by Maya Banks
broken her husband’s.
She put the battery back in, checked for further damage and then pressed the power button, praying that it would come on. After a moment, the black screen of death remained and she let out another groan.
In frustration, she punched several buttons on the keyboard, willing something—anything—to come to life. The problem was, as soon as she began pressing the keys, the monitor blinked and she was treated to a dozen programs opening and flashing in rapid succession.
At least the damn thing worked.
She bit her lip in consternation and began closing the programs down. There were lots of Excel spreadsheets, countless charts and graphs that made her head swim. Halfway through she was struck by the fear that none of these were saved or that she was losing valuable information.
As much as she didn’t want to ruin the moment, she’d be better off telling Devon what happened and let him sort out his laptop. That way tomorrow when he opened it up, there would be no nasty surprises.
She downsized the pdf that looked to be more a mammoth-sized report when her name caught her eye. She slowed down to read, her fingers pausing on the keyboard. It was an email from her father and she smiled as she saw the reference to her as his baby. But what she read next halted her in her tracks.
I’ve had time to consider your reservations in regard to Ashley and perhaps you were right to be concerned. I don’t want you to think I discounted your intuition, but rather I want you to understand that I want her protected at all costs. Her knowing the truth of our arrangement isn’t necessary even as I understand why perhaps you’re uncomfortable with it. She’s my only daughter and I love her dearly. The truth is, I’d rather she never know that the marriage is a condition of the merger. You are a welcome addition to this family and I trust that you’ll always act in her best interests, which is why I implore you to remain silent as to our agreement.
Stunned, Ashley stared at the screen, sure that she couldn’t have understood this correctly. She was jumping to conclusions, something her mother had always accused her of.
She admonished herself to remain calm even though her pulse was racing so hard that she could literally feel it jumping in her neck and in her temples.
She returned to the email, forcing the blurry words to focus.
“Ashley?”
She yanked her head up, startled as Devon suddenly loomed over her.
“It fell,” she croaked out. “Off the mantel. I was afraid it was broken. The battery fell out of it. When I put it back together and started it back up, all these programs opened and I was trying to shut them all down.”
He reached down to take the laptop, but she held onto it, with bloodless fingers.
He swore when he caught sight of what she was reading and he wrested the computer from her grip.
“Give it back, Devon. I want to know what it says.”
He closed it with a sharp snap and tucked it underneath his arm. “There’s nothing you need to see.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she grit out. “I read most of it. Or at least the important parts. I want to know what the hell it means.”
Devon stared back at her, his lips drawn in a thin line. He looked as though he’d rather be anywhere but here, doing anything but having this conversation with her. Too bad. She wasn’t about to back down.
“Nothing good can come of it, Ash. Just forget it, okay?”
She gaped at him. “Forget it? You want me to just forget I saw an email from my father basically admitting he bought me a husband? Or at least manipulated you somehow into marrying me? This is my wedding night, Devon. Am I supposed to pretend I didn’t see that email?”
Devon cursed and ran his hand through his hair. “Damn it, Ashley, why the hell did you open the laptop?”
“I didn’t mean to! Believe me I’d give anything not to have knocked the damn thing down. But the fact is I did and now I want to know what’s going on. What kind of a deal did you strike with my father? Tell me the truth or I swear I’m walking out of here right now.”
“This is precisely why you’re your own worst enemy at times, Ash. You’re too impulsive. You don’t think before you act. You just go around wading into situations and you end up getting hurt. If it enters your mind, you simply do it. That quickly. At some point you have to learn some control.”
She gaped at him, openmouthed, as his frustrated, angry words bit into her. How was she the bad guy here? What the hell had she done? This wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t entered this marriage under false pretenses. Devon knew precisely where she stood. God knew she’d told him enough times.
His eyes flashed and he turned his back. He walked across the room to the dresser and slapped the laptop down on it. For a long moment, he stood there, not facing her, silent. Tension rose sharp and so thick it was uncomfortable. Fear struck a deep chord within her because she realized that she was about to learn something truly terrible about her life. Her fate. Her marriage.
“Devon?” she whispered.
She thought back on their relationship. The whirlwind courtship. Suddenly the blinders were off and she began to analyze every date. Everything he’d said to her. How much of it had been a lie? Was any of it true?
She didn’t want to ask. She wasn’t sure she could bear to know the answer to her most burning question, but she also realized she had no choice.
He turned around and his eyes were shuttered. His expression was impassive almost as if he hoped to quell any further discussion.
Suddenly the circumstances of her marriage didn’t matter to her. There was only one thing she absolutely had to know. The most important thing. The one thing that would determine her future. And whether she had one with him.
“Just answer me one question,” she said faintly. “Do you love me?”
Nine
Dread had a two-fisted grip around Devon’s throat. He stared at Ashley’s pale, stricken face and he knew his time had come. Maybe he’d always known that this moment would come. He’d never really believed that it was possible to prevent Ashley from finding out the truth and furthermore it was stupid to try to keep it from her.
Damn fool of an old man. William Copeland didn’t want his precious daughter hurt and yet he’d set her up for the biggest fall of her life. Nice. And now Devon was going to look like the biggest bastard of all time.
“I care for you a great deal,” he said evenly.
Anger and fear warred with one another in her eyes. His answer sounded lame even to his own ears but he couldn’t bring himself to destroy her even further. Hadn’t she endured enough already?
“Let’s have the truth,” she demanded. “Don’t patronize me or pat me on the head while whispering pretty words to pacify me. It’s a very simple question, Devon. Do you love me?”
His nostrils flared. “The truth isn’t always a pretty thing, Ash. The truth isn’t always pleasant to hear. Be careful when you ask for the truth because it can hurt far more than not knowing.”
If possible she went even paler. Her eyes were stricken and all the light vanished from their depths as if someone had extinguished a flame. For a moment he thought she’d let it go, but then she squared her shoulders and said in a low, dead voice, “The truth, Dev. I want the truth. I need to hear it.”
He bit out another curse and thrust his hand into his hair. “All right, Ashley, no, I don’t love you. I care about you a great deal. I like and respect you. But if you want to know if I love you, then no.”
She made a broken sound of pain that was like a knife right through his chest. Why couldn’t he have just lied to her? Because she would have known the truth whether he admitted it or not and she’d already been deceived enough.
And maybe now they could finally go forward with complete and utter honesty and he could stop feeling like the worst sort of bastard at every turn.
She started to step backward, but she swayed precariously and flailed out one arm to catch herself on t
he mantel. He bolted forward, caught her shoulders and then guided her to the bed, forcing her down into a sitting position.
He took one step back and then heaved out a breath. Before he could launch into what he wanted to say, she found his gaze and he flinched at the raw vulnerability reflected in those eyes.
“What a fool I’ve made of myself,” she whispered. “How stupid and naive. How you must have laughed.”
“Damn it, Ash, I’ve never laughed at you. Never!”
“I loved you,” she said painfully. “Thought you loved me. Thought we were getting married because you wanted me, not my father’s business or whatever it was he offered you. How much did I cost you, Dev? Or should I ask how much my father offered you to marry me?”
Furious at the senseless direction this was heading, he yanked the chair out from the desk, turned it around and sat so he faced her.
“Listen to me. There’s no reason we can’t have an enjoyable marriage. We’re compatible. We get along well together. We’re good in bed. Those are three things many married couples don’t have going for them.”
She closed her eyes.
“Look at me, Ash. This may be painful to hear but maybe it’s for the best if we get it all out in the open. You’re far too emotional. You wear your feelings and your heart on your sleeve and it’s only going to get you hurt. Maybe it’s time for you to grow up and face the fact that life isn’t a fairy tale. You’re too impulsive. You dash about with no caution and no sense of self-preservation. That’s only going to cause you further pain down the road.”
She shook her head in utter confusion. Her eyes were cloudy and it was clear she was battling tears. “How could I possibly ever hurt as much as I do now? How can you be so…so…cold and calm and so matter-of-fact as if this is nothing more than a business meeting where you’re discussing figures and projections and sales and a whole host of other things I don’t understand?”
His gut twisted into a knot. He’d never felt so damn helpless in his life. He wished to hell it was as simple as telling her to be harder and for her not to let this destroy her, but he knew it was pointless because Ashley was one of the most tender-hearted people he knew and he was an ass to sit here and tell her to get over it.
She covered her face in her hands and he could see her throat working convulsively as she tried to keep her sobs silent. But they spilled out, harsh and brittle in the quiet.
He lifted his hand to touch her hair but left it in the air before finally pulling it back. She wouldn’t welcome comfort from him, of all people. If it were any other woman, she’d have already come after his nuts and he’d deserve everything she dished out and more.
“Ash, please don’t cry.”
She lifted her ravaged face and pushed angrily at her hair. “Don’t cry? What the hell else do you suggest I do? How could you do this? How could my father? Tell me, Devon, what was the price put on my future? What do you get out of the bargain?”
He stared at her in silence.
“Tell me, damn it! I think I deserve to know what my happiness was traded for.”
“Your father wanted me to marry you as part of the merger between Tricorp Investments and Copeland Hotels,” he bit out. “Happy now? Can you tell me what possible good it does for you to know that?”
“It doesn’t make me happy but I damn well want to know what I’ve gotten myself into, or rather what my father got me into. Did I ever even have a chance? Did you study up on all the ways to worm your way into my heart?”
“Christ, no. Look, it was all real. It’s not like I faked an attraction to you. It wasn’t exactly a hardship to pursue you. If I hadn’t wanted to marry you, no merger or deal would have persuaded me differently. I thought and still think that we’d make a solid marriage. I don’t see why love has to be the be-all and end-all in this equation. Mutual respect and friendship are far more important aspects of a relationship.”
“Maybe you can tell me how the hell I’m supposed to respect a man who doesn’t love me and who manipulated me into a marriage based on deception. Does everyone think I’m a brainless twit who should be pathetically grateful that a man sweeps into my life and offers to take care of me? I’ve got news for you and my family. I hadn’t married yet because it was my choice. I hadn’t had sex with a man yet because I had enough respect for myself that I wasn’t going to be pressured into something I wasn’t ready for. It’s not like I haven’t had men interested in me. I’m not pathetically needy nor was I going to waste away if I wasn’t married by the ripe old age of twenty-three. I was happy. I had a good life.”
“Ashley, listen to me.”
He leaned forward, caught her hands and stared until she quieted and returned his gaze.
“Right now you’re upset and you’re hurting. But don’t discount the possibility that we could enjoy a comfortable, lasting marriage. Don’t make a snap decision you may regret later. Take some time to think about it when you’ve calmed down. When you’re not so volatile, you’ll be able to look at the situation more objectively.”
“Oh screw off,” she snapped. “Could you be any more patronizing? ‘Don’t be so high-strung, Ashley. Don’t be so stupid and naive. Don’t expect ridiculous things like love and affection in a marriage. How perfectly absurd would that be?’”
“I don’t think we should have this conversation any longer,” he said tightly. “Not until you’ve had time to calm down and think about what you’re saying.” He stood abruptly and she looked hastily away but not before he saw the silver trail of her tears streaking down her cheeks.
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.
It was evident that he didn’t want the person she was. It was evident he didn’t love flighty, impulsive, tender-hearted, animal-loving Ashley Copeland, who called him at work just to say she loved him.
If he didn’t want or love that person, then the only two options left to her were to walk away and get a divorce or to become someone he could love.
Could she make him fall in love with her? Her family always worried that she was too trusting. Too naive. Too everything. Apparently they were right.
The only person who didn’t seem to think anything was wrong with who Ashley Copeland was, was Ashley herself. And it was becoming increasingly clearer that her judgment stank.
It was time for one hell of a makeover.
But the idea didn’t excite her. It didn’t infuse enthusiasm into her flagging spirits. It was a bleak thought and she dimly wondered if Devon was worth such an effort.
Would his love be enough, provided she could even make him fall in love with her?
A voice in the back of her mind whispered that it was time for her to grow up. It was a voice that sounded precariously close to Devon’s. He thought she should grow up. Her father evidently thought the same. Maybe they were both right.
She stiffened when she heard a sound on the terrace. She knew it was Devon but she wasn’t ready to face him yet.
“Have you been out here all night?” he asked quietly.
She nodded wordlessly and continued to stare over the water.
He walked to the thick stone railing that enclosed the private viewing area, shoved his hands in his pockets and for a moment stared over the water as she was doing. Then he turned to face her and leaned back against the stone.
He looked as bad as she felt, though she had no sympathy. His hair was rumpled. He was still in the same clothes as the night before.
“Ash, don’t torture yourself over this. There’s no reason we can’t have a perfectly good marriage, no matter the circumstances of how we came to be married.”
He was starting to repeat his arguments from the previous night and the truth was, she couldn’t stomach hearing again how she was naive and impulsive and whatever else it was he’d said when he outlined all her faults.
She bit her lip to keep the angry flood from rushing out because at this
