Page 89 of Accidental Groom

The space is massive. I didn’t pay much attention to it the first time he’d motioned toward it during a tour of the house, and I certainly wasn’t paying much attention last night when he was on me, taking up most of my vision. But in the soft light of the early morning, even the cacophonous space feels almost… comforting.

But the lack of him in bed with me doesn’t.

The sheets are still faintly warm — proof he was here not long ago. But it’s a little jarring, especially after the conversation we had last night, to wake up in his bed for the first time and find him already gone. The air is strange, heavy with the weight lifted off his chest and placed half onto mine. I sit up slowly, my hand instinctually going to my belly as I swing my legs off the side of the bed.

A sliver of brightness is visible beneath and around the edges of the door to the en-suite. I stare at it for a moment before pushing up off the bed, my eyes still heavy with sleep, and pad over to the door.

I push it open gently. Too gently.

The light spills a little more, revealing Harry, his back to me, leaning his hip against the counter. He’s still in his pajama bottoms, the waistband hanging low on his hips, his hair rumpled. The overhead light casts shadows across his face in the mirror, exaggerating the tightness in his jaw. His brow is furrowed, his mouth a flat line.

I open my mouth to say his name, but I pause, my gaze snagging lower in the reflection.

That’s not his phone.

It’s mine.

Panic hits me too quickly. “What the hell are you doing?”

The words come out before I can check them, before I can second-guess myself. They’re a sharp snap that cuts through the fragile quiet as I push through the door fully. Harry turns, looking up, startled — but not ashamed.

If anything, he looks determined.

“You left it out,” he says, as if that somehow justifies it. “It buzzed five times in a row. I thought it might be something urgent.”

“So you justopenedit?” I press. “That doesn’t give you the right, you could have woken me up?—”

“I could have,” he admits, slowly setting the phone into my open hand, screen on, messages up. “But I saw the nameRoss.”

The name hits like a brick to my head. My stomach tightens, then sinks, the breath loosening from my tightening throat. I stare down at the screen in my hand, our last messages clear as day for Harry.

Ross:

It’ll be okay.

Me:

Maybe. Sometimes I just wish things had turned out differently.

I blink at it, nausea brewing in my gut. Fuck.Fuck.We’d just gotten off the phone when we sent those. There is no context laid out in texts for him to know what it was about — not that it would make it much better.

“Ross,” he says again, quieter this time, probing. It’s like he’s baiting me to give answers, to tell him more, and I can’t find the words. Not after last night. I shouldn’t have let it go so far without adding it to the conversation, but I couldn’t just… throw it in there amidst the murder questions.

I let out a slow, careful breath and set my phone face up on the counter. “He’s an old friend.”

His eyes blow a little wide as he leans back, his shoulders somehow broadening as he crosses his arms over his chest. He looks at me like I’ve surprised him. “An old friend?” he parrots.

I swallow. “Yes.”

“You told him yesterday morning,” he says quietly, leaning a little forward, his face closer to mine, “that you wished things had turned out differently.”

I drag my teeth over my lower lip, taking a deep, shaky breath. This looks bad. I know it does. “I know.”

“That sounds a lot like regret, Elena.”

My chin wobbles as the overwhelming feeling of being a child scorned by my parents swarms me. It’s my own fault. I know that. But it doesn’t make it better. “It’s not regret over you,” I insist. “I mean, fuck, okay, maybe a bit, but it’s not how it looks. I was talking on the phone with him?—”

“I know. I saw the call, over an hour.”