Chapter 12
Alex woke up in the early hours of the morning. It was pitch black outside but the snow was making everything seem so much brighter.
She was lying on Quinn’s bare chest with his arms wrapped around her.
A quick look under the sheets showed her he was completely naked too and there was something wonderfully intimate about that.
She looked up at him while he slept. She was so in love with this man and she knew she was playing a dangerous game here because spending time with him like this meant she was falling in love with him that little bit more.
This was everything she’d ever wanted and she was too afraid to take it for fear of losing it all over again.
Somehow, not putting a label on it felt safer but she knew that it wasn’t.
She knew she couldn’t live the rest of her life in fear and worrying about the what-ifs but that didn’t make it any easier either.
And somehow losing Quinn would hurt more than losing Liam and she felt horribly disloyal acknowledging that but she knew that was the truth.
Maybe it was because, by the end, she had resented Liam and the life she led with him so much that it was harder to look objectively at the life they’d had together before his best friend died.
Or maybe it was because her feelings for Quinn were so much stronger than those she’d had for Liam.
She thought back to the day before when she and Quinn had told each other they loved each other.
It had been such a simple, silly thing, love declared by an over-decorated cookie, but it had meant the world to her.
She hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about it and whether it was true; she didn’t know if she wanted to because what if he said he didn’t really love her?
She’d also have to tell him whether her declaration was true and it would be very confusing to have to explain that she was utterly head over heels in love with him yet didn’t want a relationship with him.
She didn’t even understand that herself.
Also there was the fear of finally telling Quinn the truth about the night Liam died.
She couldn’t go much further into this… relationship or whatever she was trying to call it without telling him.
She made a snap decision: she would tell him what happened as soon as he woke up, then at least if he decided he hated her and didn’t want any more to do with her, she could get out of this relatively unscathed.
Who was she trying to kid? While she knew she’d be distraught if it all ended now, she’d be completely heartbroken if she never got to see Quinn again.
His eyes suddenly fluttered open and he smiled when he saw she was awake.
‘Hey beautiful,’ he said, stroking her hair.
Her heart soared with happiness.
‘Hi. Sorry for falling asleep.’
‘It’s totally fine. I couldn’t get away for a while. Besides, holding you in my arms was undoubtedly the best way to fall asleep.’
She smiled at that. ‘I slept really well too, you must be good for me.’
‘I like to think so.’
‘You know you mean the world to me.’
He smiled. ‘If you feel for me half of what I feel for you then I’d be happy.’
‘It’s probably more than that, a lot more.’
‘It’s impossible to feel more than what I feel.’
She laughed. ‘Are we competing to see who feels the most for each other?’
‘Ah, it’s a competition I would win,’ Quinn said, stroking her face. ‘If you asked me to marry you, I’d be marching you down the aisle the very next day. If I asked you to marry me, I suspect I’d be seeing an Alex-shaped hole in that door.’
She stared at him in shock. ‘You… You want to marry me?’
‘Look, I’m not pressuring you in any way, I will wait however long it takes for you to get there.
But I’m already there. I meant what I said yesterday.
I never envisaged saying those words to you for the first time over a cookie with your daughter and my mum in attendance but I’m in love with you and have been for years. ’
Alex stared at him, tears welling in her eyes.
‘Hey, don’t cry. I’d never want to do anything to upset you. Please just forget I said anything.’
She shook her head. She never wanted to forget hearing those words. Quinn loved her. Tears spilled down her cheeks. And now she could lose it all.
He stroked them away, eyes filled with concern. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ her voice was choked. She wanted to say it back, to tell him she’d been in love with him almost since the first time they’d met, but the words were stuck in her throat.
So she did the only thing she could do, she leaned up and kissed him. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her back. She poured every ounce of love she had for this man into this kiss and she could feel the love he had for her too.
She pulled back before the kiss could turn into something else. ‘I need to tell you something.’ Oh god, now she’d blurted it out there was no going back. She sat up. ‘And I think you’re going to hate me.’
‘Well, that’s impossible.’
She took a deep breath. ‘It’s about Liam.’
‘OK.’ He sat up too, leaning against the headboard as she kneeled up next to him.
‘And the night he died.’
‘He was drunk, got in the car and lost control and drove into a tree. What more do I need to know?’
‘It was my fault,’ Alex all but whispered.
He frowned. ‘How could it possibly be your fault?’
‘You have to understand I had lived with the worst version of him for eighteen months. I was at breaking point.’
‘I know how hard it must have been for you.’
‘I knew I had to leave him not just for my own sanity but for Zara. She was getting older and wiser to what was happening and I didn’t want her to grow up in that environment.
But I was always scared that leaving him would push him over the edge.
Then one day he picked Zara up from nursery.
I had no idea he was going to do that, I was due to pick her up at three but he got there before me, I don’t know why.
I never left her alone with him because I just didn’t trust him to look after her properly when he was always drunk.
When I got home shortly after he’d picked her up, he was playing with her and it was quite obvious he was out of his head drunk.
He’d picked our daughter up and driven home with her when he was drunk. ’
Quinn took a sharp intake of breath.
‘When I think about what could have happened.’ She shook her head angrily.
‘And that was the final straw. I snapped. I told him I was leaving and taking Zara with me. I said I would push for full custody and anyone looking at the state of him would give it to me. I told him he’d never see his daughter again.
I was just so angry and I wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt me for the last eighteen months.
We had a massive row and he got in his car and drove off.
I immediately phoned the police to warn them that he was drink driving and they found his car half an hour later embedded in a tree.
He never made it. And to this day, I’ve lived with the guilt that he died because of me, because I told him I was taking his daughter from him.
She was his entire world. I’ll never know if he simply lost control of the car or if it was deliberate but he would never have got in that car if it wasn’t for me. ’
She wiped the tears away and Quinn stared at her. He frowned but he didn’t say anything. Oh god, it was over. More tears spilled over onto her face.
‘Do you want me to go?’
He blinked in surprise. ‘Why would I want you to go?’
‘Because you must hate me, your brother is dead because of me.’
‘No, honey, you can’t think like that. Alcoholism is a sickness, and he had so many opportunities to get the help he needed and he didn’t want it.
Some people just can’t be saved. None of this is your fault.
My brother behaved abysmally. You had to do what you had to do to protect you and your daughter.
And so what if things got a little heated?
It was his decision to collect his daughter from nursery when he was drunk, his decision to get back in the car and drive off.
And it wasn’t the first time he’d driven while drunk.
If he’d survived that accident, there would have been other times that had nothing to do with you.
I can’t believe you’ve been living with this guilt all this time and you never told me. ’
‘I never told you because I thought you’d hate me for it.’
He smiled sadly and cupped her face. ‘I could never ever hate you. And regardless of what happened, you were not responsible for my brother’s death. Only he was responsible for that.’
He pulled her onto his lap, wrapping the blanket around her and stroking her face. ‘I love you with everything I have and there is nothing you could ever say or do, there is nothing that you did in the past, that can ever change that.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’
‘Do you think Violet will feel the same?’
‘Well, I don’t think she loves you in the same way I do – I’d be a bit worried if she did – but she knows what Liam was like. She won’t blame you for this. No one could ever blame you for this, knowing what you had to put up with.’
Alex let out a huge sigh of relief. She’d finally got it off her chest after all this time and it was OK, she could finally let go of all this guilt she’d been clinging to for all these years. He pulled her close against his chest, stroking her back, and she felt all that stress melt away.
After a while she drew back and kissed him briefly on the lips. ‘Thank you.’
‘You have nothing to thank me for.’
‘Thank you for loving me.’
‘Oh, you make that very easy. You are the most wonderful, incredible person I’ve ever met.’