways, Lilypad. It doesn’t always make sense, but that doesn’t make it any less real or meaningful.
A tender half-smile curved one corner of Ridge’s sensuous mouth as he cupped my nape, those summer-green eyes holding me captive with their vortex of naked adoration.
“Your mama loves you in her own way, messed up as it may be sometimes, baby girl. You’ve just gotta see that for what it is.”
As the jagged edges of my anguish softened ever so slightly, he reached into the depths of his coat pocket once more with his free hand. With a sad sort of smile, he extracted the battered red Alpenliebe.
A watery chuckle bubbled up unbidden, only to dissolve into renewed tears of mingled joy and desolation. With deft familiarity, Ridge plucked out a single wrapped disk and lifted it to my lips, silently inviting me to open.
I obeyed without hesitation, sucking the confection into my mouth and letting the rich, decadent creaminess of chocolate coat my tongue in blessed simplicity. His thumb brushed my cheek in a soothing caress as my lashes fluttered closed, allowing me to sink into the momentary respite he offered.
Ridge’s fingertips traced molten paths along the fragile column of my throat as his voice dropped to that intimate, sandpaper timbre that never failed to ignite sparks beneath my skin. “As for the rest…”
His touch angled my jaw with exquisite care until my gaze locked onto the magnetic pull of those summer-green depths—a gravitational force from which no escape was possible, nor desired. My breath stalled in my lungs as he closed the scant distance between us, cocooning me in the potent amalgam of campfire smoke, worn leather, and the sheer, elemental musk that was utterly, uniquely him.
“You just keep being you, Emma.” The words rasped over my parted lips, raising delicious prickles across every inch of my sensitized flesh. “The rest’ll be just fine.”
Unable to resist the relentless undertow of that beloved rumble, I swayed helplessly into his solid frame, nodding against the steadfast wall of his chest. The hand not cradling my nape stroked languorously up and down my arched spine in slow, soothing sweeps. So achingly reminiscent of every time he had gathered me into his sheltering embrace and shielded me from the world’s harsh realities.
“And anytime you feel like crying…” A wry, self-deprecating chuckle thrummed through his ribs against my cheek. “Hell, I’ll always be here to hold you while you do.”
With a wounded noise of pure gratitude and love, I tightened my hold—clutching him with every ounce of fortitude as if he were the only fixed point in a turbulent, ever-shifting universe. He understood. He had always, always understood in that bone-deep way that transcended mere affection or desire.
Ridge was my harbor, my tether to sanity and wholeness. No matter how the winds raged around us, he would forever be the one safe haven where I could drop anchor and find peace.
A nasal chortle sliced through the tender moment, shattering the intimacy with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer through plate glass. “Well, well…what do we have here?”
I jolted in Ridge’s arms at the sardonic drawl, but his grip only tightened—an immovable bastion shielding me from the fresh onslaught of chaos. Casting a baleful glare over one corded shoulder, he growled, “Go away, Ethan.”
“Emma and Ridge, sittin’ in a tree…” As expected, the familiar, off-key sing-song cadence drifted closer. Around the corner swaggered the rangy silhouette of my brother, mischief already dancing in those roguish hazel eyes. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
“What’re you, ten-fucking-years-old, jackass?”
Batting aside Ridge’s answering scowl with a careless flap of his hand, Ethan quirked one brow rakishly and jabbed a thumb behind him. “Don’t gimme that grumpy old man routine-”
The teasing bravado slipped from Ethan’s features like a discarded mask as he drew nearer, allowing his customary roguish air to bleed away and reveal the steadfast core of protectiveness beneath.
“Hey now…” His rangy frame folded in on itself as he crouched before us, hazel eyes raking over my wan complexion and Ridge’s openly concerned mien. “Were you crying again, sis?”
I managed a watery attempt at a smile, even as fresh moisture pricked my lashes anew. Leave it to my infuriatingly perceptive brother-in-law to cut straight through the bluster to what truly mattered.
With a tiny, resigned nod, I loosened my white-knuckled grip on Ridge’s shirt, allowing the other man entrance into our sheltered refuge.
And just like that, the dam cracked once more.
The entire sordid tale came spilling forth in a torrential outpouring—the confrontations with Jayesh and my mother, the dredged-up insecurities and self-doubts, the bone-deep weariness of eternally being perceived as insufficient. I held nothing back, laying myself bare in a way reserved only for these select few who had proven themselves family through deeds rather than mere bloodlines.
Throughout the halting recitation, Ethan remained a silent bastion of patient attentiveness, his face an inscrutable mask of stoicism. Only his eyes—those uncannily perceptive, laughing hazel eyes—betrayed the cyclone of emotions churning behind the casual fa?ade.
When my voice finally trailed off in abject exhaustion, he exhaled a low, rueful sound. Reaching out with one calloused palm, he cupped the crown of my head, thumb grazing my temple in a grounding caress.
“You listen to me, Emma. That judgy prick Jayesh doesn’t get any say in jackshit around here. You hear me?” His drawl emerged low and emphatic, the familiar twang roughened by barely-sheathed indignation. “He can take his notions of success and shove ‘em so far up his tight, pompous ass that he—”
“Easy there, brother.” The low chuckle in Leo’s approaching baritone soothed over Ethan’s burgeoning tirade like a balm.
My big brother folded his hands into the front pockets of his jeans with a pointed look at Ethan, easing his way into our loose semicircle to perch on the low stone bench before me.
“Seems to me…” He met my gaze with unwavering certainty, those cornflower blues steadying me as they always had through countless crises big and small. “What we’ve got here is our girl forgetting just how damn accomplished and resilient she truly is.”
A fresh surge of emotion tightened my throat as Leo aimed a meaningful look at the expanse of property visible through the latticed windows.
“Do you know this little B&B of ours just posted our best quarter yet?” His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes with paternal warmth—a smile I’d seen a thousand times as a child, when he imparted some lesson or reassurance to soothe my worries. “Five percent profit increase from last year’s kickoff to peak season.”
“And that’s not even mentionin’ the fact that we just landed our first-ever destination wedding package,” Ethan cut in, typical rambunctiousness now recalibrated to mirror our big brother’s encouraging cadence.
My skin flushed hot with a combination of pleased surprise and residual embarrassment. I should have known they’d drag out my professional accomplishments like dueling knights into battle. That was their way—beating me over the head with undeniable proof that I mattered and had value beyond anyone’s narrow definitions or expectations.
And then Ridge’s low rumble sounded at my nape, the velvet baritone resonating straight into my marrow as one of those corded arms tightened fractionally around my midsection.
“You hear all that, little flower?” His drawl rolled over me like whiskey on the rocks—rich, smoky, and simmering with subtle fire. “You’ve got a whole squad of folks over here cheerin’ you on, ‘cause we damn sure know what an amazin’ woman you are.”
I could only gape at him, cheeks slowly flushing with the first tentative flutters of resurgent self-worth. Ethan tsked out a noise of mock impatience, pinning me with an exaggerated stare of reproach.
“Don’t gimme that look, Giggles. As if you don’t know all that success and growth is ‘cause of your drive and hustle. And even if you can’t see it…” He jabbed a calloused thumb back over his shoulder, jaw ticking in a roguish smirk. “Leo damn sure does. The rest of us schmucks, too.”
“Damn straight,” Ridge rumbled in gritty confirmation, nuzzling his stubbled jaw into the crown of my head. “Me and the rugrats too.”
I twisted just enough to cut him an incredulous look, only to find those gruff features awash in tenderness and steadfast devotion—the kind that struck like a sucker punch to the sternum, every single time. No matter how often I basked in the warmth of that emerald-eyed regard.
“All Lily and Avery ever babble about is how much they love you and want to be like you.”
A staggering lump formed in my throat as I gaped between the twin avatars of unconditional faithfulness flanking me on either side. Ethan, with his swagger and rough-hewn irreverence always belying a core of resilient integrity. And Ridge, my quiet cowboy—the one beautiful constant in a life of turbulence and questioning.
“So whatever venom that intolerant son of a bitch was spittin’ back there? Let it roll right the hell off, you hear? You’re too solid and sure in who you are to waste time frettin’ over ignorance like that.”
They are right I am working hard in my own way and achieving my own goals. I am successful and I have love.