Page 9 of Accidental Groom
Her breath catches like she wasn’t actually expecting me to cave. Her eyes lock on mine, wide and searching, flicking between mine in disbelief. “You’re serious?”
“Yes.” I rub a hand over the back of my neck, already cursing the heat blooming in my chest. “We do this. We walk out there, we say the words. In the morning, we can go to the courthouse,get a new license, and make it official so that your father doesn’t lose his fucking mind.”
She nods, fast and desperate, her hands trembling as they fall to her sides. “Thank you,” she says, clearly trying to steel herself back into something sturdy.
“Don’t thank me,” I mutter, tipping my head toward the door. “Let’s just get this done.”
Before I change my mind.
Chapter 3
Harry
The church feels colder when I step through the doors into the nave.
The stained glass windows cast fractured, colorful light over the pews and the litany of guests I barely recognize, blue and crimson and gold bleeding onto faces of the press and those I’d barely call friends.
Everything smells like wax and roses and ancient stone, and the air itself feels volatile enough that one wrong inhale could make everything shatter.
I ignore the gasps from the gallery as I walk the aisle alone.
My footsteps echo louder than I feel like they should.
Heads turn in my peripheral, aisle after aisle.
Whispers and stares hit me from all angles.
These people know who I am.
And they know exactly who I amnot.
I keep my chin high, my shoulders squared, not giving them the satisfaction of hesitation or concern. But inside, pieces of me are unraveling thread by thread.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be — not for her, not for me.
Not again, at least.
The last time I did this, I believed in all of it, believed inher. Geraldine. I didn’t know what grief would taste like when it’s the person you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with. I didn't know how the resulting silence could stretch and morph into something hollow and unending. I certainly didn’t think I’d ever stand at another altar.
Especially not with my son’s intended bride.
There have been other women through the years, of course, but never to the extent of anything serious, anything remotely close tothis.
But the music starts, and I bite my tongue, unwilling to stop the chaos.
Heads turn, and Elena appears.
Her arm is looped through Ralph’s like a woman walking toward her execution willingly.
She has no bridesmaids, no flower girls, not even her sister — no one but her father, marching her down the aisle as if we’re about to sign the treaty to end a war instead of combining our finances.
She’s breathtaking.
That’s the worst part.
She looks like something out of a dream I have no right to have.
The dress clings to her body in ways I wish I could stop noticing, hugging her wide hips, her full breasts, the swell of her rear.
