Page 115 of Accidental Groom
I swallow, then nod, forcing myself to turn to them.
“There’s no pressure to rush recovery,” Dr. Frasier says, his tired eyes glancing at Harry before falling back on me. “Rest and hydration are the most important.”
“And bonding time,” Mary interjects.
“I’ll get you whatever you need,” Harry adds, sitting down beside me again. “We can hire in a private chef, or I can cook every meal. I’ve already taken time off, rearranged the schedule since it’s a month early. Any kind of support, we’ll figure it out.”
I barely hear them. My gaze keeps drawing back to her.
She’s so small. So perfect. And for the first time in my life, with Harry’s hand in mine, even with her a few feet away, I feel entirely full — full of something more than expectation and familial duty.
Full oflove, and full of purpose.
She’s mine. He’s mine.
I look up at Harry, his strong frame curled protectively beside me, his hand resting gently over mine, and everything feels right. Somehow, after all of the screw ups and the chaos and the unplanned speed bumps, it worked out. We worked it out.
I can actually breathe.
Epilogue
Harry
Six months.
Six months since I stood in a sterile hospital hallway, fists clenched at my sides, staring at a red digital clock above the operating room doors while the woman I love was unconscious on a table. Six months since I paced like an animal and nearly lost my mind waiting to hear if she and our daughter were alive.
The recovery wasn’t easy. Not with the unexpected surgery, the hormone swings, the pain. Elena hated asking for help, hated how limited her body felt — every step, every shift in the bed, every time Clementine needed to be fed or changed or rocked, and her body ached too much to do it herself. But she let me help. And the trust in that, the way she leaned into it with me, still brings me to my knees when I think about it too hard.
Some days she still moves carefully. She rubs at the scar on her lower belly like it’ll change or like she’s not entirely convinced it’s real. But she’s stronger now. Soft, in all the best ways, but with steel running through her. It suits her — it’s likeshe’s finally stopped being what others tried to carve her into and is just becoming who she was always supposed to be.
Sarah and Tamsin are staying with us this week, taking up Elena’s old spot in the cottage. Sarah’s been cooing over Clementine every morning while Tamsin pretends she’s too cool to care, then melts the second the baby makes a sound. It’s good for Elena, having Sarah here. There’s a calm in her eyes when they’re sitting on the couch, shoulders brushing, voices hushed. It’s the kind of comfort I can’t give her, and not because I don’t want to, but because it’s not a bond I can give her. I wasn’t the one who shared a bed with her when the nights got scary or whispered secrets in the backseat of a car or waited out the long silences at the dinner table with Gail and Ralph sitting like damn sentinels at either end.
I hesitate outside of the conservatory, standing in the doorway, the morning sun beaming through the glass. Clementine’s asleep in Elena’s arms, and Sarah’s leaning back with a steaming cup of tea in her hands. Tamsin’s walking the perimeter like it’s her duty to check the plants, her fingers touching the leaves of a giant monstera.
“It’s just strange,” Sarah says, her voice quiet. “You’d think they’d at leastaskabout her. Or you. Orsomething.”
Elena doesn’t look up from Clem, just strokes her back soothingly. “They’re not built that way.”
“No,” Sarah sighs, “but I hoped maybe… I don’t know. I told them about Tamsin. Told them everything, actually. The years of sneaking around, all of it. They didn’t explode or kick me out or talk about how it would look in the press. They just sort of… blinked. And pretended it didn’t happen.”
Elena looks at her, then, offering her a soft smile. “You told them, though. That’s the part that matters. Proud of you for it.”
“They’re still emotionally constipated,” Sarah mutters.
“Oh, absolutely. Painfully.”
I watch quietly, seeing the way the light catches Elena’s face as she fully grins. She looks rested today, peaceful — as she should. I handled the middle-of-the-night cries last night. But god, she looks stunning. Always stunning, even when her hair’s a mess and she’s still in pajamas at three in the afternoon. But now there’s a stillness to her, this gravity that sucks me in like it was made for me. She’s not just beautiful, she’severything, she’shome.
“Hey,” I say eventually, stepping into the room with two mugs of coffee. Elena’s head turns, and that look — the one she gives me too often, like I hung the stars just for her — never stops wrecking me.
“You’re interrupting sister time,” she says, but she’s smiling as she shifts just carefully enough not to wake Clem, giving me space to sit.
I hesitate. “Oh? Should I put your coffee back in the kitchen, then?”
“No! No, no, no, please.”
I chuckle and set it down on the glass table in front of her, then lower myself gently onto the cushion. “Got a call from Grace while I was in the kitchen,” I say, mentally checking for the millionth time that Clem is actually breathing and not just lying there. “She said George wants to visit. Just for a day or two.”
