Page 90 of Accidental Groom
I wince. “I was just getting shit off my chest about the scan and you not being there, and my stress was through the roof, and we hadn’ttalkedyet?—”
“You talked to him about me not being there for the scan?” he asks incredulously, his brows raising. “How much, exactly, does this ‘old friend’ know about me?”
I blink at him. “A-a lot,” I admit. “He’s myfriend.”
“He wasn’t at the wedding,” Harry muses, his lips forming a hard line. “A friend would have been there. A man lurking in the shadows wouldn’t have. A man you didn’t want your family knowing about wouldn’t have.”
“Did you read back? He had to work last minute, he was invited?—”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
The question is so sudden that it feels like I’m falling. It takes me a second too long to catch up. “Are you seriously asking me that?”
“You hesitated.”
“Harry.”
“You left a paper trail of affection for someone else. That doesn’t exactly inspire trust, Elena,” he says, pointing at the phone as he repeats himself. “Are you sleeping with him?”
“No.”
His gaze flicks between my eyes, searching, clearly not believing me.
“He’s not a threat to you. But you don’t get to do this, you don’t get to go through my phone at six in the morning behind a half-closed door, not when I thought we were on better terms after last night. That isn’tfair,” I insist.
“So I’m just supposed to be okay letting you speak to some man I haven’t met, some man you claim is a friend, saying things likethat, and feel okay about it?” he counters. “Do youunderstand how that looks? It reads like you wish you’d ended up with him. It reads like you’d rather be in his bed.”
“I don’t!” I snap. “Iwouldn’t!”
His jaw tightens, a muscle twitching by his ear. He looks down, like he’s not entirely sure, before meeting my gaze again. “Is she mine?”
I blink rapidly. Silence descends, thick and screaming. I’m too thrown to even process it fully.
He didn’t just ask that. He didn’t. He couldn’t have?—
“Elena.” He looks at me like he doesn’t even recognize me.
It’s too much. He doesn’t trust me. After last night, he doesn’t trust me.
Maybe he shouldn’t.
I grab my phone and take a step back, my eyes burning. “I need space,” I breathe. “Jesus Christ, I need space.”
“El—”
“Don’t,” I snap, my voice cracking. “Don’t. Of course she’s fucking yours, Harry. Of course she is. But don’teversay that to me again.”
I turn before he can get a word in, grabbing a random shirt from the hamper by the door and pulling it over my head, needingsomethingto cover me. I don’t slam the door behind me, I don’t stop down the hall — that would feel like drama, and this isn’t drama. This is bone-deep exhaustion and a slap in the face.
I slip down the stairs, barely focused, just putting every bit of brain power into getting to the cottage. I don’t care that the flagstones are freezing beneath my feet, I don’t care that the wind whips at the tear tracks on my face. I just move until I’m in my own space, and then my focus shifts.
I find one of my suitcases. I shove a few random outfits, underwear, and pajamas into it. I grab my toiletries, my prenatal vitamins, and my chargers.
I just can’t be here right now.
How thefuckam I meant to talk to him about Ross now? After that, I can’t exactly easily tell him that Ross isn’t just a friend. I can’t just drop the bomb on him that I have an ex-husband. I should have told him before now, should have just mustered up the courage, but I was too much of a wuss.
It’s my fault.
