Page 179 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

Forever.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Itwaspitch-black,and Amelia’s car did not handle as well as Diego had expected it to as he reached the elevation where snow began to fall much harder than picturesque flurries. Diego clutched the wheel and navigated the treacherous turns with his muscles tensed and his jaw clenched tight.

The headlights did little to cut through the blinding white of blustering snow and the darkened world around it. Occasionally, he thought of turning around. It almost felt as if something was pushing him down the mountain. Almost as if Amelia was pulling him back.

Because that was tempting, and what he wanted, he fought that push and pull and doubled down on his own will.

His tires spun for a moment before finding the traction to lurch forward at a speed Diego wasn’t prepared for. The dangerous curve ahead suddenly came too quickly. He slammed on the brakes, which threw the car into a dangerous skid.

He course-corrected, managed to stay on the road rather than crash into the rocky wall to the left or off the treacherous cliff to the right. His heart hammered against his ribs, but he’d avoided disaster. At least so far.

He sucked in a breath and carefully let it out, squinting into the white world around him. It took a few minutes to fully realize he wasn’t stopped, though. The car was…sliding backward.

No amount of brake or accelerator was stopping his movement. He gripped the wheel harder, as if he could will the entire car to do what he wanted by sheer force.

But the car just kept inching back. He jerked on the emergency brake. For a moment, he thought it would hold.

But it only did for that moment, and then he was skidding backward, down the road the wrong way, with another dangerous curve right behind him.

He had two choices. Allow it to, or try to guide the steering wheel so he did not go off the side.

For a moment, he faltered over the choice. Falling off the cliff would be certain death, and didn’t he deserve that? Perhaps in exactly this way. Maybe this would be his final penance.

Death would be a reprieve.

Just like love would be.

That strange thought had him turning the wheel, eyes on the rearview, wondering if he could really navigate his way down the road backward in a snowstorm. Even if he tried his hardest, was it possible to do this until even ground stopped his momentum?

Or should he give up? Maybe it was all poetic justice. To die on this mountain. To die, just like they had.

He might have stopped fighting. He could feel that thought crossing his mind, but Amelia crossed his mind too.

She had felt guilt about the plane crash. She had wondered if everything would have changed if she’d done something different. The idea of it still curdled in his gut. How could she possibly have blamed herself? How could she have carried any guilt, even if only for a short time?

When the guilt was all his.

But if she’d felt guiltthen, would she blame herself over this when he’d been the one to make the decision to leave? To drive into a snowstorm?

Would she feel grief and guilt if he died even though he’d been the one taking his life into his hands?

Couldn’t you say the same of your parents and the pilot who decided to take off in increasingly bad weather?

Amelia’s voice in his head again. The plane had waited for him because he was supposed to be there. If he had gone and been on time, no one would have had to make that choice. His choice started theirs.

Was it your choice that they would not take your no for an answer? That you did not want to travel with them?

He shook his head and pumped the brake once more, hoping to slow the skid. Hoping to do something.

Instead, it sent him into a spin he could not control this time. Momentum gained and he could not keep the wheel in the direction it needed to be, no matter how hard he fought. With a howl of wind, the side of the car crashed into the side of the mountain.

Glass shattered, pain erupted in his head as the car jerked, crumpled. He felt fire and ice. Pain, pain, nothing but pain.

He was thrust into darkness, and he did not know how to find light.

Amelia cried herself to sleep, what little there was to be had of sleep. The crying wasn’t all about Diego, either, though he was the catalyst.