Page 39 of Accidental Groom

She turns in my grip, orange juice nearly sloshing over the rim of the glass, and narrows her gaze up at me. “I doubt it would take three to four weeks to get at least a dirt path and a gate put in,” she says. “Then you can at least get supplies and trucks in. What else are they going to do, twiddle their thumbs for a month? You might as well.”

“She’s got a point.”

My gaze snaps to Nathan.

He flicks to the next image, the trees already cleared for the path to the eventual back entrance. “It wouldn’t take long. We could get everyone on that, get it sorted now instead of waiting, and then once we’re back in, resume work. It’s smarter than putting the workers on furlough for a month, and a hell of a lot cheaper.”

“I—” The words leave my brain before they can properly form, playing through every reason why that’s a terrible idea — except, there isn’t one. She’s right. She’sright.

She shrugs and twists fully out of my arms, leaving me standing there staring at the space where she was, and pulls open the microwave. “Just an idea.”

I lean against the kitchen counter, tapping my fingers in a rhythm that doesn’t flow, my brain stalling. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, yes, have them do that,” I say, meeting Nathan’s gaze. “Let me know once we’ve got people back on site and we can decide how to split them.”

Nathan powers his tablet back down and slips it into his briefcase. “Can do.”

I watch over my shoulder as Elena takes a bite of what looks like some kind of cheese and ham pastry, reheated and melted, before thinking better of it the moment it practically scalds hermouth. “Was there anything else?” I ask Nathan, not bothering to turn back to him.

“No, sir.” The latches on his briefcase lock. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Mhm.”

I don’t watch as he goes. I don’t watch as his shoes echo on the wood floor, or as the front door chimes when it opens, or as the sound of it latching shut filters through the foyer and kitchen.

I’m too busy watching her.

And the way she’s watching me.

Light brown eyes hold mine like a vise, a million words unspoken behind them, her reheated pastry lying on its plate beside her. She doesn’t open her mouth, but her nostrils flare, her jaw tightening ever so slightly, and Iknowshe wants to speak.

“Say it.”

She shakes her head. “No.”

I turn fully, leaning back on the counter opposite her, and cross my arms. “Why?”

“No point,” she says. “And it’s already awkward enough.”

She’s not wrong. We can both feel it, anyway — both know what she wants to say, what she wants topush. And after solving a problem that would have taken me hours, if not days, to come to terms with, I almost want to let her.

So I do.

“Dinner tonight,” I say, pushing off the counter and opening the fridge, half to give myself something to do with my hands so I don’t just grab her again. “Be ready by seven.”

She pauses with her glass raised halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“Dinner. Seven.” I force myself to choosesomething— leftover salmon, apparently — and close the fridge. “Wear something nice, we’ll go into the city.”

“Thecity?”

“Mhm.” The snaps on either side of the tupperware pop open easily enough, and I grab a fork from the drawer. “We can helicopter in.”

“That’s—”

“As a thank you,” I clarify, watching the salmon flake apart as I shove the side of the fork into it, “for figuring out a fix to that problem so quickly. You saved me a lot of time, and probably a shit ton of money.”

She blinks at me, her pretty, full lips parted and hanging open. “So you just want to spend all that money taking me into the city instead?”

I shrug. “If you’d rather hide away in your cottage, you’re more than welcome to. Just thought you might want to get off the property for a bit. What you did deserves more than just a compliment and a ‘thank you’, if you ask me.”