Page 70 of Accidental Groom
I smile and nod and offer a sweethellolike my mother taught me to.
Ann, on the other hand, doesn’t try to hide the way her eyes linger. She lets her gaze hold as she takes a step forward, slowly dragging it back up to my face as she shakes my hand. “Lovely to meet you,” she drawls.
Harry’s hand stiffens on my back. Joe moves on to Grace and Liam.
“Our daughter Sienna is around here somewhere,” Ann continues, her voice too easy, too breezy. “She’s just finishing at Dartmouth, home for the weekend. You two might have some things in common. Generationally.”
Great.
The entry hall stretches out as we walk, all polished wood and white paint and chandeliers twinkling above. Harry leads me through into the sitting room, chatting away to Ann about something I pretend to listen to but can’t hear over thewhooshingsound of my own pulse in my ears.
Grace sits down on a tufted chair, falling into conversation easily with a man I don’t recognize, but who seems to be dressed similarly to the butler. Liam’s slouched on the sofa nearby, sinking into the cushions, his long legs sprawled out in front of him and his earbuds in like he’d rather be anywhere else. Harry squeezes my hand once before letting go to speak to his friends in another room, and I take a glass of sparkling water from a tray by the doorway, trying to stand like someone who belongs here while obviously being the odd one out.
“You look lovely,” someone says behind me.
I turn. A tall, perfectly blonde woman with flawless skin stands behind me, looking every bit the same as Ann if Ann weren’t thirty years older and afraid of aging. She stands in a light pink dress that hugs every slight curve of her thin body, her hair falling in perfectly styled curls around her face and over her shoulders. She glances down at my stomach, lingering just like her mother, before lifting her eyes and grinning at me.
“Elena, right? I heard about you from George,” she chirps. Her arms wrap around me suddenly enough to make me stiffen, but I force myself to relax, to pretend like this is all entirely normal. She pulls back just as quickly as she came, her grin still forced, her head tilting just a little as she studies me again. “I’m Sienna.”
I can’t quite tell if she’s just air-headed or if she’s some kind of perfect high school mean girl in the flesh. “Nice to meet you,” I offer, huffing a light little chuckle as if that’ll help the awkwardness.
“I like your dress.”
“Thanks,” I reply, my hand coming up to cover my stomach on instinct — and not because of the pregnancy. “I like yours too.”
She smiles, and this time, I can see right through it. It’s not air-headedness.
Someone calls her name and she flits away like hand-waved smoke, leaving me with just my glass of sparkling water and the dread of the next two hours.
————
A bell chimes halfway through my conversation with Grace as if we’re being summoned.
“That’s dinner,” she says, nodding toward the doorway. “It’s weird, I know. You’ll get used to it.”
“To be honest, it’s not that much different to what it was like at my parents’ house,” I chuckle, pushing up from the couch.
She follows me a moment later, nudging her son to take out his headphones and nodding toward the kitchen. Liam grumbles under his breath but gets up anyway.
Crystal lights hang over a fairly long, rectangular table covered in a deep green tablecloth. Bits of nature cover the runner, from moss to leaves to pinecones to full plants, and at first glance, it’s gorgeous.
But the longer I stare, the more fake it looks.
These are not outdoorsy people. The pinecones look real, but like they’re covered in a layer of thin wax to keep them shiny and pristine. The plants are potted, but the moss is fake, with faux little drops of dew scattered through them. It feels more like something my parents would do than something I would ever choose.
Harry pulls my chair out for me, waiting until I’ve sat to move to his own beside me, and the second his ass hits the seat, I squeeze his thigh beneath the table. He glances at me, one brow raised, before it settles as I can only hope he sees the stress building inside of me. I don’t know what it is about this place, these people, other than the eerie similarities to my own family. It’ssuffocating.
Joseph raises his glass when I lay my napkin across my lap. “Well, now that we’re all here,” he says, pausing just long enough for his gaze to flick to me before scanning the table. “Let’s hope the food isn’t the only thing that turns out to be a good match tonight.”
Chapter 24
Harry
Dinner is, apparently, a slow spiral into hell.
Elena sits beside me, an empty wine glass in front of her, her gaze fixed somewhere between everyone. Grace is on my other side, refilling hers before the appetizers hit. Liam stares at his lap, clearly playing on his phone beneath the table. Joe and Ann and Sienna are across from us, casual and calm, but I can tell Elena is on edge and can feel the energy in the air.
Not to mention the comment Joseph made.
