Page 52 of Accidental Groom

“Thank you,” I murmur.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.” He holds my gaze, his hand reaching out to find my damp one. “Don’t thank me for treating you like a human being.”

Chapter 16

Harry

There’s nothing like a private members’ club for a post-board-meeting drink to remind you how little people change.

It’s all glossed oak, cigar smoke, and overpriced whiskey, men in expensive suits still trying to out-alpha each other like we’re in the middle of a business school pissing contest and not a three-hundred-year-old Georgian townhouse in the heart of Tribeca.

I’ve barely taken a sip of my scotch when I hear it.

“Jesus, Harry. Heard what’s going on from Paul, but I didn’t think you’d gothatfar.”

I turn. David Rothschild comes up behind me — a hedge fund parasite who I’ve had the displeasure of working with a handful of times, including on the Switzerland project. He has eyes like a weasel and a Rolex heavy enough to sink him if he ever fell — or was pushed — into the Hudson. “Good afternoon to you, too, David.”

He chuckles, but there’s no warmth in it. “So it’s true, then? You knocked up your daughter-in-law?”

The room stills, a breath held, before I set my cup down carefully.I’m going to kill Paul.“She’s mywife,” I correct,keeping my voice even. “And George made sure she was never truly hisanything.”

Another man in a leather chair raises his brows behind his newspaper, his ice going still in the glass he’d been swirling a minute ago. Michael Barnes. One of my longer-standing connections, though we never speak much. He’s quieter, but just as curious, and I know damn well the secret is already dead.

“Still,” David says, resting his hand on my shoulder like he has any right to, “it’s quite the scandal. She’s what, twenty-nine? Thirty? And your kid’s fiancée just a few months ago?”

“George left her at the altar,” I say. “I did what I had to do to preserve a critical partnership. We married. The rest isnone of your fucking business.”

David whistles, low and sardonic. “Must be some partnership.”

“She’s carryingmychild,” I add, because if they want to gossip, they might as well know for sure that it’s mine instead of theorizing.

His jaw ticks, his brows raising. He hadn’t quite believed it before, I suppose — it was still just a rumor. But now it’s real. “Hope you’re ready to be a father again,” he says, his voice lilting with dry sarcasm.

I lift my drink to my lips. “I am.”

He doesn’t answer. Just smirks and slinks off, leaving the scent of his cologne and the heavy weight of cowardice behind him. Michael Barnes, on the other hand, stays quiet — and I almost thank him for it.

————

“This car is insane. You know that, right?”

Elena’s words tumble out as she climbs out of my Bentley in her light brown coat and jeans, shutting the door behind her and hopping up onto the sidewalk. The valet worker outside my hotel holds out his hand, and she glances at me for approval, waiting for my nod before dropping the keys in his hand.

“I googled the cost at a red light. You cannot seriously have paidthatmuch?—”

I don’t wait another second.

I close the distance in four steps, reaching out my arm to wrap my hand around the back of her neck, and pull her into my chest before she can protest.

She stiffens, just slightly, before her hands come up and grip the lapels of the light jacket, sinking into me far too easily.

“You stink of cigars,” she grumbles, her voice muffled with her head against my collarbone.

“Yeah, well, almost everyone in the members’ club was smoking,” I say. “I didn’t. Didn’t want it bothering your nose.”

“You’re lucky it smells nice and isn’t making me want to vomit.”

I squeeze the back of her neck, tipping her head back a bit to look up at me.God, she looks gorgeous — if I didn’t know better, I’d think she belonged to this city. Her effortlessness that somehow turns into polished beauty, her soft curves that, even beneath the coat, would make people glance twice.