Tempted by Her Innocent Kiss (Pregnancy & Passion #3)(22)

He wanted more than anything to pull her into his arms and let her cry on his shoulder. He wanted to comfort her, hold her, soothe her fears and tell her it would be all right. But how could he when he was the sole reason she was devastated?

“I’m sorry, Ash,” he said hoarsely. “I know you don’t believe that, but I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know. I would have done anything at all to spare you this pain.”

“Please, just go away and leave me alone,” she choked out. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

He hesitated a moment and then sighed in resignation. “I’ll take the couch in the living area. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

It took every ounce of his willpower to turn around and walk out of the bedroom. His instincts screamed at him not to leave her alone. To take her in his arms and force the issue. Make her listen to him. To not relent until she agreed that their marriage could and would work if only they could set aside the emotional volatility that always seemed to accompany declarations of love.

He had only to point at his friends to know this was an inevitable truth. Their lives were emotional messes brought on by the letter L.

All that angst and suffering in the name of love. Rafe and Ryan had spent more time in abject misery and all because they’d been ripped to shreds by…love.

Devon grimaced and sank onto the couch in the dark living room. What a wedding night this had turned out to be. Maybe he’d always known that it was inevitable that she learn the truth. How could she not? But he’d hoped they’d have a lot more mileage behind them. Then she could see that their marriage wasn’t defined by love or emotion, volatility or vulnerability.

Friendship, companionship, trust, respect.

Those were all things he was on board with.

Love? Not so much. It was a messy, raw emotion he had no desire to embroil himself with.

Ten

Ashley sat on the private veranda and stared over the ocean as the sun began its hesitant rise. She felt empty. Rung out. She felt stupid and so horribly naive that she cringed. It still baffled her that a life she’d thought was so perfect just hours before was a complete facade.

All night she’d sat huddled in an uncomfortable chair trying to come to grips with the fact that she’d been lied to at every turn. She’d been used and manipulated, not just by Devon, but by her own father. And all over a business deal.

She couldn’t wrap her head around it.

Why? Why had it been so important for Devon to marry her? Was her father so unconvinced of Ashley’s ability to manage her own life that he’d all but hired a man to be her husband? She winced at the thought, but it was appropriate. At the very least, she’d been used as a bargaining chip.

She rubbed at eyes that felt full of sand. She’d cried all that she was going to allow herself to cry. She be damned if she shed another single tear over her husband.

A dry laugh escaped her. Her husband. What was she going to do about her marriage? Her complete and utter farce of a marriage.

She closed her eyes against the humiliation of it all. What a fool she’d made of herself over the last month. She wanted to die from it.

Had he laughed at her the entire time? Had he joked with his friends about what a gullible idiot she was? She didn’t like to imagine he could be so cruel, but the man she’d faced down the night before and demanded the truth from had been brutally honest. At her insistence, but crushingly forthright all the same.

“It’s time you had the cold hard truth, Ashley,” she whispered. She’d been living a fantasy.

She rubbed at her temples, willing the vicious ache to go away. But the pain in her head was nothing compared to the unbearable ache in her heart.

Should she leave him? Should she ask for a divorce? They could have the shortest marriage on record. She could go back home. Chalk it up to a lesson learned the hard way. It was doubtful at this point that her father would pull the plug on the deal because Devon had lived up to his end of the bargain. It wasn’t Devon who was unhappy with the result. It was her. Everyone had evidently thought she was the very last person who should be consulted about her life.

But the idea of divorcing Devon held as little appeal as living in the cold, sterile state her marriage now existed in. She deeply loved him and love wasn’t something you could switch off at will. She was hurt beyond belief. She was angry and she felt horribly betrayed. But she still loved him and she still wished that they could go back to the way things had been before she’d found out the damnable truth.

It was true what they said about ignorance being bliss. She’d give anything at all to go back to being that innocent little girl who still believed in happily ever after with Prince Charming. For just a little while Devon had been that prince. He’d been perfect. She’d built him into something he wasn’t, and that wasn’t entirely his fault. He couldn’t be blamed for her utter stupidity.

No, she didn’t want a divorce. But neither did she want to live a life with a man who didn’t love her.

She thought back to all the things he’d said to her the night before. His criticisms had stung. They’d stunned her. She’d never imagined that he’d thought of her in such a negative way. But maybe he was right.

Maybe she was too impulsive, too flighty, too exuberant. Perhaps she should be more controlled, more guarded, show more of a knack for self-preservation.