Page 67 of Accidental Groom
“You care about her?”
I blink, taking in the determination between her brows. “Yeah,” I breathe. “Of course I do.”
Her lips form a thin line as she studies me, hesitating. “I don’t think you understand me,” she says carefully. “I’m asking if youcare. Not about the deal, not about the fact that she’s pregnant, not because you feel a responsibility to take care of her now. I’m asking if you care about her, as a person.”
I huff out a breath. Part of me wants to deflect, to bury this conversation tactically. But I know she just wants to make sure her sister isn’t about to raise a child with someone who couldn’t give a shit about her, and I can’t find it in me to shut it down. I open my mouth to try to formulate an answer, but she cuts in.
“She’s always protected me,” she says, keeping her voice down so Elena won’t hear. “Since we were kids, she’s just… taken the hits so I wouldn’t have to. The arrangement, the marriage, the business pressure — all of it.”
I swallow. “I know,” I say.
“She’s not had anyone there to take bullets for her like I have,” she adds. “So I need to know that you would. Don’t just… take what you want from her because it’s convenient and she’s there.”
My throat closes. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
She shrugs. “Not necessarily, but I don’tknow. I’ve barely spoken to you.”
My mouth opens, then shuts, the truth of it lodged low in my throat, hot and uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t do that to her,” I rasp, the words coming out like gravel. “I couldn’t.”
I stare at the spot where Elena had been laying, the blanket still askew from where it had been draped over her legs, the echo of her heartbeat and the baby’s coming through the monitor still playing on repeat in my head.
“I care about her,” I say, the words quiet but feeling like a heavy stone dropped in the middle of a pool. It’s not just words — it’s something I’ve been trying not to observe in myself. I draga hand down my face out of discomfort, trying to find the right thing to say. “She gets under my skin.”
Sarah’s face contorts, her head moving back like a flinch.
“Not like that,” I correct. “It’s not… It’s not duty. Not convenience. She matters to me, Sarah, more than I should admit. She’s in my head, morning to night, and I can’t… I can’t shake her. Not sure I want to.”
Sarah says nothing for a moment. But then she nods, just once, like she’s been waiting for me to admit it out loud, or like she knew I needed to properly acknowledge it to myself.
But now that it’s out, I’m not sure if I stand any chance of trying to get it to go back in.
————
Later that night, I watch from the manor’s front step as Sarah hugs Elena tightly by the open car door. The driver waits, engine humming, headlights cutting across the gravel. Elena tucks her face into her sister’s neck, and even from here, I can see the way her shoulders tremble, the way her hands fist into Sarah’s coat like she desperately doesn’t want to let go.
But Ralph White has never been lenient with his daughters, and Sarah has to go.
I look away before I’m caught staring. By the time the car pulls out, the sky’s darkened, the stars just starting to come out, and Elena hasn’t moved from where she’s standing. Her arms are wrapped around her waist, her body still, silent as she watches the empty driveway.
I step down the path toward her. “Hey,” I say softly, reaching out toward her, dragging my hand along her forearm. “You okay?”
She doesn’t answer at first. Just blinks at the gate like she can will the car to come back, then slowly turns her head to me, her eyes glossy and chin wavering. “Can you come back with me? To the cottage?” she asks, her voice a little wobbly. “I just… I don’t want to be alone.”
There’s something about the way she says it that makes my chest tighten. She’s not fragile. I know that. She doesn’t break easily, but right now, she looks like she’s seconds from it — and it genuinely kills me a little. “Yeah,” I murmur, pulling her into me just enough to press a kiss to her temple. “Of course.”
We walk across the lawn together, her pace slow, our hands brushing. She doesn’t pull away from me, and instead, just leans into it a bit, stepping in silence into my space.
Inside the cottage, she flicks on the lights and toes off her boots. I close the door behind us, and for a second, I’m not entirely sure what to do with myself. It’s the first time since the explosion at dinner that she’s actually asked for my presence, and now that we’re in a smaller space alone instead of outdoors, it feels almost suffocating.
I have to do something.
“Do you want to just… hang out for a bit?” she asks, stepping in front of me toward the sofa. “We could watch something, or?—”
I grab her by the wrist and pull her gently toward me, meeting her halfway, and take her face in my hands. Her eyes widen just a little, her mouth popping open, her pupils flicking back and forth between my own.
Then I kiss her.
It’s not heated. It’s not desperate. It’s slow and soft and careful, but certain. Her breath stutters against my lips, but shelets me in, lets me deepen it just a bit before I pull back just enough to meet her gaze again.
