“Plenty of people have made similar mistakes, Clara.”
“They have. But this was my life. I knew better.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Have you ever noticed how, once you’ve made excuses for one thing, it’s easier to make excuses for the bigger things that follow? It starts with one too many drinks at dinner and ends with letting your husband drive away from a party drunk.”
“With you in the car.”
Anger pulsed in every word. But not, she realized with relief, at her. No, Alaric was angry at Miles for putting her in that position.
“I knew he’d had too much to safely drive. I’d asked him if he was safe to drive. He pulled me aside and slapped me across the face for embarrassing him in front of his friends.”
Alaric’s hands cupped her shoulders. She wanted to lean back into his embrace, to draw strength from his presence. But not yet. She needed to get this out, needed him to know the full story.
“I was so shocked and humiliated that I just got in the car.” Her voice caught. “I got in the car, Alaric. I put all those people on the road at risk because I was embarrassed for myself. If I had put my foot down, Miles would still be alive. I didn’t realize how truly drunk he was until he started weaving back and forth across the road.”
She could still see the lines on the road, blurred by the falling rain and Miles’s ever-increasing speed, disappear as he drifted across the road. She’d called out his name, seen him start then laugh off her discomfort as he’d pressed down on the gas pedal. He’d told her she was boring as he’d started deliberately going back and forth, nearly clipping the bumper of the car in front of them before speeding around them and almost crashing head-on into an oncoming truck.
“He kept going faster and faster. Another car was coming and he...he said if I would just trust him, he would get close without hitting them. That it was all a game.”
She’d woken up to the sound of his shrill laughter echoing in her ears for weeks after the crash.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I grabbed the wheel...” Her hand drifted out, mimicking her actions from that awful night so long ago. “I didn’t mean to yank as hard as I did. I was just so scared...”
Alaric’s arms came around her, tight and strong. She should have resisted, but she couldn’t anymore. She sagged back into his embrace, letting her head drop back against his chest.
“The last thing I remember is him shouting at me right before this awful screech, metal being ripped apart as the windshield shattered in front of my eyes. When I woke up, I was in the back of an ambulance being taken to the hospital.”
Silence fell as Alaric held her. Snow drifted down, tiny flakes that dusted the sleeves of his jacket. The blanket of white snuffed out all sound and cocooned them within their own quiet corner of the world.
“What did Miles’s parents do?”
She swallowed back the hurt that lodged in her throat as she remembered the first time Temperance and Stanley had walked into her room.
“I thought they were coming to support me. I was so grateful to see them. But then Temperance told me it was my fault that Miles had died, that I should have done more to stop him. When I told her that I had tried, she said I hadn’t tried hard enough.” She turned her head, snuggled into the curve of his neck. “When the police told her I had yanked the wheel away from Miles, she accused me of murdering him for his money.”
Alaric spun her around with such speed she barely caught her breath before he drew her back into his embrace, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head as he pressed his lips against her forehead.
“I’m sorry, Clara.”
His words washed over her, loosened the knot inside her chest.
“Thank you. I never meant to cause the accident. But I always wondered what if...” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “What if I had stood up to him? Wondered if Miles would still be alive. I didn’t murder him, but I still killed him.”
It was the first time she’d said the words out loud. They hung in the air, her full confession lingering between them.
She nearly came undone when he pressed the softest of kisses to her forehead.
“You made the only decision you could in one of the worst situations anyone could ever find themselves in. The only person responsible for Miles’s death that night is Miles.”
She sagged against him. He was offering her absolution, and, oh, how she wanted to accept it. But she had to make sure, one last time, that he fully understood what she’d done.
“I... I should have stopped him before he got in the car—”
“You were in a very abusive relationship, Clara. I saw my own mother withdraw into herself and make questionable decisions. Abuse strips us of who we are and leaves us with almost nothing to stand on.” He kept one arm securely around her waist as he leaned back, capturing her gaze with his as he gently laid a hand on her cheek. “But you survived. You survived and look how strong you’ve become. I have no doubt the woman I married wouldn’t hesitate now to step in if she saw someone in a position like that again.”
A slow, tentative smile spread across her face even as tears finally escaped to trace their way down her cheeks.
“What changed your mind?”
“I already knew I’d made a colossal error before I got back to Linnaea. And then I reviewed the original file of the accident.”