Tempted by Her Innocent Kiss (18 page)

It had been a powerful moment of realization.

Calm settled over her. Oh, she was still terrified—

and heartbroken. That wouldn’t change overnight. But now she knew what she had to do and she couldn’t escape the inevitability of the path that for once
she
had chosen instead of it choosing her.

Eighteen

Devon was having a hard time concentrating. He’d already blown three phone calls. He’d sent an email to the wrong recipient and replied to another thinking it was someone else. His focus was completely and utterly shot and he couldn’t even pinpoint exactly what had him so out of sorts.

He was concerned for Ashley, definitely. He hadn’t wanted to leave her that morning, but she’d insisted she was fine and that he should go into work. Still, he had a nagging sensation tugging at his chest that wouldn’t go away.

Something just wasn’t right.

He picked up his phone to call Ashley’s cell but was interrupted by his door opening. He looked up and frowned. His secretary hadn’t announced a visitor and he knew damn well he didn’t have an appointment now.

To his surprise, Eric Copeland strode into the room, his expression grim. He stopped in front of Devon’s desk and planted his palms down on the polished wood.

“What the hell have you done to my sister?” Devon pushed back and shot up out of his chair.

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m getting damn tired of people asking me what I’ve done to her. If you’re asking why we left the party last night, she had a headache and I didn’t want her to suffer needlessly. I took her home and put her to bed.”

Eric made a sound of disgust. “You may not know this about Ashley but the only time she gets these headaches with any frequency is when she’s stressed or unhappy. I find it pretty telling that she returned from her honeymoon after only two days because of a headache and that since then, she’s suffered them on a regular basis.”

It was a fist to Devon’s gut. He sank back into his chair as Eric stood seething over him.

“My sister looks desperately unhappy,” Eric continued. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I don’t like what I see. She’s changed and something tells me you have everything to do with that.”

“Maybe she’s finally growing up,” Devon said tightly.

“Her family hasn’t done her any favors by coddling her and shielding her from the world around her.” Eric gave him a look of pure disgust. The cold fury emanating from the younger man slapped Devon squarely in the face. It pricked at Devon and aroused an instinctive need to defend himself. The idea that his marriage was being picked apart by this outsider roused his ire even as a voice in the back of his mind whispered to him to listen.

“Her family loves her just like she is,” Eric bit out.

“She is cherished and adored by us all. She is appreciated for the beautiful, warm, loving person she is and we’d damn well never try to change her. Anyone that would doesn’t
deserve
her.” He spun around and stalked toward the door but then he stopped and turned back to Devon, his lips curled into a snarl. “I don’t know what the hell kind of deal you struck with my father but he was wrong. Dead wrong. You weren’t the right man for my sister. The right man would know and appreciate what a gift he’d been given. I’m putting you on notice right now. I’m watching you. If Ashley isn’t more herself in very short order, I’m coming after you with everything I’ve got. I hadn’t planned to take over the business for my father, but if the choices are having you as a part of the family and making my sister miserable or me sucking it up and taking over myself, I’ll do it.” Devon’s lips thinned but he acknowledged Eric’s ultimatum with a tight nod.

With another dark look, Eric stalked out of the door.

Devon stared out his window in brooding silence after Eric’s abrupt departure. Then he stared down at his phone, suddenly afraid to make the call he’d planned just minutes before.

It also occurred to him that she hadn’t called him at work in weeks. Not once. No more silly Tinker Bell chimes that amused his coworkers to no end. Not even a mushy text message like she’d done so often before.

He hadn’t given it much thought. Things had been so busy after the wedding, with William wanting to move into retirement and the new resort going up, as well as the endless planning sessions for the future.

He’d honestly just forged ahead, hoping that with time, Ashley would get over her initial upset and see that things really hadn’t changed that much between them. But a sick feeling settled into his stomach as he realized—truly realized—that everything had changed.

And most notably,
she
had changed.

A ping sounded, signaling the intercom, and Devon raised his head irritably. Now his secretary wanted to talk to him? Giving him a heads-up on Eric’s arrival would have been nice. But he forgot all about his irritation when he heard what she had to say.

“Mr. Carter, your wife is here to see you.” Adrenaline surged in his veins.

“Send her in,” Devon demanded, rising from his seat.

Ashley hadn’t ever set foot in his office. Not even when they were dating. She’d called him. Texted him.

Sent him sweet emails. But she’d never actually come into his building.

He was striding across the room, fully intending to meet her, when the door opened and she hesitantly walked in. He stopped abruptly, taken aback by the starkness of her features. She was pale, her face was drawn and her eyes were heavy and dull.

An uneasy feeling crept up his spine as she stared back at him.

“Are you busy?” she asked in a soft voice. “Have I come at a bad time?”

“Of course not. Come, have a seat. Would you like something to drink?”

He was suddenly nervous and he hated that feeling.

Somehow she’d managed to completely upend his confidence. Much like she’d upended his life.

She shook her head but took a seat on the small sofa in the small sitting area of his office. “I needed to talk to you, Devon.”

It was only natural that any man hearing those words from his wife would dread what followed. But coming from Ashley, they seemed so…final.

“All right,” he said quietly. He took a seat across from her and studied the tiredness in her eyes. Those rich, vibrant eyes looked…bleak. Without hope. That was what he’d been reaching for. What had eluded him about the way she looked. He caught his breath, suddenly filled with an impending sense of doom. She looked…hopeless, and Ashley was nothing if not eternally optimistic. Had he ever considered such a thing a flaw? He was ashamed to say he had. Now he just wanted it back.

“I’m pregnant,” she said baldly. There was no emotion. No accompanying excitement. No flash of joy.

Frankly, he was bewildered by her reaction.

“That’s wonderful,” he said huskily.

But her expression said it was anything but wonderful. She looked as though she was battling tears.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said in a choked voice.

Alarm blistered up his spine and rammed into the base of his skull. “What do you mean?” She rose and it was all he could do not to tie her to the damn sofa because he had a sudden sense that she was slipping away from him in more ways than one.

Her hands shook but she exerted admirable control over her emotions as she courageously faced him down.

“This marriage. You asked how long it would take to determine whether it would work. The truth is, it was never going to work. It’s taken me this long to realize it, but I deserve more. We both do. You deserve to find a woman you can love and that you won’t be manipulated into marrying. I deserve a man who adores me and wants to be married to me. Someone who won’t try to change me. Someone who accepts me, faults and all. Someone who loves flighty, impulsive Ashley and isn’t embarrassed by her.” Tears clouded her eyes and her voice grew thick with emotion. “I thought… I thought I could make you love me, Dev. It was a mistake from the beginning to even try. It was a hard lesson for me to learn but I can’t be someone I’m not even if it meant you’d eventually love the new me. Because it wouldn’t be Ashley you loved. It would be someone I made up and all the while the real Ashley would be standing there, unloved. I can’t do that to myself. And I can’t do it to my child. I want to be a woman and a mother I can be proud of first. Before anyone else. I have to love and be at peace with myself, and you know what? I am. I liked me just fine. Was I perfect? No, but I was happy in my own skin and my family and friends accept that person.

Someday there’ll be a man who’ll accept me, too. Until then, I’d rather be alone and true to myself than with someone who places conditions on his ability to love and accept me.”

So stunned was he by her declaration that he stood while she walked quietly toward the door. When he realized she’d already slipped by him, he whirled around, calling her name, the lump in his throat so huge that it came out as a mere croak.

But the door had already closed quietly behind her, leaving him standing there so numb…and broken.

Dread consumed him. The realization, the true realization of just what he’d done threatened to completely unravel him. Oh, God. What had he done?

His legs buckled and would no longer sustain his weight. He staggered back onto the couch and slumped forward, burying his face in his hands.

She was right and so very wrong all at the same time. The realization was as clear to him as if someone had hit him over the head with it.

He’d destroyed something infinitely precious and he’d never forgive himself for it. He didn’t deserve forgiveness.

Dear God, was this what he’d done to her? She’d come into his office and delivered the news of her pregnancy in a dispassionate fashion, as if she were telling him that she had a dentist appointment or that she was buying new shoes.

Where she’d once jumped up and down and squealed her joy over her cousin’s pregnancy and vowed she’d do the same over her own pregnancy, she’d related the news with dead eyes and a broken spirit.

He’d done that to her. No one else. Him and his high-handed, arrogant opinions of how she should act or not act. He’d taken something beautiful and precious and had spit on it.

He’d suffocated a ray of sunshine and sucked every bit of joy and life from her.

Cam was right. Eric was right. Ashley was right. He didn’t deserve her. They’d seen clearly what he’d blithely ignored. In his arrogance, he’d assumed he was right and that he knew what was best for Ashley.

He had tried to change her. And she was bloody perfect just as she was. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed all the things he professed to be annoyed over. The random calls at work just to say she loved him. The sudden attacks of affection when she’d throw her arms around him. Her exuberance around others.

She hadn’t cleaned and organized their apartment because she felt like it. She’d eradicated every hint of her presence there because she’d thought that’s what he wanted. She’d tried to become this image of the perfect wife to please him. He himself had thought he wanted her to.

The cooking. The endless trying to kill herself to please him. She’d gone from a vibrant breath of fresh air to a subdued, beaten-down shadow of her former self.

She no longer sparkled. All because he was the biggest ass on the face of the planet.

His pulse ratcheted up and the sick feeling inside him grew as he realized just how long it had been since she’d said she loved him. Since she’d demonstrated any outward affection for him. Since she’d simply smiled and seemed happy.

Tears burned his eyelids. He’d taken something so very beautiful and he’d crushed it. He’d rejected her love. The very gift of herself. He’d arrogantly told her in essence that she wasn’t good enough for him. That he knew better. That she wasn’t worthy of him.

A low moan escaped him. Not good enough for him? He wasn’t good enough to lick her boots.

In clear and startling detail, he realized what perhaps he’d fought from the very first moment he laid eyes on Ashley. He loved her. Not the new, subdued Ashley. He loved the impulsive, passionate, sparkly Ashley. And the very thing he loved the most was what he’d tried to kill.

Rafe and Ryan had nothing on him when it came to being complete and utter bastards to the women who loved them. Devon had surpassed any amount of sin a man committed against someone they claimed to care for.

How could he possibly expect Ashley to forgive him when he’d never be able to forgive himself?

She was pregnant with his child and she was leaving him.

He didn’t deserve her. He should let her walk away and find someone who adored her beyond reason and would never ever treat her as he had.

But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be that selfless.
He
adored her beyond reason and if it took the rest of his damn life, he would make it up to her for every wrong he’d done to her.

But first he had to make damn sure she didn’t walk out of his life forever.

Nineteen

Ashley tugged the coat tighter around her as she stepped from the cab in front of her parents’ apartment building. She had no desire to face them today but she needed to get it over with and she wanted the comfort only her mother could provide.

Devon had already called her cell a dozen times until finally she’d shut it off so it would stop ringing. She’d expected resistance. She was fortunate that she’d caught him off guard enough that she’d been able to get out of his office without much fuss.

But now he would want to talk to her. No doubt he’d give her another lecture about being impulsive and reckless and whatever other adjectives he’d want to assign to her. Then he’d inform her that there was no reason they couldn’t have an enjoyable marriage, blah blah blah.

She wanted more than some damn enjoyable marriage. She wanted…awesome. She wanted a man who loved her and celebrated her for who she was.

Maybe she’d never have it. But she damn sure wasn’t going to settle for someone her father had bribed to marry her.

Which was another reason she’d come to her parents’ apartment. Because first she was going to tell her father to stop interfering in her life. Then she wanted a hug from her mother.