Page 107 of Ramsey & Emerson

I laughed.

I couldn’t help myself.

“I’m not the one spitting blood,” I pointed out.

“When Emerson finds out that you came here and attacked me, she’s going to see you for what you really are,” he kept on, and for a second, I wondered if he might be slow in the head or something.

“What makes you think that she doesn’t already know?” I asked seriously. “She’s been married to me for twenty-five years.”

“Because Emerson is a good person,” he shot back. “She’d never marry a violent maniac.”

“But she did,” I reminded him. “Which should be proof enough that you don’t know shit about my wife.”

“You probably forced her,” he spat, his hazel eyes glowing with humiliation. After all, not only was I wealthier than he was, but I’d just proven that I was also stronger. Plus, I had the girl.

“By force or not, Emerson is mine,” I replied arrogantly. “She’s mine, and she always will be.”

“We’ll see,” he bit out, his cheek already turning pink.

Taking the win, I just smirked before turning my back on him, then going back to work.

Chapter 22

Emerson~

Isat in my car, my fingers white around the steering wheel. I knew that I was partly to blame for this shit because I hadn’t forced the conversation with Ramsey, but I never imagined that he’d actually show up at the CPS offices to confront Adrian.

When Ramsey had called me to tell me that he’d gotten into it with my boss, I’d just been leaving my last house visit for the day, and all I’d seen was red. He was out of control, making this situation a lot more complicated than it needed to be. In fact, it shouldn’t be complicated at all. Like every other man on the planet, Adrian Cossacks was irrelevant when it came to my personal life. He didn’t matter, but because Ramsey refused to see that, it was very possible that I was going to walk into my office with management waiting in there to fire me, and it was going to be hard to blame them if they were.

I also didn’t know who to direct my anger at. While I knew that Ramsey was responsible for his own actions, Adrian wasn’t exactly professing his innocence, either. He hadn’t said anything to assure me that Ramsey was just overreacting, and so that’s when I should have done something besides just let my husband manipulate me with sex. I should have insisted that Ramsey and I talk this through, and then I should have had another conversation with Adrian, reiterating what I’d said earlier.

Getting out of my car, I let out a deep breath before making my way into the building, then to the third floor to put my stuff away. Like before, I didn’t need my phone going off while speaking with my supervisor about something so important. I had no idea how our conversation was going to go, and I also had no idea what I was going to do if Ramsey had cost me my job.

Never having been a coward, I put my stuff away, then headed to the fourth floor. My heart was pounding in my chest, but not because I was scared. It was beating like a drum at the thought of disappointing all my kids. The very idea of just disappearing from their lives physically hurt my heart. While there were thousands of other children’s programs that I could go work for, the children that were currently under my supervision mattered to me, and I wasn’t ready to stop helping them.

When I finally reached Adrian’s office, the door was closed, but that didn’t stop me from knocking. If he was in a private meeting with someone or on a conference call, then his silence would be answer enough, and if that were the case, then I could just go back down to my office, then book an appointment with him.

Knocking on the door, his voice was muffled permission behind the wood. “Come in.”

Reaching for the knob, I turned it, then pushed the door open, letting myself in. Now, while I still didn’t shut the door behind me, I did shut it enough to leave only a small crack of space. However, as soon as Adrian looked up at me from his desk, any thought of privacy vanished.

“Oh, my God…” I whispered behind my hand.

“Courtesy of your husband,” he stated coldly, and if I’d had any hope of saving my job before, Adrian’s bruised cheek and split lip erased all that.

“Adrian…I…I don’t know what to say,” I told him as I walked further into his office, and that was because I really didn’t. Ramsey hadn’t mentioned hitting him. “This entire situation has…has gone out of control.”

Adrian dropped his pen on the desk, then stood up to come meet me halfway. “What are you doing with a man like that, Emerson?” he asked, surprising me a bit. “You’re too good for…for a violent thug disguised in a suit.”

While it was on the tip of my tongue to automatically defend Ramsey, Adrian wasn’t necessarily wrong about him. After all, thug was just another word for bully, and Ramsey had no problem using his wealth, power, intelligence, status, and strength to get what he wanted. Ramsey was extremely influential, and he was intimidating enough to get his way most of the time, so it was kind of hard to accuse Adrian of talking crap when it was so close to the truth. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to allow anyone to talk shit about my husband.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Adrian,” I told him. “All you know about Ramsey is what you’ve read in the news and what you assumed from your brief encounters with him, but that’s it. You don’t know the person that he really is.”

“My face says otherwise, Emerson,” he bit out.

“Ramsey’s not an adolescent kid anymore,” I pointed out. “He no longer goes off unless he’s been provoked, and you sending me flowers falls under that category, Adrian. What on earth made you think that sending me flowers was an appropriate thing to do?”

“They were an apology,” he replied, though we both knew that he was lying.

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