Page 60 of Accidental Groom
The words land like a bomb.
Grace’s glass stills halfway to her mouth. Liam blinks as he takes a bite of buttered bread. George's glass clinks too hard as he sets it down.
“You’re joking,” he says flatly.
“I don’t joke about things like this,” Harry replies. “You abandoned your responsibility. I gave you chance after chance, and you squandered every one.”
George laughs, sharp and unbelieving. “So what, you’re just cutting me out? Passing it all to some board, to Matthew, to your new wife?”
Harry dodges the question. “I said there would be consequences if you didn’t return when Matthew found you.Severe ones.”
George gawks at him, his mouth hanging open, his chair screeching against the floor before he thinks better of standing. “This is bullshit,” he snaps. “I’m yourson.”
“Then start acting like it,” Harry says, his voice eerily calm. “You want me to reconsider? Then start behaving like a man who can carry the Highcourt name. Until then, the answer is no.”
The room goes quiet, tension hanging thick enough to slice. Even Grace seems unsure what to say, though her eyes linger on Harry’s profile like she can’t quite believe what he’s saying.
George’s cheeks flush, his jaw clenching, before he laughs incredulously. The sound is almostmean. “Fine,” he says. “You want me to take responsibility? I’ll do it. Divorce my fiancé. I’ll marry her like I was supposed to, rearrange the contract, and make the alliance how it was meant to be in the first place. That way, everyone can forget this fucking sideshow you’ve decided to put on, and I can do what I need to.”
I stare at George, my fingers tightening over the wine glass stem in front of me, my pulse hammering so hard I can feel it in my eyeballs. Harry’s knee knocks once against mine, just gently, just enough to remind me that he’s there.
“No,” I say.
George blinks at me as if he wasn’t expecting me to speak. “Excuse me?”
“I said no,” I repeat, my voice stronger than I thought it would be. “There is no version of my life where I walk into your arms after what you did.”
His mouth twists, disgust painted all over it. “You think he’s the better option here.”
“We already had this discussion,” I say. “I’m not a package to be thrown together and redelivered just because you’ve decided you want it now under threat of losing everything.”
George surges to his feet, abandoning his better judgment to stay seated, and the clack of his chair legs against the floor makes me flinch. He stares directly at Harry, the tips of his ears pink and his hands clenched so hard against the table that his knuckles are nearly as white as the cloth hanging over it. “This is an impossible situation,” he snaps. “I didn’t ask for this mess, Dad. I didn’t ask to be forced into an archaic arranged marriage to a woman I’m not even?—”
“Don’t,” I say coldly, steeling my jaw as I stare him down. I know exactly where that sentence was leading.To a woman I’m not even attracted to.“Don’t finish that thought.”
His eyes flick toward me, his face twisting in irritation. “You’re impossible to eventalkto now. How the hell am I supposed to do what’s ‘expected of me’ when you refuse to cooperate?” He pushes a hand into his hair, mussing it, pulling at the roots. “You were meant to be my fucking wife, Elena.Mine. Not his?—”
“And you were supposed to show up,” I interrupt. “But you didn’t. You bailed. So cry me a river about expectations.”
“You—” He cuts himself off, his nostrils flaring, and looks back at Harry. “This isyourfault. You pushed the marriage, you pushed the deal, forced me into all of this. Now you want to punish me for not playing along at the perfect moment? Seriously, Dad?”
Harry sets down his glass with deadly calm, but I can see the tension in him, the stiffness in his shoulders and the ticking of a muscle just beneath the hinge of his jaw. “The perfect moment in question had been planned out for a year in advance. You made your choice to not show up for your own wedding,” he says. “You chose to ignore my texts and my calls. You chose not to come home when Matthew found you. These are the consequences.”
“Consequences,” George scoffs. “Ridiculous. You keeping my wife-to-be is a consequence for this? You taking thelegacyfrom me is a consequence? I get what, Dad? Exile? Public humiliation? Everyone will think I’m ajoke.”
“You did that to yourself. Not once in the last few years did you bring up doubts about the marriage. You let me believe you were fine with all of it until you disappeared.”
George’s hand comes down from his hair, a single finger pointing at Harry. “This is about control. Don’t fucking lie to me. You always need to be the one pulling the strings, and the second I pull away from that, you rip everything?—”
“You want the truth, George?” Harry says, cutting him off and leaning back in his chair. “Even if you earn back your inheritance, you’ll only get half. Split down the middle.”
George’s face twists, his lip twitching, his brows pulling together. He takes a step back, the backs of his knees knocking into the chair. “What, you’re addingher?”
“No.” Harry’s face is intensely neutral as he stares at his son. “Elena’s pregnant.”
The answering silence is so loud it makes my ears ring. My stomach churns as George’s face morphs from stunned confusion to something darker, harsher, his hands dropping to his sides as he blinks rapidly. Grace, on the other hand, is wide-eyed and silent, staring between Harry and George like she’s trying to solve an equation. At least Liam seems distracted enough by his phone.
“You can’t be serious,” George murmurs, breaking the silence so quietly I almost miss it.
