“No.” I bit my lip as I thought about how to answer. The past and the present no longer blurred, but with Joshua? He was a blank space in my future that I could never erase. “Kian and I loved each other. It was crazy to bring a baby into the mix, but we were stupid and young. We thought that was the only way my father would let us be together—”
“He couldn’t have stopped you.”
A bark of laughter escaped me. “Oh, but he could. He’d planned a marriage between me and a boy from another family, don’t forget. The night I told him I was pregnant was the night he told me about the marriage.”
Ethan sucked in a breath. “Jesus.”
“Yeah. I was lucky I was pregnant, because I know things would have happened fast after that.
“He locked me in my room, but my sister, Lara, helped me get out. She’d called Kian, and he was there, waiting for me a few streets away. I never went home again.”
Maybe he heard the sadness in my voice, a sadness he might not be able to understand because he was disconnected from his family in a way I wasn’t, but while the men in my line had been bastards, my sisters weren’t. My mother wasn’t. Weak, yes, but horrible? No.
He ran a hand over my arm, soothing me with his touch. “Austin mentioned you had sisters. Do you think they’re like you?”
“Cyrilo was special, wasn’t he? I don’t see why they wouldn’t be too.”
He hummed at that, then his voice deepened, changed, and I knew what he was going to ask before he even finished the question. “You carried to term, didn’t you?”
“I did.” Sadness filled me, as did the horror of having Joshua and losing him to a family grudge. My lungs felt like Ariel’s—compressed, tight and taut, unable to let me breathe. But then I registered where I was and with whom. I was also older and wiser.
I swallowed, but it was thick and hard to do so. “I thought when we moved away, we were safe. Then, the day after I got out of the hospital, we were driving down this road. It was bright, the sun was so fierce it hurt my eyes, even though it was winter. There was snow on all sides, and the plows had just been out, and we were so fucking happy. We’re from the South, we’d never seen snow before. It was like a gift.
“And Joshua? He was beautiful. So beautiful, Ethan. He was perfect.”
I peered up at him through tear-drenched lashes and saw his sorrow for me. When he pressed his lips to my temple, I sighed. I wasn’t soothed, but it was better than the gnawing emptiness that I’d always had as cold comfort before.
“He was tucked into the car seat. He should have been safe. We all should have been. But as we rounded this curve, suddenly, there was a big truck there.” I gulped. “It came straight for us, moving onto our side of the road. We collided because every time Kian tried to maneuver out the way, Cyrilo wended into our path.
“Even though I knew Kian was doing his best, it wasn’t enough. It would never be because Cyrilo was there with his orders. I knew we were dead.”
“But you survived,” he whispered softly.
“Yeah. Only just.” My mouth trembled. “It was luck, if you’d believe it. Where he pushed us off the road, it landed us into the next county. It muddled things in the news. So when I went into the hospital, he checked the wrong one. He never was that smart though. He should have checked both.
“Dad put too much faith in him because he had a penis. But his stupidity was my saving grace. Even if, for most of my recovery, I wanted to die.”
He squeezed me. “Thank you for living.”
My lips curved into a sad smile, and I reached up, ran my fingers through his hair, and whispered, “You’re welcome. But I know now why I survived.” I shrugged. “To be here, with you.” I kissed his lips. “Most of my family sucks. There’s no way to argue that. But yours? Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s cool. And maybe they’re horrible. Don’t discount things just because it’s your knee-jerk reaction, hmm?”
With that said, my story imparted and never to be shared again because I couldn’t keep looking back to the past, I turned my face into