Chapter Twelve
VIOLET DROVE STRAIGHT home. She didn’t let Ryder’s warning sink in until she parked the car in front of the resort and turned off the engine. Silence enveloped her while her mind went wild with questions.
What was Ryder saying? That he wasn’t a playboy? Or he wasn’t using her? Or was he saying neither because he was both and trying to confuse her?
Mission accomplished. Violet was confused. Her mind had never been such a mass of disorder, bouncing around in no solid direction, and leaving her without a clue how to put it in the right order.
A knock on her car window made Violet jump. Marc smiled through the glass with a little wave, still dressed in his charcoal slacks, however his shirt was un-tucked and the three top buttons were undone and his tie was missing. She hadn’t seen him come around her vehicle, which wasn’t surprising since all her mind was concentrating on was Ryder.
Violet climbed out of the car and asked in a low whisper so she didn’t wake the kids, “What are you doing? You scared the devil out of me.”
“Sorry, Vi.” He looked empathetic, but with a small smirk of entertainment. “No one has heard from you all day. We were worried. I was worried.”
That was careless of her. Her family was close-knit and staying away all day and into the night without sending a text was abnormal...and would make them worry. Violet should have asked Ryder to use his cell phone and gave at least one of her family members a heads up on her whereabouts. The forgetfulness was just another thoughtless moment in the presence of Ryder Carlex. She had to stop doing that, saying his full name in her head, exactly the condescending way he said her name.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized to Marc. “I was rushed out by Parker and left my phone beside the pool.”
Along with my wine and the novel I had fully intended on escaping all thoughts of Ryder...not planning on going out with him and making them ten times worse. And they were ten times worse.
“Joel was late picking the kids up. He was supposed to drop them off at Ryder’s house for a day on the boat and asked if I could take them to Ryder’s lake house.”
Marc listened, quietly observing. He had been that way from a young age, in a quiet, kind of geeky boy way, watching everything around him with eagle eyes, taking it in, and remembering.
Right now, Violet knew Marc had already noticed she disappeared inside Ryder’s big and baggy sweater with only her bare legs peeking out the bottom, on top of the face she’d been sitting in the car for who knew how long thinking about Ryder. The knowledge left her feeling rushed to explain where she had been and why she was in a man’s sweater.
“Joel didn’t show up at Ryder’s house and cancelled while the kids were on the boat waiting for him. Ryder was all packed to go, so he kindly extended the invite to take the three of us fishing, regardless of Joel’s absence. Parker and Sophia have been looking forward to this all week so we spent the day on Ryder’s boat.”
And I spent the day trying to figure out my feelings and Ryder’s feelings, only to run away when Ryder offered a date...a real date. That was terrifying.
A date made it real. A date made it no longer a fantasy playing in her head and that scared the hell out of Violet. At the moment, worse than that, was having Marc watching her so closely and likely judging her for going out with her ex-husband’s best friend, the player...even if the pretense was that it was for the children.
“Did you have fun?” Marc asked.
Not them...not Sophia and Parker, but her.
That wasn’t the question Violet had been expecting from her bother.
Why would she agree to go out with Ryder? That was what she’d been ready to defend, not answer if she’d had fun.
It threw the preparation to defend her decision to get on Ryder’s boat for a little loop, leaving her baffled...again. Honest, this bafflement stuff was annoying. How did people go around life not knowing what was around the next corner? It was exhausting. It was scary. It was driving her mind wild.
“Yes,” she answered honestly.
Marc smiled. “Good. I will grab Sophia.” And just like that and without another word, he moved around to the other side of the vehicle to fetch her daughter.
Once the kids were in their bedrooms, tucked in like sleeping angels...even Parker with his innocent face...Violet shut the doors and slipped into her bedroom.
She peeled the bathing suit off her body, sighing a huge thank you, as the constricting material fell to the floor. Pulling on a pair of yoga pants and matching black t-shirt, she stopped at the edge of her bed where Ryder’s sweater lay.
She hated to admit it, but before she concluded Ryder had tag teamed with Joel to make a fool of Violet, she had met a completely different man than Joel had always referred to during their marriage. Today, she’d met a family man whose mother’s death still touched his heart. A generous man, who gave up his whole day to keep the disappointment of Joel’s cancellation from her kids. More so, she discovered a man who wanted to touch her, kiss her...go on a date with her. Her.
But did he? Or was it a ruse developed between him and Joel?
Violet couldn’t chance it, not when her children were involved. She wasn’t the young girl rebelling against her father anymore, choosing to date Joel out of pure disobedience. That had backfired badly. If she hadn’t been so angry with Robert at the time, if she hadn’t been going against every word he spoke, her life could have been so different, uncomplicated, and maybe she would have found her happily ever after.
Walking away from Ryder tonight, felt like she’d walked away from her happily ever after.
That was crazy.
She shook her head, pushing the thought away. She headed down the hall, but Ryder’s words played in her head, like her happily ever after screaming for her attention that had been lacking for the last ten years.
I wasn’t the only one boarding this boat with judgement.
She couldn’t deny she had created an image of Ryder on the information Joel had supplied her over the years. Even if she was wrong...and it was a big if...how could they go on a date?
It was a useless battle inside her head and all the way to the kitchen where Violet found Marc boiling water in the tea kettle. Boiling water? For what appeared to be tea. Marc didn’t drink tea.
“What are you doing?” she asked, climbing onto the bar stool at the high island counter and watching her brother skeptically.
She missed the years he had been was away from home. Violet clicked with her brother differently than she did with her other siblings.
Emma and Anya had always been closer and Izzy loved and treated everyone equal, but kept her true feelings to herself, hiding behind several masks of charm, tease, and straight up wildness.
She was also a huge momma’s girl, had been her whole life, which was why Izzy still wasn’t required to work, having her mother wrapped around her little pinky finger.
The kettle whistled and Marc poured the steaming water into the mugs. He didn’t answer until he moved around the counter and sat beside her. As he handed her the mug, she knew it was lemon chamomile even before she inhaled the delicious aroma. It was the only tea flavor in her cupboard.
“Mom always prepares tea when she suspects something’s bothering one of us,” Marc answered.
The warmth soothed her fingers which she hadn’t noticed were shaky.
“Is something bothering you?” Violet asked automatically, flexing one hand and then the other, annoyed with her tremble.
Violet kept her life to a minimum of drama, but Marc on the other hand, was digging around, with Eliza, through their father’s hidden room of files. Files that were full of broken hearts and broken families that Robert was responsible for destroying. Lives her family intended to repair.
“No,” Marc said.
“I didn’t mean with you personally. I was referring to Dad’s errors.” Violet settled back on the stool, tightly holding the mug
and sipping the hot liquid that scorched her throat.
“No.”
Hot, hot, hot! She set the mug on the counter.
“But something’s bothering you,” Marc said.
Violets eyes snapped up from bouncing the tea bag up and down in the water and met Marc’s supportive eyes, offering to listen to her.
How did he know about her feelings for Ryder? Was she that transparent?
They sat in silence, while Violet weighed her options.
Who else did Violet have to talk to?
Her mother would encourage her go on a date with Ryder, unrealistically living in the fantasy world about love. Violet was leery to take advice from a woman who cheated on her husband on and off with his brother for over thirty years. Violet loved her mother and could even relate to the reasons backing her mother and uncle’s connection to one another. They’d bonded while Robert pushed everyone away from him. Still, Violet wasn’t sure her mother was the one to talk to about Ryder.
Then there was Emma, and the newly developed news that Ryder had tried to get up her skirt at Violet’s wedding. Talking to Emma was out of the picture.
And Izzy...there were so many reasons why she wouldn’t talk to Izzy that Violet didn’t even have the energy to list them off in her head.
Anya, the middle child was still missing. This was the perfect opportunity to bring up Violet’s suggestion to hire a PI to Marc. But that wasn’t what Marc had asked about and right now, at the late hour, after a day in the scorching sun, and Ryder dancing around her head, she didn’t have energy to drag Anya into the conversation. Decision made, if she was going to talk to anyone about Ryder, it was Marc.
Violet opened her mouth to tell Marc about her day with Ryder...not their morning, strip-off-our-clothes-and-make-love-in-the-lobby-washroom, but all the events at the boat, her feelings, Ryder’s feelings, and him asking her on a date. She needed to know if she overreacted. Violet’s mouth drew back together when she found herself at a loss for words.
I had sex with Ryder? I like Ryder? I think he likes me, but maybe he’s using me?
Every way she steered the events in her head, she was left feeling more idiotic, more confused and more embarrassed by all these emotions.
“I think we should hire a private investigator to find Anya,” she said instead, unleashing the worry of her sister’s whereabouts onto both of them.
Marc’s dark brown eyes shifted at the topic he hadn’t expected.
“I don’t want to confront her. Clearly, she needs space, but I would like to ensure her safety. I thought maybe you would know who Dad used to discreetly find people that were hiding from him.”
The fact people had to hide from her dad was disconcerting.
“I can look into it. I will talk to Carl and see if he suggests anyone before I look into Robert’s PI.”
Carl, Robert, Dad, Uncle...Marc was so good at keeping them straight, where Violet still automatically considered Robert the father of all her siblings.
It was complicated. They were complicated, which shouldn’t surprise her that whatever she had with Ryder was complicated.
For a woman who hated complication and drama, Violet sure seemed to always be in the middle of it.
They sat in silence again.
Violet’s thoughts revolving around Ryder. Maybe she had judged him poorly and he wasn’t the man Joel portrayed, but how could she know for sure? And if she went on a date with him and he was that guy, then she would be left feeling like a fool. But if she went on the date and he was the man Violet had seen today, then that looked like her happily ever after. But happily ever didn’t exist and it was funny because after years of the term never passing her mind except in regards to her work, all of a sudden, the term stuck beside Ryder’s name.
“Violet?” Marc’s low voice gave her a fright and her body jumped.
She smiled at him, embarrassed for getting so lost in her thoughts, she had forgotten he was even there. “Yes?”
“I don’t mean to pry. I know you’re private and proud when it comes to your life, but I’m your brother and I’m concerned.”
Violet didn’t say anything. She was afraid if she opened her mouth, her pride would tell him she was fine, when she was so far from okay. And she had no idea what to do, but she didn’t want to ask for help.
“Do you need Emma to step in for you with the Bensen wedding?” he asked.
The Bensen wedding? Huh?
“She doesn’t mind. I’ve already talked to her, anticipating this might be too much for you. It’s getting close to the wedding date, which could understandably become upsetting to you and−”
Violet held up her hand to stop him.
The Bensen wedding.
She wasn’t upset about the Bensen wedding. She’d hardly had time to even think about that wedding while Ryder was enchanting her mind. Besides, she didn’t love Joel. She wasn’t in love with Joel...she never had been.
“It’s not the Bensen wedding,” she clarified and her tone convinced him.
He nodded and waited patiently for her answer.
Oh, just tell him. Oh, I don’t want to. Oh, spit it out.
“I’m attracted to Ryder Carlex.” The words flew out of her mouth before she could double-think it.
Marc’s face fell open in surprise, total, complete, and utter shock at the declaration. “What?”
Violet continued. “And he’s attracted to me. At least, I think he’s attracted to me. By think, I mean he acts like he’s interested in going out together. Like a date. He actually asked me on a date, flat out, there was no confusion. But then does he really want to date me? Or is it just him and Joel playing mind games? In case you missed it, Joel has never been discreet on his feelings for me. Especially after the divorce. Anyway...” She twisted her lips. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t I be able to tell the difference?” She rambled everything so fast that she hadn’t noticed the look on Marc’s face, trying to keep up with her, until she stopped to look at him, expecting answers.
Marc opened his mouth and then shut it. He squinted his eyes, looked away from Violet for a quick second and when he looked back there was more confusion across his face.
“I did not see that coming,” he admitted. It was an answer Violet had also not seen coming.
Violet groaned and covered her face with her hands.
Why did she say anything?
The look on Marc’s face told her what her mind had been telling her all day, she was crazy.
“I know, it’s crazy. I’m crazy. I’m Izzy crazy, right? You can tell me the truth, your opinion, what you think of the situation. I can handle it. I need a snap of harsh reality because look at me.”
She dropped her hands and waved over the madness she had become.
“Oh gosh, just listen to me. I’m rambling. I am rambling.” It sounded awful.
“Yes, you are rambling,” he admitted.
“Rambling over a guy. Over dating a guy.” Violet lowered her voice to a whisper, as though someone was within ear’s reach. “Not just any guy, Joel’s friend. Isn’t that worse than Izzy? See what happens when you send a girl to private school...she misses out on feelings of lust and becomes an adolescent fool. In front of her brother.”
Hit me over the head and let me sleep this off!
Marc was smirking at her.
“What?” If her children had asked her that word in that tone, she would have knocked them back a week.
“Rambling, with a glimmer of happiness in your eyes. A spark of impulse and drive that has nothing to do with work, but instead life. It’s refreshing to see those qualities in you,” Marc said.
Violet pressed her lips tightly together, hoping to extinguish the glimmer and spark. Glimmer and spark. What was wrong with her?
“However, considering the basis of this topic, I’m not sure I’m suited for the conversation,” Marc said.
He was the most suited. “Marc, just tell me I?
??m crazy and behaving inadequately.”
“I don’t think you are doing either of those things.”
He had no idea what she’d done in the lobby washroom and what her crazy inadequate actions were creating every time she was around Ryder.
“We can’t keep our hands off each other,” she told him, then realized how immoral that sounded after spending the day with Sophia and Parker and rushed to give him details. “Not in an inappropriate way around the kids. Never around the kids. It’s not like that.”
“Violet, I don’t doubt you’re not putting your children first.”
“But when we’re alone, it’s like we have magnets strapped to our bodies. And the looks. We have looks. Serious, deep, lustful desire-filled looks.”
Marc looked uncomfortable. Good, that was what she was going for. Now he would tell her to snap out of it. Lord knew if their father was alive, he would have been more than ready to tell her to act her age, behave appropriately like a Caliendo.
“Again, not sure I’m suited.”
Violet groaned. “Why did you ask then?” she snapped. “And why did you make me tea? And wait up for me? And press me to share!”
“Because I thought you were having Bensen wedding issues,” he said in his defense.
“I’m not. Why do you people not listen to me? I don’t care about the Bensen wedding.”
“I can see that. Apparently you have other thoughts on the mind. Lust and desire-filled thoughts.”
Violet hit her smirking brother. “Shut up.” She didn’t remember feeling so out of control in years.
The last time was when she was pregnant with Parker and her cravings for deep fried pickles were more than she could handle...and now the thought of deep fried pickles just brought her back to Ryder.
Marc brushed off her light hit with a chuckle. “Ryder brings out the good old Violet in you,” he said.
Violet grew serious at his statement, not sure if she should take it as praise or insult. “What’s wrong with the now Violet?”
Marc touched her arm resting on the counter. “I have been gone for a lot of years,” he started, bringing up his six-year absence.
Until their father’s sickness, Marc had travelled south working as a manager in other resorts, spiting his father by not proceeding in the profession he had studied. When Robert fell ill, Marc felt obligated to return and now he was back for good.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you now, Vi,” he said. “But you’ve shut yourself away from happiness. It didn’t start when Joel left you either. It was before your rushed marriage to Joel. Something in you changed and you withdrew a little from all of us.”
Violet had no idea Marc felt this way.
Did all her family feel her disconnection from them?
“I don’t know what happened Violet, but it was as though you thought maybe you didn’t deserve to smile anymore. I am not saying that you don’t smile or that you’re not happy and wonderful, especially with Parker and Sophia. They are lucky to have a mother who loves them as much as you do and you are amazing with them. I’m saying you lost the extra in your smile, in your laughter, and you pulled away. It’s not a bad thing, I pulled away too when my heart was broken...or for you the opportunity of finding love was crushed.”
Violet’s body stilled and everything inside her went numb. Her rambling, her sharing, and the way her mouth seemed to flow tonight changed.
Marc knew? If Marc knew, who else knew?
“Dad told you didn’t he?” She hadn’t intended for it to come out as angry as she sounded, but her father’s betrayal brought that side out in her.
“Violet...” The way Marc said her name she knew Robert had told him the truth about her marriage to Joel.
Damn it. It was nobody’s business. It wasn’t a discussion she wanted to have or a road she even wanted to step her pinky toe on.
Violet stood up and walked away from Marc.
If her father wasn’t dead, she would strangle him herself. She hadn’t wanted to talk about it with Robert when he was alive on his death bed, and she certainly didn’t want to talk to Marc about it now.
“Don’t lie to me Marc, or try to sugar-coat it. Unless there’s a file floating around...” Violet gasped, turning to face him. “Does Dad have a file on me?”
It shouldn’t surprise Violet that the selfish bastard had a file on her. He had a file on everyone! And not a normal thumb drive file either. No, he had manila folders with print out after print out of everyone he ever screwed over and right now she wondered if Marc or Eliza had found one about her, or had Robert simply told Marc.
“Did you read it?” she asked.
“No. I haven’t seen a file about you. Robert told me on his dying bed. You wouldn’t talk to him.”
Violet was pacing and stopped at Marc, who had also stood up. “Do you blame me?” Robert was awful and what was the point in dragging up the past. It didn’t change what happened.
“No.”
“Did he tell you that he forced, forced...” she repeated the word so there was no misunderstanding. “...me to marry Joel because I was pregnant with Sophia?”
Marc’s defense fell to sympathy. “Yes.”
“Then I guess you’re lucky Carl’s your real dad. He would never force you to do anything.”
Marc drew serious. “Robert was my dad as long as he was yours. And he threatened Kate and her family if she didn’t leave and abort our baby,” he reminded her. “I’m just thankful Kate couldn’t go through with it or we wouldn’t have Rosemary today.”
That was so much worse than her marriage to Joel.
Violet’s angry shoulder’s dropped. “You’re right. You win.”
She turned away and collapsed on the couch in the living room. She was overtired, confused and not thinking straight. Having any conversation tonight was going to lead nowhere.
Marc sat beside her. “It’s not a contest. And one of our feelings are not more important than the other. Violet, he told me because he wanted you to forgive him, to forgive yourself and open your heart back up to the possibility of finding the happiness he stole from you.”
“He didn’t deserve forgiveness.”
“I don’t know what that man deserved. If he was alive today, I would drill my fist into his face for taking Kate and Rosemary away from me all those years. But he’s not here and we can’t change the past. However we can live now. Mend his mistakes. Mend our lives and the repercussions of his actions.”
Why was Violet even still mad at her father? It was over ten years ago and after the way she rebelled against him and purposely dragged Joel, who her father disliked, into her family’s life, maybe she deserved to suffer a marriage with him for not being more careful.
“Maybe take a step and fall in love.” Marc nudged her side. “Real lust, desire, can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other, love.” Marc shuttered and made a face. “Images. Images,” he said.
Violet laughed. “Oh, stop it.”
“I say listen to your heart Violet and go for it.”
Go for it? “But Ryder?” That was the question of the week.
“What’s wrong with Ryder?” Marc asked, as if he hadn’t been present when Emma mentioned the dress incident.
“Plenty. He’s Joel’s friend and his best man...again,” Violet pointed out.
“And he tried to get up Emma’s dress at your wedding.” Violet heard the teasing in his tone.
“Not helpful.”
“I’m just giving you the pros and the cons. But Violet, listen to your heart. When Kate came back, after everything she’d done to me, I told myself to stay the hell away from her. She had crushed my heart and I knew that she had the power to do it again. But even after all my years of hating her for disappearing without a word, when I saw her...my heart told me she was the one. It didn’t matter what my head said, because my heart knew better.”
“My heart’s never had good prac
tice. What if my heart is wrong? What if Ryder’s using me? What if he and Joel are coming up with this elaborate plan to humiliate me?”
“First of all, elaborate and Joel do not exactly go together.”
Violet would have laughed if exhaustion hadn’t claimed her body. Her body wasn’t going to make it to her bedroom. The couch was feeling comfortable and satisfying.
“Secondly, take a pause from your reasoning and listen to your heart. It will tell you.”
Listen to her heart. She was too tired to even dip into that tonight, fearing she wouldn’t be able to separate the feelings in her heart from her desire. She would deal with this in the morning.