29. Ashley

29

ASHLEY

A ringing noise intruded into my blissfully half-awake state of fuzzy consciousness. I tried to ignore it but could not block it out. My eyes fluttered open, and as I acclimated to my surroundings, the first thing that came to the forefront of my awareness was that there was something very hard and thick pressing against my back. There was also something heavy draped over my waist. Declan’s arm was wrapped around me; his hand was on my stomach.

Before I was able to register anything else, the ringing noise I was hearing stopped and then started again. As soon as it did, I realized my phone was ringing. I started to slide out from beneath Declan’s grasp, but he tightened his hold. His hand began to slip lower down my belly between my legs.

“Declan,” I patted his arm. “My phone is ringing. I need to get it.”

He released me with a frustrated sigh, indicating he was not happy about the interruption. I liked the fact that he wanted to keep me in bed.

I stood and crossed the room, hurrying as I went, feeling slightly self-conscious that my bare ass was on display, not that it was anything Declan had not seen up close and personal. Still, this would be the first time he saw it in the daylight, not in the forgiving hue of candle or moonlight. When I reached my bag, I rummaged through it and pulled out my device to see I had five missed calls from Skylar and four missed calls from Hank.

“Shit!”

“What’s wrong?” Declan asked from behind me, but I ignored him as I called my sister back.

It rang twice before she answered. “My water broke. We’re at the hospital.”

“Fuck! Okay, I’m sorry. I’m coming. Don’t have the baby until I get there!”

Skylar chuckled. “Okay.”

“I’m serious. Cross your legs if you have to. I love you.”

“Love you.”

I disconnected the call and turned around to tell Declan I needed to go. He was already out of bed, pulling up his boxer briefs.

“What hospital is she at?” he asked.

“It’s um…in Savannah. You can just take me home and?—”

“I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“You don’t have to do that.” I shook my head as I rushed to the bathroom where I’d left the overnight bag he’d packed for me. “You can just drop me off?—”

“Get dressed,” he ordered.

I didn’t have time to argue with him right now. I’d argue with him once we were in the car. There was no way I wanted him to drive me thirty minutes to the hospital just to drop me off. That was ridiculous. I would take my car.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, I came out dressed in the clothes he’d packed for me. When I did, I saw he was already dressed and waiting by the front door. I assumed he must have used the powder room to freshen up because he looked very fresh. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and his stubble had grown into a sexy five o’clock shadow that made me really wish we’d gotten to spend more time in bed this morning so I could maybe get a little five o’clock shadow burn on my inner thighs.

Neither of us said a word as Declan put our bags in the back and then opened the passenger door for me before getting in the driver’s side and driving away from the cottage where we’d spent our wedding night. The entire scene had me feeling things I had no business feeling in our arrangement. It was such a simple occurrence, him putting our luggage in the back, then opening my door and heading out after spending a night away. There was nothing particularly spectacular, unique, or special about it. But maybe it was because it was so simple that it felt so significant.

As we headed toward town, I wasn’t sure what to say to the man who I’d spent disliking and fantasizing about for the past six months—the man who I had married and then slept with. We weren’t friends. We weren’t co-workers. We’d had a one-night stand, and now we had a marriage of convenience with a ten-week expiration date…so yeah. What did you say to such a person? Small talk seemed too trite. Deep conversations seemed too personal. He didn’t exactly strike me as having a big friend group. Would he even want to be friends after this? Were we friends now?

“What hospital is she at?” Declan pulled up the navigation, and I couldn’t help but notice how big and masculine his hands were as he touched the screen. The memory of him touching me with those hands sent a shiver rushing through me.

I swallowed and tried to get myself under control. “You can just take me home?—”

“What hospital?” he repeated in the authoritative, commanding tone that my body responded to. Well, parts of my body, anyway. They were the parts that had my ovaries turning over the help wanted sign to position filled because they found exactly who they wanted for the job.

“Do people always do what you want?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Declan Wolfe was used to getting his way in business and his personal life.

The corners of his lips curled.

I sighed and put in the name of the hospital. If he wanted to drive me to the hospital, I wasn’t going to argue with him.

As I lowered my left hand, the sun caught my diamond ring, causing a prism of light to shine off its surface and a wave of guilt washed over me.

I slid it off my finger. “I can’t take this.”

“Yes. You can. You’re my wife.”

“I mean, yes, technically, but not really .”

“You really are.” His tone was firm.

“I know I am…but…you know what I mean.”

As we pulled up to the stop sign, he turned his head toward me. When his gaze met mine, I felt pinned to the seat by the intensity of his stare. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“You are my wife.”

He said each word slowly, and they all held a weight to them. The possessive statement caused my heart to pitter-patter and butterflies to flit low in my belly, but I forced myself to ignore my body’s response. It wasn’t a declaration of love, not that I even wanted him to declare he loved me. He was just saying the obvious, that legally I was married to him.

While I was still reeling from four little words that had me become an official card-carrying member of the Swoon Club, he turned his attention back to the road and started to drive again as I exhaled a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.

After a few moments, he said, “I would like you to wear the ring, but that’s your choice. Either way, it’s yours to keep. I’m not taking it back.”

I sucked in a shaky breath as I stared down at the diamond ring. If someone had asked me to design the perfect wedding set, this would have been it. It was a solitaire diamond with a halo wedding band.

“Was this the ring you gave to?—”

“No,” he cut me off before I could finish my sentence.

I could hear the tension in his voice. It clearly upset him that I would even think he’d do that.

“Did she give you that ring back?” It was none of my business. I was just curious.

“No. I didn’t ask for it back.”

I nodded. “Can I ask you about her?” After seeing her picture, I had so many questions.

There was a moment of silence, and I wondered if I’d gone too far, but he finally agreed, “Yes.”

“How long were you two together?”

“Seven years.”

“Did you love her?” Stella told me that she didn’t think he had loved her, and that she didn’t even think he believed in love, but I hadn’t actually heard it from the horse’s mouth.

After seeing her photos, I would think a man would have to be blind not to love that woman. I was half in love with her, and I’d never even met her. I knew that looks didn’t matter, but there were some people in the world who transcended that statement. Some people who were so good-looking that their looks did matter. She was one of those people.

“I cared about her. Serena is beautiful, smart, and driven. I appreciated the fact that even though she had money from her trust fund, she still worked. Although, now, I think her job was really more about her ego than actual work ethic. At one point, I loved her as a person, but I can’t say I was ever in love with her.”

That was hard for me to believe, but I had no reason to think that Declan was lying to me.

“And the night we met…was that the day that you walked in on her…”

“It was the night before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not?” I was surprised to hear that. He’d spent seven years with the woman, and from what he’d just told me, she sounded pretty incredible.

“No. If I hadn’t walked in on her, I would have married her.”

“Exactly, and then you wouldn’t have had to… you know…”

“I wouldn’t have had to you know what?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t have had to marry me.”

He glanced over at me. His eyes darkened. Again, the intensity in his eyes stole my breath.

When he looked back at the road, his voice was raspy and deep as he restated, “I’m not sorry.”

There was a heavy silence in the air. He wasn’t sorry that he had to marry me. Once again, I found myself swooning over less-than-romantic statements. It wasn’t even close to a declaration of love, yet the butterflies were back, and my heart was pittering and pattering.

Declan’s phone rang, and an international number came up on the dashboard screen.

“Sorry, I need to take this.”

He answered the phone, and I was surprised to hear him speaking another language. French, if I wasn’t mistaken. The call lasted the majority of the drive, and it was clear he was fluent.

The call ended just as we pulled off the highway in Savannah.

“How many languages do you speak?” I asked.

“Including English, five.”

Five? Who spoke five languages?

“Which ones?”

“French, Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin.”

“Wow…that’s impressive.”

“Not really. My grandfather insisted I learn two of them for business. My mother was from Spain. And one of them was a foreign language requirement for school. It wasn’t all at once, either. My grandparents emigrated from Madrid when my mom was three, so she spoke to me primarily in Spanish, so I was bilingual when I started speaking. When I was three, I began martial arts, and my instructor only spoke Japanese, so I was trilingual when I started kindergarten. Once I went to boarding school at age seven, I started French. And my grandfather had me start taking private Mandarin lessons when I was nine. It’s easier for children to learn and retain language skills than it is for adults.”

“Still, that’s impressive. The only language I ever learned besides English was Pig Latin.”

He chuckled a little as we turned into the hospital drive, and a warmth spread through me. I had to admit making Declan Wolfe laugh gave me a completely unearned sense of pride. For some reason, I didn’t think there were a ton of people in Declan Wolfe’s life who made him laugh.

I expected him to drop me off in the front, so when he turned into the parking garage, I was very surprised.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Parking.”

“You can just drop me off.”

Before he responded, my phone rang, and I saw that it was Skylar.

“Hey,” I answered.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I’m parking.”

“Luna is in the waiting room with the boys and Reagan, Cheyenne, and Isabella. Check on her before coming back to me.”

“Got it. How are you?”

“They just checked me. I’m at a five.”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

By the time I hung up with my sister, he’d pulled into a parking space. I put the phone and my ring into my purse. I wasn’t going to wear the thing for fear it might blind people. Also, even if word had gotten around the rest of the Comfort family, Zoe worked at this hospital, and she had no idea about my fake wedding. Not to mention, Dr. Elias Russell, who was a pediatric surgeon and also lived in Firefly. The last thing I needed was one of them to see the ring and start asking questions. Although, it was very tempting to wear it.

We got out of the car without saying a word to one another. I had to admit, walking into the hospital with Declan by my side felt a lot more right than it should have. Just like him putting our suitcases into the car and us leaving the cottage had. Doing ‘couple’ things.

As we checked in at the front desk and got our passes, I wondered how far he was going to take this. I appreciated him committing to the bit, but at some point, he was going to have to go back to his life and regularly scheduled programming.

On the ride up the elevator, I turned to him. “I’m going to be in the room with my sister.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not going to be in the waiting room.”

“Okay.”

I stared into his eyes, trying to figure out why he was here. What his plan was. There was absolutely zero reason for him to be. We were legally married. Hell, we’d even consummated our union. So why was he hanging around?

After several seconds of me staring up into his eyes, silently searching for answers, he asked, “What?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what you’re doing here.”

“When you do, could you let me know,” he responded as the doors opened, and he put his hand on my back, guiding me off.

I didn’t know if he was kidding or if he actually didn’t have any idea what he was doing either. But what I did know was that I really liked the fact that he was here, by my side, and I really liked the feel of his hand on my back. And I really wasn’t sure how I felt about that.