Page 108 of Accidental Groom
They guide her into a smaller room off the main room, one that’s separated by a cloth curtain. A few moments later, I hear her grunting, and one of the members of staff leans their head in, offering help. She leans back, making eye contact with me.
“Mr. Highcourt,” the woman, whose name badge readsEmily, chirps. “She’d like your assistance, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” I say. I push up from my chair, brushing my slacks flat.
When I slip behind the curtain, Elena’s face is bright red, her breasts half out, a dress half on. “Please help me before I tear this thing.”
I stifle my laugh as best I can, stepping up behind her. “Are you… trying to get it on? Or off?”
“I was trying to get it on,” she groans. “But it’s too complicated and I want itoff.”
“Okay, okay,” I chuckle, finding the hem in the sea of fabric. I nudge her arms up with my hands, but it seems to somehow get caught around her shoulders — until I find a random setof buttons going around the front of her bicep. “Who on earth thought buttons here were a good idea?”
“I don’t know, but Ihatethem,” she mumbles. “Put them in prison.”
I nod sagely as I loosen the buttons and free her from the silk. “Definitely a felony.”
I grab something a little simpler from the rack. It’s just a sweater dress, one that should hang loose and comfortably, and come back to her.
“Arms up, El,” I murmur.
Her brows knit, but she lifts them anyway, letting me pull it over her head. “You’ve never called me that.”
“Do you not want me to?”
“No, it’s… It’s nice,” she says. “I’m just not used to it.”
I move out of her line of sight, shifting around to her back, so she can look at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks are still flushed, and she turns once or twice in the mirror, her brows furrowing.
“What is it?” I ask. “Don’t like the dress?”
She huffs, a tuft of hair jumping in front of her face. “It’s not that I don’t like the dress. I just…” Her lips form a hard line. “I don’t know. I just feel huge. Constantly. More than I normally do. It’s hard to like anything.”
I wrap my arms around her from behind, my hands gliding over the soft brown knit covering her stomach. “Elena,” I murmur, resting my chin on her shoulder and staring at her in the mirror. “I know you feel massive. I do. But I promise you, you look beautiful.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t know how you see me like that.”
My thumb strokes absently over the knit. “I know.” I press a kiss to her neck. “But I thought you were beautiful the moment I met you. And now —nowyou’re glowing and stubborn andcarrying my child, and I can’t look at you without feeling like the luckiest bastard alive. It wrecks me.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’mnot, darling.” I move my hand up, caressing her cheek gently. “I’m not.”
She sighs. “Okay. Fine. We’ll get this one.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head as I begrudgingly dislodge myself from her. “We’ll find you things that actually makeyoufeel good, not things that make you feel bad enough that you need compliments to feel somewhat okay.”
“Okay,” she rasps.
We move together, pulling the knit off of her and moving on to the next item, and the next, her choices getting a little bolder, her face lighting up a little more. But there’s still something there, something that isn’t quite right, even as she happily puts something in theyespile.
“You okay?” I ask carefully, pulling the next item off the hanger.
“Honestly?” She glances at me as she takes it, pulling the sweater over her head. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
She rolls her eyes. “I just feel like we need to do something about George.”
