Page 6 of Accidental Groom

He doesn’t even blink, just stares me down with that hollow expression I’ve known my whole life. “Try me, Elena.”

As if someone reached out and grabbed me by the throat, I’m yanked back into my body instead of hovering somewhere above.

The dress is suffocating again.

My ribs ache.

My hands are trembling, but I ball them into fists to hide it.

And my father is serious.

Harry hasn’t moved. He’s watching me, silent, unreadable, his arms crossed loosely like he’s waiting to see how this plays out — like he doesn’t want to be here, like he’s trying to work his way out of this.

But Harry doesn’t know the lengths my father will go to if this doesn’t happen.

There's only one thing I can do.

Something shocking.

Something unthinkable.

I meet his eyes and swallow every bit of pride I have.

“Marry me,” I say.

His brow twitches.

His eyes squint.

His jaw clenches.

Ihatethat the genuine look of surprise on his face softens it, makes him look far more attractive than he already is.

“What?”

I take a deep breath, trying to work out the best way to say this without directly begging him for the sake of my sister. Dad would only see it as weak. “If you care at all about your son’s mistakes not ruining my family, if you care about yours and your son’s name and reputations, if you care about not turning this entire day into a scandal, then marry me.”

Harry looks at me for a long moment.

The silence in the room hangs like a bomb seconds from detonating.

He exhales through his nose like he’s about to walk into war.

And I fight back the tears.

I just begged a man, nearly twenty years older than me, to marry me.

Chapter 2

Harry

My lungs feel like they’re being strangled, like the stagnant heat and hairspray and tension have deadened the air. It’s thick with the kind of pressure you only feel in hospitals or courtrooms — places where lives are decided, where one wrong move changes everything. It crawls over my skin like static, burrowing into the spaces between my ribs.

Elena’s looking at me like I could be her savior.

Like I could fix this, like I’mexpectedto.

Her voice echoes in my head.Marry me.