Neither of them did, and Felicity didn’t recoil as he took her from the room. In fact, she said nothing at all as he took her to the foyer, as he called for the carriage, as he helped her into the vehicle that came and as he ordered the driver to take them anywhere he pleased, just not to bother them for an hour.
She said nothing, but watched him as he got into the carriage, closed himself in and they began to move.
And in that moment, he wanted her emotion, her anguish, her response more than anything. That he could live with. This blank terror, this hollow pain…that was worse than anything he had ever lived with.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
Chapter Sixteen
“Please say something,” Asher whispered after what felt like an eternity had passed since the carriage began to meander aimlessly, just as Asher had ordered it to do.
Felicity blinked as she looked at him, confused by the broken tone of his voice. “What would you have me say, Asher?” She caught her breath. “There isnothingto say now, is there?”
“Because the secret is gone,” he said, not a question, just a statement, and one that put icy cold fear in the center of her already broken heart.
She shivered at the chill of it, spreading through her blood, her bones, her everything until she was nearly frozen in fear and panic and loss and grief.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Say that you hate me for not protecting you sooner,” he suggested. “Say that you blame me.”
His face was filled with guilt and pain, regret and anger. He truly blamed himself for this turn of events.
“You think that would help?”
“I deserve it,” he whispered.
She shook her head slowly. “Listen to me, Asher. There are many things I’ve blamed you for over the years we’ve been apart. For right or for wrong, I’ve blamed you. But I donotblame you for this. You and John and Celia and the rest of my family worked hard to keep me safe. If the secret is truly gone now, if it istrulyout in the world and irretrievable, then it is no one’s fault. No one’s but…”
She trailed off as her voice caught, choked on unshed tears and regrets. The same ones that kept her up nights and had for so very long.
“Whose?” he pressed, his gaze locked on hers, not giving her quarter.
She swallowed hard. “Mine.”
He let out a soft sound of incredulity and pain, and suddenly he was moving. The beautiful, manly body unfolding from the seat across from her, darting to her side of the carriage. Arms folded around her, warmth that could only come from this man.
She looked up into his face, his tormented, beautiful, perfect face, and saw how much he…helovedher. The sight of it took her breath away. And broke her heart further. Somehow seeing it, and knowing he would deny it regardless, that hurt even more than if she looked and didn’t see it there at all.
“You asked me to hear you, Felicity, and I did. And now you must hear me,” he whispered, his voice so soft and rough and low that it hardly carried in the slim space between them. “You arenotto blame for this.”
“I killed a man,” she said, her voice cracking. “I put a gun between us and I pulled the trigger and I watched him bleed his life out on my floor.”
“Because you had to.” He pressed a palm to her back, arching her into his chest.
“Some wouldn’t care,” she insisted against his shoulder. “Many would call me a murderer, wouldn’t they?”
He flinched slightly, but enough that she felt the physical reaction. “No one who matters would dare say that. And you shouldn’t say it either. I don’t doubt that what you had to do that night meant something to you. I have never taken a life, so I would never presume to imply that I know what you felt in that moment. Or in any moment since where you’ve been forced to relive what you did.”
She drew back and looked up at him. Since the story had come out, no one had acknowledged those particular feelings. She had been forgiven by those she loved, told she was in the right, told she should not feel guilt. But not one had ever acknowledged those deeper feelings.
Those deeper traumas that came from the fact that she had played God in that horrible final moment between her and her husband. Right or wrong in her motivation, the fact remained that the moment lingered, casting a shadow over her.
“Sometimes I wish I hadn’t done it,” she said.
He tensed and she waited for him to interrupt, to deny her that reaction. He didn’t. She could see him fighting, but he didn’t try to take her feelings away because they made him uncomfortable.
“Do you wish you had let him kill you?” he asked, tone carefully neutral. “To avoid doing the same to him?”
