Page 130 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
I tensed. Quinn squeezed my hands again before releasing them. “It’s okay. This is Ridge. He’s still so… Ridge,” she said with a laugh.
I stared at myself in the mirror. What would he see when he looked at me? I put on the lipstick with a shaky hand. Then I smoothed my trembling hands over my dress and my hair.
“Evie!” Jesse called up the stairs. “Ridge is here.”
Just as if we’d made a date when, in fact,wehad not, but he obviously had.
I was going to throw up.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe. Quinn was talking, but I couldn’t hear her words.
I was overreacting. Why was I making such a big deal out of this?
Because of the way you left him.
Pulling myself together, I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and walked out of the bedroom. I descended the stairs on wobbly legs, holding on to the banister for support. Before I was fully prepared to see him again, there he was.
Bigger than life. Filling up all the available space. And so heartbreakingly beautiful that my eyes welled with tears.
“Ridge…”
“Hey, Cherry.” Sensing that I needed his strength, he pulled me into a hug, and we held on to each other for a few long moments. I closed my eyes and breathed him in. It transported me back to another time and place. His body so big and warm, and his scent the same as I remembered.
It felt so good to be held by Ridge again. I wanted to stay there forever.
But he released me and took a step back, putting distance between us, long before I was ready to let him go.
I drank him in. His chiseled jaw and full lips. His hair, with lighter streaks from the sun, and his skin golden tan like he’d been lounging on a beach for the past few months. Maybe he had.
We stared at each other, taking in the changes. The years had been good to him. He looked like himself but more polished in a dark gray button-down under a charcoal blazer tailored to fit his broad shoulders. His legs were clad in dark jeans that showcased his muscular thighs, and he wore black leather high tops on his feet.
He looked bigger. Broader in the shoulders. Even more handsome in real life than in the photo I saw. Like something I’d imagined in a dream, and now I couldn’t quite believe that he was standing right in front of me.
“You cut your hair,” he said finally.
I touched the ends of my shoulder-length hair as if I needed confirmation that it was indeed shorter. “I needed a change.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Guess you did.”
We weren’t talking about my hair anymore. That initial warmth at seeing me was gone, and his face was shuttered now. Unreadable.
“Ready?” he asked brusquely, suddenly in a hurry as he ushered me out the door. “We have reservations.”
“Have fun!” Quinn called.
I had a bad feeling thatfunwasn’t on tonight’s agenda. And knowing Ridge, there was definitely an agenda.
A black SUV was waiting for us outside, and Ridge opened the back door for me, the same way he always had in the past. When we were both in our seats, seat belts fastened, the driver pulled away from the curb and whisked us away to the address Ridge had given him.
I clasped my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking. “It’s good to see you, Ridge.”
He glanced over. “Is it?”
That was all he said, and I didn’t know how to respond. He stared out the window, his face impassive, and it confirmed my worst fears.
Ridge hated me, and tonight, he was going to punish me for leaving him.
The tension was so thick I felt like I was choking on it. I tried to think of something to say, but everything I came up with was so loaded that, in the end, I said nothing.
