Page 20 of Accidental Groom
“Because honestly, El, if you did, I’m not sure if I should be, like, mortified or impressed. He’sgorgeous. Stupidly attractive for someone who’s supposed to be around Dad’s age.”
“He’s not that old,” I mutter, grounding the heel of my palm into my forehead. Sometimes she acts as though she’s still the bright-eyed seventeen-year-old she’d been when I’d graduated high school and not the twenty-nine-year-old woman she actually is, and it never ceases to stress me out. But I’ve spent my entire life shielding her from the bullshit Mom and Dad tried to hand us, and it would be a lie if I ever tried to say I wasn’t perpetually jealous of it. “And it’s… complicated?—”
“Oh mygod,” she chirps, the phone rustling like she’s frantically switching hands. “You did. That’s your ‘I don’t want to talk about this’voice.”
“So don’t ask me about it,” I grind out, but I know damn well it won’t stop her, and it won’t keep me from answering. I’d bend myself over backwards for her.
“You know I can’t do that,” she laughs. “Tell me everything. No, wait, tell me nothing. I don’t know if I can handle details. But I need to know how it was. Oh my god, I can’t decide. Is he big?—?”
“Sarah.” My voice comes out strangled, and I move, pushing off the counter and sinking instead onto the plush leather sofa, pulling my knees up as far as my breasts will let me. “I’m not telling you that.”
“Oh, comeon.”
I don’t bother explaining that I literallycan’ttell her that because I didn’t even see it — the man somehow wasn’t even concerned with his pleasure in the slightest. “I don’t know what to do, Sarah. Can we focus on that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, this whole situation is fucking insane.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, tucking my arms in between my torso and thighs. “He’s eighteen years older than me. He was supposed to be my father-in-law, Sarah, and now he’s my—” I can’t bring myself to say it.
The silence hangs until she fills it. “Husband,” she says carefully. Somehow, hearing her say it makes it feel far more real. “Breathe. You’re spiraling.”
She’s right. My chest feels tight, my lungs seizing just enough to make me feel like I’m back in that goddamn wedding dress, walking down an aisle with no groom at the other end. “I just don’t understand,” I say, the words breathy and wheezing. “Where the hell is George? How am I supposed to just waitaround for him to come back just so I can get divorced and marry theright one? It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd.”
“Okay, okay, first of all, George is a coward and we know that,” Sarah says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Second, you don’thaveto do anything you don’t want to now. The contract is fulfilled, right? You did the legal bit. Technically, you don’t have to do anything else; you can tell Mom and Dad to go to hell and run away.”
I snort. “And let the distillery go under? Yeah, no. You know what’ll happen if the families don’t merge. Dad’s been leveraging everything on this — without the Highcourt’s distribution network and capital, we’re done. You know damn well he’ll just marry you off to a shareholder or something to secure it at that point.”
She huffs. “Then what’s the plan?”
I run my free hand through my hair, knotting my fingers in the strands. “I don’t know,” I admit. “Harry’s arranged for me to stay at his penthouse in Manhattan, he told me when I came back up earlier. I can keep working if I do that, and I guess I can just stay out of his way until we figure out what happens next.”
Sarah pauses, the line holding silent for a moment. “Stay out of his way?”
“Yeah.” I shrug, not caring that she can’t see me. “This is business. That’s all it is. I don’t need to be a genuine wife to him.”
“Business,” she echoes, her tone flat. “You expect me to believe you’re capable of keeping this business casual with him when he looks likethat?”
My stomach twists. “Won’t be hard if I just don’t look at him.”
She snorts. “So youdoagree that he’s hot.”
“Obviously,” I hiss, “but that doesn’t mean anything, Sarah.”
“Yet you’re calling himHarrywhen he was just Mr. Highcourt to you yesterday morning?—”
“Because he’s my husband.” My brain short-circuits on the word, my tongue feeling heavy, like I’ve said something incorrect.
“Exactly,” Sarah says, and I can hear the shit-eating grin spreading across her cheeks. “Look, I know it’s insane, but maybe instead of hiding out in Manhattan, you could take advantage of your situation. Get to know him, see what happens.”
“Sarah.”
“I’m not saying fall in love with him?—”
“Sarah.”
“—or fuck him every two seconds?—”
“Oh my god.”
