“I’ll be right back. Wait here. I don’t want you falling on the ice,” he said.
He turned and sprinted back toward the street, where his car was parked. She stood there a moment, staring in bemusement as he popped the trunk and bent over to rummage in the boxes.
He rarely drove his own car. She’d only seen the vehicle once. They always used his car service or hailed cabs.
Realizing she was still standing in the wide open doorway, allowing the bitter chill inside, she hastily withdrew into the apartment and shut the door.
She hurried back into the living room, grabbed a brush from the end table and began pulling it through her hair in short, rapid strokes.
“Ash? What’s going on?” Pippa asked cautiously.
Ashley stopped and frowned. “I’m not altogether certain. Devon wants to talk. Asked if I’d give him the afternoon and then he’d take me to the apartment and help me pack if that’s what I wanted. He’s acting…weird.”
Pippa snorted. “Of course he is. You dumped him after telling him you were pregnant with his baby. That has a way of altering your priorities.”
“I guess I’ll go…talk,” Ashley said as she put the brush aside.
“Call me later,” Pippa said. “I’ll want a full report.”
Ashley blew Pippa a kiss and went to the closet to retrieve her coat and scarf. She pulled on a cap and tucked her hair carefully underneath before heading back to the door.
When she opened it, Devon was standing there holding a pair of fur-lined boots. When she would have reached for them, he bent over and said, “Here, let me.”
She put a hand on his shoulder to balance herself and stood on one foot while he pulled her boot on the other. After he zipped it up, she switched feet and he put the other one on for her.
When he was done, he straightened to his full height and then took her hand to help her down the steps. He walked her to the car and settled her into the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” she asked as he pulled away into traffic.
“You’ll see.”
She wrinkled her nose and sighed. He slid his hand over the center console and tangled his fingers with hers.
“Trust me, Ash. I know it’s a big thing to ask and I totally don’t have the right to ask it of you, but trust me just this once.”
The utter sincerity in his voice swayed her as nothing else could. There was raw vulnerability echoed in his every word and expression. He looked as terrible as she felt, almost as if he’d suffered as much as she had.
It didn’t make sense to her. She had no doubt that he wasn’t exactly celebrating her departure from the marriage, but with the deal still intact, he was getting precisely what he wanted without the unnecessary burden of a wife.
When they pulled up outside the shelter, Ashley sat there, bewildered. “Why are we here, Dev?”
Devon opened his door, walked around to hers and held out his hand. “Come on. There’s something I want you to see.”