around. That was the start of it, and once I realized I was good at it, I just kept doing it.”
“And that’s how your face ended up on the side of half of the buses in Manhattan?”
“I knew my client had a production company specializing in reality TV, but I never dreamed she’d ask me to do a pilot for a show. That was not my aim.”
“Your aim was to help your clients fall in love?”
“Yes. It physically pained me to think about how perfect they were for each other, knowing they might not ever meet. It wasn’t right.”
Marcus swallowed. He’d read Ashley wrong on this point. She really did take this seriously. And her goals were noble. There was no question about that. “Sometimes people might seem like they’re perfect for each other, and it can be quite the opposite in reality.”
“Let me guess. Your ex-wife.”
He should have seen that coming.
“Remember, I did my due diligence on you, even if you didn’t do it on me.” She set her fork down on the table and took a sip of her wine. “So tell me. What happened?”
He looked around the restaurant, although for what he wasn’t sure. Now he almost wished one of her rabid fans would turn up and interrupt them. “It’s a long story. You don’t want to hear it. Trust me.”
“I told you I was going to ask questions tonight. That’s my first question.”
“Let’s just say that we thought we were perfect for each other, but we weren’t.”
“And? What else? That’s not a long story. That’s not even a short story.”
He could only imagine what it must be like to have Ashley as a therapist. She did seem as though she’d be good at dragging things out of people. “Elle and I met the summer after I graduated from university. One of the things that drew me to her was that she seemed to need me. I’d never really experienced that before and it felt good. She was eager to get married and she latched on to me tightly. It wasn’t until we got married that I realized she’d really just hoped to get away from her family, especially her father.”
“Was there some sort of abuse going on?”
Marcus shook his head. “No, but her parents were very controlling. I never got to know them well because she always kept her distance. Honestly, they were never anything but polite to me, so I didn’t really have a way of knowing. As soon as she was out of their house, being with me was no better, apparently. I realized very quickly that everything made her feel tied down. Every social obligation, everything she was expected to do. It really weighed on her.”
“And she took it out on you.”
For a moment, everything in the restaurant seemed to come to a standstill. Visions of Elle flashed in his mind—the two of them up all night fighting until she would eventually leave. That was always her inclination—to leave. “Yes.”
“When people break free from one thing, they often just find something else they want to break free from. It becomes a pattern, and a strong one. It can be difficult to break because they don’t know how to function any other way.”
He already felt choked up at what came next—the most painful part, the thing that told him the marriage had to come to an end. “I thought a baby would help. I really wanted to start a family, and I figured that love is what makes people want to stay where they are. If she didn’t love me, surely she would love the baby.”
“And it made it worse.”
“It did.” He finished off his drink, hoping to numb the pain. “She hated motherhood. I think she loves Lila on a basic level, I truly do, but she just wasn’t cut out to be a mom. I’m sort of amazed that she was ever able to admit that. She didn’t sugarcoat it when she left. She simply didn’t want to be with either me or Lila.”
Ashley nodded, intently focused on him. She reached her hand across the table. “Marcus, I am so sorry. Truly. That must have been so hard.” Her fingers looked tiny wrapped around his hand. Her thumb rode across the ridge of his knuckles, bringing up his bounty of conflicted feelings. Attraction warred with sensibility. Something even more primal than that battled his need to remain on an even keel. This was more than he’d bargained on, but then again, everything with Ashley was far more than he expected. “You know, we can’t always predict how things will go. It’s so obvious to me that this was a very painful chapter in your life, but at least she brought you Lila.”
Marcus narrowed his stare. “And she completely ruined my life. She brought all kinds of embarrassment on my family and left Lila without a mother.”
“And she broke your heart.”
“That’s the one concession I won’t make. I won’t give her the satisfaction.” The reality was that Elle had done more than break his heart. She’d stolen his faith in love. He’d thought love could save him, could save them, but it wasn’t the unwavering, all-powerful force people deemed it to be. Love changed. Love faded away.
Ashley held up her finger. “You know, I think you’re stoic and stern because you’re hurt. Everything that your wife did to you, I’m not sure you’ve dealt with. You’re holding on to so much hurt. I can see it in your eyes. You have to learn to let it go or it will eat you alive. I might even suggest you see a therapist. Finally start talking about your feelings.”
He pressed his lips together, stifling any verbal response. Between Ashley and Joanna, he was getting pushed from all sides—deal with your feelings, find the right woman. Why did life have to be so complicated?
“I don’t want to diminish what you’ve been through, but Lila was meant to be your little girl and she had to get on the planet somehow. Don’t discount the good parts in that.”
He took in a deep breath, staring into what was left of his gin and tonic, swirling the ice in the glass. Indeed, Lila had to get on the planet somehow. As much as Elle had taken from him, she’d given him Lila, his entire reason for living. Ashley did have a point. Even so, he didn’t care to go on about it forever. “We should go. The nanny is watching her this evening, and I did promise I’d be home by eleven.”
Marcus held the door for Ashley as they left the restaurant. The photographers were waiting for them.
“How about it, you two? Can we get that kiss now? We’ve been out here for hours.”
Marcus was still in a haze over the things Ashley had said to him about Elle, about his marriage. Part of him thought she might be right. Part of him had a strong distaste for the ways she summed up what she presumed were his feelings. It wasn’t as simple as she’d made it sound.
Ashley took his hand. “They’re waiting,” she muttered, nodding in the direction of the photographers. “We should probably just get this over with.”
“Hey,” one of the photographers barked. “I’m from Celebrity Chitchat. Maryann Powell thinks you two are a fake.”
Before he had a chance to pop off at the photographer, Ashley’s hands were on Marcus’s neck, she was up on her toes and her lips were on his. Ambushed with a kiss, something in him snapped. He wrapped one arm around her waist and cupped the side of her face with his other hand, tilting
