Page 61 of Accidental Groom
Harry nods once, clipped, matter-of-fact.
“Holy fucking shit, Dad.” George’s Adam’s apple bobs uncomfortably as he swallows, his mouth popping open like he wants to say more but can’t find the words.
“You don’t get to decide the outcome of a situation when you walk away from it,” Harry says simply, setting his napkin down on the table beside his plate like he’s prepping himself for war. “You gave it up. You walked away. What happened after that isn’t yours to decide or change. Figure something else out.”
“Somethingelse?” George lets out a breathless, disbelieving laugh. “You expect me to be able to do that whenthiswas what the plan was my entire life? I have to fight a war that I don’t even know how to navigate, just to get half of what I was owed, because you decided tobreedher?”
I choke on my saliva. “Seriously?Breed?”
“That’s enough,” Harry scolds.
But George is spiraling now, the way I’ve seen him do the handful of times I was around him before the wedding, when he got overwhelmed and angry that the universe wasn’t revolving around him.
“You think Mom would be okay with this?” George spits, his hands coming down on the table and rattling the glasses. “You think she’d wantherplace handed to a woman promised to herson? Do you think she wouldn’t look at you with disgust?—”
“George.” The single word cuts through the air like a knife, angry, growled, enough to make me jump. But George doesn’t seem to flinch.
“No! You don’t get to do this, Dad. You don’t get to play the righteous good guy when we both know what happened the night she died?—”
Harry stands.
The roomstills, just for a second, just long enough for George to shut his mouth and take a breath. But he finds the idiotic confidence to keep going, his voice cracking around the words. “You stood there like a saint while she disintegrated in that house. Do you think I haven’t figured it out? Do you think I didn’t see what you weregiving her?”
“Donot,” Harry booms, explosive as a gunshot, “talk about your mother like that. You knownothing.”
George exhales raggedly, his jaw steeling. Grace stiffens. Liam, surprisingly, keeps staring at his phone.
Harry speaks the moment George opens his mouth to fire something back, silencing him. “Say one more word and you’ll regret it.”
George looks between the three people actually paying attention, breathing heavily, and shakes his head. “I’m done,” he murmurs. “Enjoy your new little family. But don’t you dare try to kick me off property while I try to figure out my life. You owe me at least that.”
He doesn’t wait for a response — just walks to the door and shoves it open with his shoulder, slamming it so hard behind him that the chandelier shakes.
The lingering silence is suffocating.
Grace lifts her wine glass to her lips, takes a sip, then swirls it. “Well,” she says, her lips going flat, “that went about how I expected.”
Liam sets down his phone. “That was awesome.”
“Liam—”
My hand gently wraps around Harry’s wrist as I stand, my fingertips pressed against his racing pulse. “Are you okay?” I ask, tilting my head just enough to get his attention. “That got ugly fast.”
Harry’s jaw clenches, his nostrils flaring. “I shouldn’t have done it like this. I thought doing it in public would keep him civil.” He pushes back, breaking free of my hand, pacing all of two steps. “But of course, he used the one card he knows gets under my skin.”
“Harry,” Grace says, but he ignores her.
“He has no goddamn right to bring up Geraldine like that,” he snaps. “I know she was his mother. I understand that. But he knows exactly what he’s doing.”
I hesitate, glancing between them. “Was he insinuating…?”
Harry turns sharply, his eyes narrowed. “He blames me. Always has.”
“I’m—”
“There is nothing else to talk about,” he interjects, his voice raising just enough to make me bristle. “She’s dead. He wasn’t there. You weren’t there. Iwas, and I’ve lived with that night for twelvefuckingyears, Elena. I’m not going to defend myself to you?—”
“Hey, hey, I’m not asking you to?—”
