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Ronan had included a letter at the back. Within twenty-four hours, the Clemonts had bought the original report and paid off multiple officers and witnesses. One officer had kept a copy of the original and quit the department over the higher-ups allowing the Clemonts to change the narrative. When Ronan had started to dig deeper, he’d come across the officer’s employment records and found that he’d quit shortly after the accident. Ronan had found him relatively easily living in Spain. The officer had been more than happy to provide the original report to Ronan and let the truth come out. He’d described Temperance and Stanley Clemont as “ruthless” and “heartless” when it came to their daughter-in-law.
They cared more about their son’s reputation than they ever cared about her. She nearly died trying to save lives. But they tried to paint her as a murderess.
His body grew heavy with each passage he read until he could barely move.How could he have ever doubted her? How could he have been so cruel to her?
By the time he was done, he wanted nothing more than to run up to Clara’s apartment, break down the door and beg her forgiveness.
He forced himself to stand and move to the window. Her parting insult had been accurate. Instead of acting rationally, he’d given in to his own pain and his own fear that once again scandal would plague his rule. He hadn’t stopped to think about how differently Clara’s circumstances had been: a woman caught up in a desperate situation created by her abusive spouse instead of his father’s and ex-fiancée’s self-indulgences.
Bile rose in his throat. Did he deserve her? One of his greatest fears had been that he was secretly like his father, that he would eventually cause Clara the kind of pain Daxon had caused Marianne. Hadn’t he done just that with his actions over the last few days?
You are not your father.
How many times had she said that to him? He’d started to believe it before Temperance’s phone call. Was he going to let people like Temperance, Celestine and Daxon ruin a future with the woman he loved?
Because he did love her, he realized with sudden clarity. He’d been falling in love with her for months. The intimacy they’d developed during their honeymoon had pushed him closer to acknowledging the depth of his feelings. Feelings he’d run from like a coward at the first sign of trouble.
As angry as he’d been at Celestine the night their engagement had ended, he really should be thanking her. If it hadn’t been for the tumultuous conclusion to their arrangement, he never would have kissed Clara, never would have allowed himself to explore the emotions he felt for her.
Never would have finally opened his heart to love.
He flipped through the folder back to the first picture. Clara had been through so much: losing both her parents at a young age, going through an abusive marriage, restarting her life after a traumatic tragedy. And now he’d put her through another trauma. Did he deserve her?
No. No, he didn’t. But he would spend the rest of his life trying to earn back her trust and, God willing, her love.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CLARAWALKEDTHROUGHthe rose garden, her boots crunching softly in the snow. Every time she’d woken up, which had seemed to be every hour, she’d grabbed her phone and checked the media sites to see if anything had been posted.
Nothing.
Around dawn she’d given up on sleep and gotten dressed in fleece-lined pants, a cozy sweater and her blue peacoat. Thin gray clouds covered the sky, creating a muted glow as the sun rose behind them. The palace had been quiet as she’d taken the elevator down to the ground floor and slipped out into the rose garden.
She ran a gloved hand over the leaves of the hedge. Just last month, she’d said her vows in this garden. If she’d known what was going to happen, would she have gone through with it?
Yes.
It was an easy answer. Those blissful weeks with Alaric, falling deeper in love and being loved in return for the first time in her life, were too precious to give up.
Alaric had come home last night. She’d been in her small window seat that overlooked the long drive that came up to the palace. When he’d alighted from the car, she’d pressed her face against the cold glass, drinking in the sight of him. She wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around his neck and be swept up into his embrace as she apologized for not trusting him. Perhaps, if he would have looked up, she would have done just that.
But he hadn’t. He’d leaned in, said something to a dark-haired man she assumed was his new assistant—Geoffrey something—and strode into the palace. As if nothing in his life had changed.
She’d stayed in the window seat for another hour, staring out at the darkening sky, until hunger had sent her to the kitchen to scrounge for crackers and broth. Whether it was the events of the past few days, the pregnancy or both, she’d barely been able to keep any food down. It didn’t help that at least once a day, Temperance tried to call her. The first couple of times, she hadn’t left a voice mail. When she finally had, the accented voice had been smug.
“I warned you that you would one day pay for what happened to Miles.”
The second and third voice mails had been a touch more emotional, as if Clara was offending Temperance by not responding and letting her vent her rage. She contemplated changing her number. But someone with Temperance’s wealth, who probably had more money than the entire country of Linnaea, would just get her new number.
Better to let her tire herself out. She hadn’t released anything to the media yet. Maybe she never would. To share that Clara was in the car that night would mean risking the discovery of Miles’s state when he had been behind the wheel.
Her heart clenched. If only Alaric had talked to her instead of jumping to the worst conclusion. She could understand his hurt, see how he could have perceived her silence as a form of lying. But she couldn’t understand why he’d immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Even if he didn’t love her, did he truly think so little of her after all this time?
Stop thinking about it. The more she ruminated, the more upset she would get. She didn’t need that for herself or her child.
She sat down on one of the stone benches and looked around the garden. Right now, the pain was intense, especially when her eyes flickered to the spot where she’d exchanged vows with Alaric and he’d surprised her with that gentle kiss on the lips. But the pain would fade with time. She would instead focus on the good that had come out of their union. A slight smile tugged at her lips. Spring mornings spent on a blanket with their child, reading books and eating strawberries as the gentle scent of roses wafted around them. Or perhaps lying in the grass during summer and watching the star-filled sky.
She may not have the life she’d thought she would. But it could still be a good one.
