41. Ashley

41

ASHLEY

Being the third wheel was depressing enough… Being the ninth wheel was tragic , I thought as I ran my hands through Luna’s hair. She’d fallen sound asleep on my lap while we were watching Elf .

As much as I loved the Comfort clan and was eternally grateful that they were now my extended family and had welcomed Skylar, Luna, and now Mason into their tribe, spending Christmas morning surrounded by four couples who were loved up with men who adored their spouses was about as much fun as getting a bikini wax over a sunburn.

Hank, Billy, Jimmy, and Cash couldn’t keep their hands off their wives. And it wasn’t just the PDA that was disheartening; it was the way the Y chromosome-carrying males looked at their other halves… like they were the only women who existed on earth. And it wasn’t limited to the Comforts. Love was all around me. It was the same way that Harlan looked at Daphne and Miles looked at Zoe. Even the older generation in Firefly was loved up. Harlan’s grandfather had moved into Beasley Boarding House with Mrs. B, and Zoe’s father-in-law Walter was dating Mrs. Birch.

The only other single person I had was Nadia, and she had a new man on her arm every time I turned around. If dating were an Olympic sport, she would easily be a gold medalist. She was expert level at casual dating. I was not. I needed commitment, connection, and conversation before I even considered the shorter C-word that ended in k and had o and another c in the middle.

Having a front-row seat to these madly in love men all morning was exhibit a, b, and c in the People vs. Me case of Why I Can’t Settle for a Loveless Marriage, no matter how tempting it was.

Speaking of my loveless marriage, I had divorce papers sitting on my kitchen table. The original plan had been to file them after the first of the year, but I figured there was no reason to postpone the inevitable. I wanted to get it over with before I did something stupid like talk myself into staying.

The sooner I divorced my perfect husband, who I was madly in love with, the sooner I could find happiness, was a sentence I never thought I’d say.

As gently as I possibly could, I slid out from under Luna and carefully replaced my lap with a throw pillow. Keeping my hair from falling in her face, I leaned over and kissed her cheek, then headed upstairs to the nursery where Skylar was feeding Mason.

The floorboard outside his room creaked as I stepped on it before I pushed open the door and stepped inside. “Hey, I think I’m going to head out.”

“Are you sure?” Skylar asked, lifting her head. “We’re gonna play games after I get him down for a nap.”

“Yeah. I’m tired.”

My sister’s assessing gaze narrowed. “You’re going home to sign the divorce papers. On Christmas Day.”

When she said it like that, it sounded bad, but it was something I had to do. She wouldn’t understand since she had her brooding, badass husband who worshipped the ground she walked on.

“What?” I shook my head as if the thought had not even occurred to me. “No. I’m not.”

Skylar perfected the art of interrogation sometime during my teenage years. She had a way of remaining totally silent but giving me a look that made me talk. I wasn’t sure what it was about the expression, but whenever she did it, I confessed all my sins. I personally think she’d missed her calling as an FBI or CIA interrogator.

“Fine, yes, I am. I’m going to FedEx them to him tomorrow.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“On Thanksgiving, when Declan was here, I talked to him in the kitchen, and he said something that made me think there might be a chance that you guys could try and make this work.”

“What?” My heart skipped more beats than the Go-Go’s had. “What did he say?”

“I don’t remember exactly. I still have baby brain. I think I said something about you guys having a month left, and he said yeah if that’s what you want. It’s not really what he said…it was more the way he said it… the look in his eyes. I don’t think he wants this to end.”

“He might not want it to end, but he doesn’t want a marriage. I mean…he wants a marriage but not a real marriage.”

“What’s a real marriage?”

I sighed. I had a feeling this conversation was going to go the same way it had with Nadia. “It’s a marriage with love.”

“So he does want to stay married to you?”

“Yes. I mean, he wants a wife and family, and he likes me, so I’ll do.”

“You’ll do?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what he said to you? He said you’ll do ?”

“No, not in those words.”

“What words did he say?”

He’d said that I was the only person he wanted to marry. But I couldn’t say that because she’d read too much into it.

“I can’t remember. I have auntie brain.”

Skylar’s brows lifted, indicating she was not amused that I was using auntie brain as an excuse when baby brain was a real thing and clearly auntie brain was made up.

“It doesn’t matter. The point is, he doesn’t love me. He doesn’t think marriage and love have anything to do with each other. He says that fifty percent of marriages end in divorce because they are based on a feeling, and marriage should be based on commitment.”

“Hmm.” Skylar’s mouth twisted to the side as she bit the inside of her cheek, the way she did when she was considering something.

“No, not hmm . I will not be married to someone who doesn’t love me.”

“You were going to go on Married by a Matchmaker . Do you think the person you married would have loved you?”

“Why do people keep bringing that up?!” I heard my voice raising as I started to get irritated, but then I stopped myself.

My sister was just worried about me. She always wanted the best for me and didn’t deserve me snapping at her. I was just cranky because I had to get a divorce from my husband, who I stupidly fell in love with.

I took a deep breath and calmly stated, “No, I don’t think whoever I was matched with would have loved me when we got married, but they would have wanted l ove in a marriage. That would have been the goal. That’s why they would’ve gone on the show.”

My sister’s expression indicated she did not think that was the case. “I think that’s up for debate. But it’s a moot point because you aren’t on the show. You are married to Declan. Do you honestly think if you stayed married to Declan, he wouldn’t fall in love with you?”

“No. I know he wouldn’t.”

“How? How do you know that?”

“Because he was with his fiancée for seven years, and he loved her, but he wasn’t in love with her.”

“Isn’t that just semantics?”

Why was no one on my side in this? If anyone should be, it should be my bestie and my sister, but I had a feeling they were both Team Declan. I get that he’s handsome and rich and he had treats me well, but he didn’t love me. That was a deal breaker. End. Of. Story.

“No. I want the same kind of love that you and Hank have. That his brothers and Cash have. That Zoe and Daphne have with Miles and Harlan. I want to be married to someone who is in love with me. Someone who can’t imagine being with anyone else. Someone who wants me to be the last person they see every night and the first person they see when they wake up every morning. Someone who looks at me the way Hank, Billy, Jimmy, Cash, and Clyde look at you, Reagan, Isabella, Cheyenne, and Bonnie.”

“Do you love him?” Skylar asked, ignoring everything I’d just told her I wanted.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Do you love him?” she repeated.

I shook my head back and forth. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course, it does. Do you love him?”

“Yes.” I sighed as my shoulders slumped in defeat. I was tired of arguing my case. “I do.”

I wished I didn’t. I shouldn’t. He had been very honest in telling me that he was emotionally unavailable, but I did love him. I think a part of me fell in love with him the first time I saw him at that bar.

“Ash, I saw the way he looks at you. That man loves you. I just think that maybe he doesn't know what love is.”

Why would she say that to me? Skylar had never been one to sugarcoat things. When I was five and asked if Santa was real, she told me he wasn’t. When I was twelve and went to the dentist to get my wisdom teeth pulled, the dental hygienist told me it wouldn’t hurt. Skylar told me that it would, but I would get through it. When my parents got in the car accident when I was nine, the social worker said that there was a good chance they were going to pull through. Skylar told me that they were probably going to die, but she was going to do everything she could to take care of me.

If she’d been honest about all of those things, why would she lie now?

“That’s not…he doesn’t…he’s thirty-six years old; I’m sure he knows what love is.”

“I don’t think age has anything to do with it. You said that his mom died when he was six, his dad died when he was eight, and he lived with his grandparents and was basically raised in boarding schools. As an employer, you described him as a perfectionist, a control freak, with no emotions. Didn’t you call him Robo-boss and Mr. Stick Up His Ass?”

“Yes, exactly, that’s what I’m saying.” She was proving my point. “He’s not capable of love.”

“I think he is. I think that maybe he has a hard time connecting with people. I listened to the vows he wrote, and he wants to be a good husband to you. I’ve seen the way he’s treated you. He wants to give you everything you need. I think he can love you, that he does love you, if you just give him a chance and show him what love is. If anyone can, it’s you. You are the most loving person I know, Ashley.

“I believe that you love him for who he is, not what he can give you. How many women do you think will come into his life and love him for who he is? I saw the way he looks at you. He sees you, Ash. Don’t throw that away because you’re scared.”

“You don’t know him…” I shook my head as tears started forming in my eyes. I wasn’t sure if they were tears of hope or tears of hopelessness. Either way, I didn’t want Hank or anyone else to come in and see me crying. I sniffed them back and wiped my cheek. “I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

“Ash, I’m sorry,” Skylar called out as I turned and walked down the hallway.

I headed down the stairs and out the back of the house and across the field as fast as my legs could carry me. The entire way back to my house, my sister’s words were echoing in my head. She didn’t know what she was talking about. She’d spent a few hours around Declan, not even with him alone. She’d had one conversation with him in the kitchen, and she thought she knew him. She didn’t know him. She saw the best in people. She always had. This was my life, my heart, that was at stake. I wasn’t being scared. I was being smart.

Declan told me who he was and what he was capable of. I need more than that. That was it. I wasn’t going to compromise because it was two against one, and my hormones and heart were ganging up on my head. This had to be a logical decision.

My future, my family, and my forever were on the line.

With more determination than ever, I walked inside my front door, and the screen slammed behind me. I headed straight for the kitchen table, sat down, and signed, dated, and initialed everywhere there was a colored tab. As I did, tears fell down my face.

It was strange because I felt the moisture of the tears fall, but I wasn’t sad, so I didn’t know where the waterworks were coming from. I was signing on autopilot with no emotion. No feeling. Maybe my tear ducts hadn’t gotten the memo from my limbic system.

Once the final initial was initialed, I sat staring at the documents that would dissolve my legal ties to Declan Wolfe. As soon as these papers went through the proper channels, I would no longer be a married woman. My lip began to tremble when there was a loud knock at the door.

I closed my eyes and considered ignoring it. I didn’t want to listen to Skylar try and talk me out of signing the papers I’d just signed, but my sister was nothing if not tenacious. I knew she was not just going to go back home if I didn’t answer the door.

With a sigh, I picked up the papers, stood from the table, marched to the door, and opened it. “You’re too late. I already signed the—” my statement trailed off when I saw Declan standing on my porch. “—them,” I finished.

He looked down at the papers I was holding up in my hand and then back at me. We stared at one another for a beat before I asked, “What…what are you doing here?”

“I went to your sister’s, and she said you were here,” he explained.

“Yeah, no, I mean, what are you…why are you here?” I realized I just repeated the same question.

“What did you sign?” he asked, his tone dark and ominous.

I had a feeling he knew exactly what I had signed.

For some reason, I felt like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar, even though that was ridiculous, since this was exactly what was supposed to happen. Pushing down that feeling, I stood taller and straightened my shoulders and handed him the papers.

“I was going to messenger these to you, but since you’re here, I can just give them to you.”

He didn’t take the documents from me. Instead, he just looked down at them.

My hand was still outstretched as I explained, “They’re the divorce papers.”

His eyes lifted to mine. “You signed them?”

I saw hurt in his deep, chocolate stare. Hurt and abandonment. But that was totally unfair. I hadn’t done anything wrong. This was the deal. This was what we’d agreed to. I wasn’t the bad guy here.

“I just figured it was better to get it done. That is if everything went smoothly with Harry this morning.”

He exhaled as he confirmed, “It did.”

“Great!” I enthused as my stomach plummeted. It dropped out from under me. I wasn’t sure what I’d been hoping for; maybe subconsciously, I’d been hoping that the business hadn’t been signed over to him, so he needed more time. Whatever it was, hearing that everything had gone to plan knocked the wind right out of me.

“That’s great. Really great!” I forced myself to smile, even as I felt myself well up with emotion. “Well, then, um, if you just want to sign these and have someone file them, then I guess that’s it.” Tears began to swell in my eyes, so it was time to wrap this up. “Thanks for stopping by. I’m actually just grabbing a few things and heading out, but congratulations on the business and Merry Christmas.”

I didn’t wait for Declan’s response. I couldn’t. I barely got the door shut before tears began to pour down my face. This time, I definitely felt my emotions while crying. I was feeling all of them. I’d just divorced a sexy, honest, generous, hard-working billionaire who my niece adored and who I was in love with on Christmas Day. I wished more than anything I could get a visit from the ghost of Christmas yet to come, because I’d really like to know I didn’t just make the biggest mistake of my life. Right now, it sort of felt like I had.