Page 57 of Accidental Groom

“Leave, then,” Harry says. “You can stay at the penthouse tonight. You’re not sleeping here.”

For once, George listens. He doesn’t yell, doesn’t argue, just turns on his heel and walks down the steps, shoulders tight, and slides into his Jaguar without looking back.

The engine revs. The tires kick up gravel.

And then he’s gone.

I don’t realize how badly I’m shaking until Harry’s arms are around me, pulling me into his chest, and I let myself fall forward into him, burying my head in his chest.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs.

I’d never stood up to George, not in all the years I’d known him. I’d avoided him as long as I could remember, folding anytime I needed to be near him.

He’d never seen who I was outside of him.

But now he knew. And now I didn’t have to hide it.

Chapter 18

Harry

The study at Highcourt Hall smells of leather, whiskey, and bad decisions. The kind of room where men like Ralph White thrive — where the wood paneling and shelves of ledgers conspire together to make deals sound ideal, inevitable, unstoppable. Signed in blood if necessary.

He sits across from me now, stiff-backed in one of the armchairs as if he’s afraid the old leather might cling to him and swallow him whole. His cufflinks glint in the slanted sun coming through the window, his mouth a straight, humorless line. I didn’t tell Elena he was here — just that I would speak to him at some point. I doubted she wanted to see him.

“Why am I here, Harry?” Ralph asks. “You sounded urgent.”

I pour two fingers of scotch into a glass. Only one. For me. “Because itisurgent,” I say, raising the glass to my lips. “Elena’s pregnant.”

For what I can only imagine is the first time in his calculated, miserly life, Ralph White looks surprised. His lips part, inhaling like he might actually choke. “Well,” he says slowly, “that solves one problem, doesn’t it? That’s permanency, stability. At least now no one can accuse us of disregarding tradition.”

His tone is too casual, too dismissive, as though my wife is nothing but a signed contract and her pregnancy just another bullet point on the merger report. My jaw tightens. “That’s not what this is.”

He leans forward, his hands clasped over his knee. “Of course it is. That’s what it always was, Harry. That’s why we did this, why we arranged a marriage in the first place, is it not? A White and a Highcourt. A permanent bond. Now with a child on the way?—”

“I didn’t bring you here to talk about contracts.”

Ralph's brows furrow in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“I regret it.”

The silence is immediate and heavy, like a blanket thrown over a fire only to catch flames seconds later.

His eye twitches. “Excuse me?”

“Not the pregnancy,” I clarify. “But I regret it. Arranging this marriage in the first place, my kid and yours. George and Elena’s. The whole thing.”

I toss back the full glass of scotch, letting the burn linger in my throat for a moment, trying to find the right words for what I want to put across.

“It was cowardice. You were treating your daughter like a pawn because it suited our businesses,” I add.

“You were just as complicit as I was,” Ralph snaps. “Don’t act like you’ve suddenly discovered morality because you’re going to be a father again.”

“I’m not pretending like I didn’t play my part,” I shoot back. “But at least I can look at this and recognize that I’ve made a mistake. Can you?”

He exhales heavily through his nose, sharp and angry. “What are you saying, then? You’re backing out?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I’m saying that Elena should get a say in all of this. She should get to choose, for once inher life, what she’s doing. She can stay with me, she can marry George if she wants to — though I’m pretty positive that’s a dead end. Or she could choose no one at all.”