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“Good morning,” she said warmly.
He didn’t reply for what felt like the longest time. Unease grew into alarm as she noted the tension in the column of his neck, the fierce set of his shoulders.
“Alaric, what’s wrong?”
“When were you going to tell me you were in the car with Miles when it crashed?”
The world dropped out from under her. Bright points of light flickered across her vision as she sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. Somewhere in the recess of her mind she heard Miles’s cruel laughter as she cried out a warning, as she reached for the wheel...
“What...what do you—”
“Don’t deny it.”
He continued to stare out the window. His voice, low and laced with icy fury, burrowed its way under her skin and lodged in her heart.
“I’m not denying it,” she finally choked out. “Alaric, please, I have to tell you—”
“How many times did I ask if there was something you needed to tell me? When I bared my soul to you, did you take everything I had to give while not trusting me with your own past? Did you share the tiniest pieces so I wouldn’t ask any more questions?”
Her throat tightened as she slowly sank into a chair.
“It had nothing to do with not trusting you.”
“Didn’t it?”
He finally turned. She wished he hadn’t. His face, the face she’d caressed last night as he’d made love to her, was frozen into a mask of fury the likes of which she’d never seen. The jaw she’d kissed was now tight, his green eyes sharp and dark. Anger radiated off him and filled the room.
“No. I was... I’ve never told anyone what happened.”
“Not even your husband?”
Her hand came up. He eyed it as if she’d covered her skin in her poison. Her arm dropped back to her side.
“Alaric, I didn’t know how to talk about it. When we were married, it was made clear that this was going to be a formal arrangement. Sharing something like that...there’s so much emotion and vulnerability.”
“And when I told you about my past, about what my father did to my mother, you didn’t think that was me displaying some emotion and vulnerability?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “It was, and it meant so much to me.”
“So much that you continued to keep a secret from me? And not just one secret.”
Confusion swept through her.
“What are you talking about?”
He stalked toward her, his eyes unblinking, his movements subtle but swift. Gone was the affectionate, loving husband she’d been accustomed to, replaced by a king-to-be who had retreated behind a wall of ice. His shoulders were rigid, the tendons in his neck taut as a vein pulsed beneath his skin.
“I’m talking about your fingerprints being found on the wheel of the car.”
A dull roar built in her ears. How could he have possibly found that out? Alaric’s lips moved, but she didn’t hear a word that came out as blood roared in her ears. The world slowed down as her mind tried to reconcile between the past and the present. A memory flashed through her mind, a vivid image of her fingers curling around the wheel as she yanked, hearing Miles’s shout as he cursed her, the car veering off to the side and the tree looming up out of the rain.
“What?” she finally gasped.
“Did you know there are suspicions that you caused the car accident to rid yourself of an inconvenient husband and inherit his money?”
Betrayal robbed her of her voice as she stared at him. He returned her stare with a frigid, unblinking stare of his own.
Finally, she swallowed past the tightness in her throat.
