Page 27 of Accidental Groom
I direct the movers inside, taking a couple of minutes to explore it myself and figure out which room is where. The downstairs holds a simple, pristine kitchen, a sitting room, and a washroom, and upstairs has the bedroom, the office, and a full bathroom. Everything is immaculately clean, smelling faintly of wood polish from the floors, like someone has obviously prepared the space for me.
But as I move through the rooms, I can’t shake the feeling that this space has a history.
The living room furniture sits beneath dust covers. A reading nook by the window has the faint impression of years of use, a darker spot where someone would’ve sat. There are lighter patches on the white walls, perfect squares and rectangles where pictures probably hung before. In what will be my bedroom, the wardrobe doors stick before prying open, like they haven’t been used in years.
This wasn’t just guest quarters. This was usedfrequently.
Hours later, when the movers have shifted in all of my belongings that Harry had instructed be brought down from my parents’ house, one of the men approaches me.
“That’s the last of it,” he says, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Unless there’s anything in the car.”
“No, that’s all.” I offer him a small grin, just wanting them gone so I can unpack in peace. “I don’t—do I need to pay you?”
He chuckles softly. “No, ma’am. It’s already handled.”
He disappears down the gravel side driveway, leaving me alone in my new temporary home.
Temporary.
The word sits heavy in my chest as I survey the boxes and luggage scattered about the house.
For the next three hours, I spend my time slowly unpacking, trying to make the space feel like my own. My clothes look strange in the antique wardrobe, too modern for the old wood and brass fittings. My books fill only a fraction of the built-in shelves. My laptop and paperwork seem almost ridiculous on the ornate writing desk by the window.
Everything about this feels temporary, provisional, like I’m playing house in someone else’s life. And Iam.
By the time I finish, dust motes dance in the slanted evening light pouring through the windows and my muscles ache from lifting boxes. My sundress clings to my skin, damp at the lower back from sweating in the sun, and I can feel grit under my fingernails from handling my own dusty artifacts that Mom and Dad apparently thought were necessary to send.
A bath. That’s what I need. A hot bath to wash away the day and help me process the absurd, surreal turn my life has taken.
The bathroom matches the rest of the cottage's theme of wild elegance—a claw-foot tub, marble countertops, wooden cabinets, a rainfall shower, and a window that looks out over the gardens. Someone’s stocked it with expensive-looking bath salts and towels so thick they could double as blankets.
I turn the taps, adjusting the temperature until steam begins to rise. The sound is soothing, the one thing I feel like I cancontrol right now in a life that’s somehow spiraled completely beyond my grip.
I wander back to the bedroom as the tub fills, my mind running too quickly. Tomorrow, Harry will be buried in his work on the Switzerland project again. I’ll have to sit in that window and plan the next event for my family’s distillery from a beautiful prison. We’ll be polite estate-mates, careful not to touch, careful not to cross his lines.
But then what? George will come crawling back, and every empty word Harry spoke to me about being able to tell him when I don’t want to do something will be obvious as a lie.You don’t have to agree to things you don’t want just to keep the peace.Bullshit. If he meant it at all, he only meant it in the abstract —don’t like this lamp shade? Tell me! I’ll get you a new one.
Absolutely ridiculous.
I catch sight of myself in the wardrobe’s mirror, my cheeks flushed and my hair slipping from its ponytail. I look tired, overwhelmed, like a woman who’s been handed a life she didn’t want and didn’t ask for. Shocking.
I reach around to my back, fumbling until I manage to grab the zipper for the sundress, and pull, letting it slip off my shoulders and pool around my feet. My bra and underwear follow after, leaving me bare in the evening light.Laundry hamper.That’s something to start the list off with.
I take a single step toward the bathroom before the bedroom door bursts open without warning.
“Elena—”
The sound that comes out of me barely sounds human as I spin, my arms flying to cover myself as Harry freezes in the doorway, fully dressed in his neatly pressed slacks and button-up shirt.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. His eyes go wide, his mouth still open from whatever he’d been about to say, and I cansee the exact moment his gaze drops unintentionally before he forces it back to my face.
“Get out!” I shriek, grabbing for the first thing I can reach—a throw pillow from a chair by the window—and hurling it at his head. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”
He ducks, the pillow bouncing off the doorframe instead. But he doesn’t leave, just stands there, his jaw working like he’s trying to find words, his knuckles white where they grip the door handle. “I sent you texts,” he says. “Multiple texts. About dinner. You didn’t answer.”
“So you decided to justbarge in?” My face heats from both embarrassment and anger, my hand doing fuck all to cover myself. “Have you never heard of knocking?”
His gaze flickers down again, just for a second, before he seems to catch himself. The muscle in his jaw ticks, and I want to fling myself out the goddamn window. “I knocked. You didn’t come down.”
