Page 71 of Accidental Groom
I try to pretend like it doesn’t bother me, sipping my wine, listening as people talk.
“You’re in event planning, right?” Joseph asks, his eyes glancing at her empty ring finger. I really should get her something to wear there, even just as a placeholder to make it look less obvious.
“Mhm,” Elena says, her fingers twitching against her napkin. She hasn’t reached out for my leg again yet, but I’m tempted to take her hand anyway, to hold it just to give her a little more confidence. “For my family’s estate. White Distillery.”
Joseph hums, swirling his wine in his glass. “Right, of course. But still… event planning? Not exactly the most profitable arm of the business, I imagine.”
Her brows knit a little. “It’s very profitable,” she says flatly. “Sure, we’re selling at a lower profit margin, but we’re also charging an arm and a leg for the service. It’s not just showing up with buckets of wine — it’s hosting and staffing and interacting, and not to mention scheduling, capacity calculations, and resource management.”
The corner of my mouth twitches, my pride over her standing her ground curdling too quickly into annoyance as Ann leans in with a conspiratorial smirk.
“It’s such a different shift in circumstances for you now, though, isn’t it? From a modest family and career to…” Her eyes drift to me, lingering too long. “Well, all of this.”
I open my mouth to shut it down, but Elena beats me to it. “It wasn’t modest before, and it’s not modest now. I’m not with him for the money, in case that’s what you’re implying.”
“No, no, of course that’s not what we’re saying,” Ann says, her voice too sweet, too suffocating.God. Why are they behaving like this?
Grace’s eyebrow arches as she glances at me, daring me to say something, but part of me is reeling at the fact that they’re doing this in the first place. Joseph and Ann have always been shallow, but never this bad.
“But, you know, these things do tend to move quickly when there’s…urgencyinvolved,” Joe says, and I don’t miss the way his gaze briefly dips to where the table covers Elena’s midsection.
Shit—
Grace sets her glass down with a sharpclink. “You’re being crass.”
“I’m being honest,” he answers. “Harry, surely you’ve considered that this could be?—”
“What?” I ask, my voice flat, annoyance slipping into the carefully curated stone I was trying to face this down with.
Joseph gestures vaguely with his hands, trying to get the point across without speaking. When I don’t bite, he says it. “A situation. Aplannedsituation.”
I blink at him. “You’re implying she trapped me.”
He shrugs. “I’m saying it’s not unheard of. You’re not exactly a run-of-the-mill bachelor. There are incentives.”
“Don’t pretend like both of you don’t know exactly what happened in that church,” I counter. “My son didn’t show up. I did what needed to be done, and I’m not exactly upset with the result of?—”
“We just want to make sure you’re thinking clearly,” Ann cuts in, folding her hands neatly in front of her. “After Geraldine.”
The name drops like a corpse on the table.
Elena stiffens beside me. I hiss in a breath, my brain trying to catch up, trying to work out if they’d genuinely brought her up or if my mind is playing tricks on me.
Ann leans back, faux-casual and relaxed. “I just mean that it was all so sudden, and we never really knew anything about the Whites since she was meant for George,” she says, her voice so obviously dripping with fake worry. “Forgive us for being a little protective.”
“Protective?” I repeat, setting my glass down. Irritation bubbles in my blood, threatening to tip over into everything else. “You’re calling this protection?”
Ann smiles, thin and far more vicious than I’m used to from her. “We worry. That’s all.”
My chair scrapes back. I’m on my feet in a second, my napkin tumbling onto my plate, my hand held out to Elena in offering as I stare Ann down. “I’m not doing this,” I say. “I’m not going to let you spend the evening interrogating the woman I’ve married.”
Elena looks up at me wide-eyed, her hand hesitantly lifting toward my offered one, unsure if she should take it. I force myself not to look at her.
“I’m allowed to fall in love again,” I add, my voice like gravel. “I’m not going to apologize for it or justify it.”
The silence is total, heavy, and so loud it feels like ringing in my ears. Grace exhales beside me like she’s been holding her breath for hours. Ann looks momentarily thrown, like she wasn’t expecting me to react, and sips at her wine. Liam couldn’t be bothered in the slightest.
Joseph sits back, pulls once at his suit jacket. “If you’re sure, Harry,” he sighs, shrugging. “Just don’t let this one get so miserable.”
