Chapter 2
Harry
My lungs feel like they’re being strangled, like the stagnant heat and hairspray and tension have deadened the air.
It’s thick with the kind of pressure you only feel in hospitals or courtrooms — places where lives are decided, where one wrong move changes everything.
It crawls over my skin like static, burrowing into the spaces between my ribs.
Elena’s looking at me like I could be her savior.
Like I could fix this, like I’m expected to.
Her voice echoes in my head. Marry me.
My mouth tastes like copper.
Fuck.
Behind her, Ralph White is practically vibrating with the need to solidify a solution as if his actual life is on the line. His small, weedy body poised to strike if I say no.
Her mother, Gail, looks white as a ghost, and Elena’s sister is just staring at the back of her head like she’s gone insane.
There’s an expectation hanging in the air, a need for me to respond, and yet, it feels like my mouth isn’t quite working.
Elena swallows as she glances around at her family, then meets my gaze again. “Can we speak alone?”
I hesitate.
It’s not because I don’t want to.
It’s because I do.
Too much.
I look at her, then at Ralph, noting the way his jaw clenches tight enough to fracture a tooth. He gives a small, sharp nod, like a man granting a privilege I’m not even asking for.
I don’t need his approval to speak to her.
“Okay,” I say, my voice coming out far too steady for the war raging inside of me.
She follows me out into the hallway, her heels clicking against the stone floor, each step slow, careful. We pass an open archway, and she pauses, staring at the guests dressed in navy and gold and cream waiting in the main chapel.
Her fingers tighten in the fabric of her dress.
“Come on,” I say.
She blinks, the spell breaking, and looks back at me before continuing walking.
I lead her down a narrow side corridor, past iron sconces and stained glass, until I find a room I remember vaguely from the walkthrough I did with George two months ago.
It’s small, windowless, quiet enough that we can talk and not too large to hear the echoing of whatever bad decision we’re about to make.
She follows me in, her heels clacking until she stops, the door clicking shut behind us. I turn to face her.
And then she breaks.
Not loudly, not dramatically, not sobbing — but her hands wrap around her waist, curling into fists. Her body trembles like she’s freezing, her eyes turn glassy, her breathing broken, and I am very suddenly staring at a woman I do not recognize.
I’ve seen her a handful of times in my life.
Once or twice when Ralph and I set this up for her and George when they were teenagers — a powerful marriage between old money and new money, securing their business within my own.
A few times in her early twenties when she’d hosted events at one of Highcourt Hotels' locations, commanding a room like it was easy for her.
But never, never, have I seen her look fragile enough to break in the wind.
“Please,” she says, her voice too small, too broken. “Please, Harry. I meant it. Marry me.”
I stare at her, trying to control the frantic thumping in my chest.
This is a mistake.
But she’s standing in front of me in that goddamn dress that hugs her hips and pushes up over her chest, making her look like the most tragic kind of beautiful that people paint and hang in art galleries.
Her eyes are wide, not just with tears that she wouldn’t dare let fall, but fear.
And I know in my bones that she’s not asking for this because she wants it.
She’d just rather marry me than see her sister crushed beneath the same weight.
Jesus Christ.
“You don’t know what you’re asking me for,” I say carefully, taking a step toward her.
“I do.”
“What’s your plan with this? Call it a patch job until George grows a conscience and comes home?”
She swallows hard, her gaze drifting around the room. “He left the country. If he wanted to be here, he would. I’m not expecting it.”
I drag a hand down my face, sighing into it. “What happens when he comes back, then? I know my son, Elena. He’s not going to run forever.”
She shrugs, but the motion is too tight, like she feels like she has to come up with an answer or risk being thrown out. “We get divorced, I guess. I marry him later. Or I don’t. It doesn’t matter. I can’t—I can’t think about that, I have to think about today, and today, I need this to happen.”
The suggestion is so flippant, but it’s logical from her standpoint.
I get that, I do, but it’s causing a spiral that is ending up with neither of us happy.
There’s a part of me that knows she won’t exactly be happy with George either, but at least he’s not eighteen years older than her and doesn’t come with baggage heavy enough to weigh down an airplane.
“We could postpone the wedding,” I offer. “I know your parents are pushing for it to happen today, but we could just wait until I find him—”
“We can’t postpone.”
Her voice cracks, just once, but violently. It’s like hearing something porcelain shatter.
“If we postpone, they’ll see that as a failure on my part,” she says, and I can see a tear beading on her lashes, can see the way her chest shakes as she takes a deep breath.
“They’ll say I wasn’t good enough, that I’m defective, that he left because of me, which, to be fair, he probably did, and — they’ll put this on her. Sarah.”
The tear falls.
She wipes it before it can get any lower than her cheek.
“You heard him,” she adds. “He’s already decided.”
I roll my lips between my teeth, trying to settle myself. She’s not wrong. I saw it, I watched a man I thought I respected threaten one daughter with the future meant for the other, like he was just closing a business deal and nothing more.
And it made my skin crawl.
She takes a step closer, too close now, the scent of her — roses, a hint of vanilla, and the faint scent of sweat from her panic — overwhelms me.
“You don’t have to mean it.” She pushes a stiff lock of hair out of her face, those absurdly reflective brown eyes staring a hole through my skull now. She looks beautiful, even through the threat of more tears. Like someone I shouldn’t be anywhere near. “You just have to say yes.”
My jaw aches from how much I’ve clenched it. This is insane. I shouldn’t be considering this, I shouldn’t be this close to her, I shouldn’t want to say yes.
But I do.
And I can’t stop looking at her mouth.
Another step, and I can feel my resolve crumbling. Her voice drops. “Please, Harry.”
My eyes close. Half of my head is an onslaught of thoughts and promises I’d made to myself over the years: no one else after losing Geraldine, no more grief. But the other half is eating it alive with what might be the worst decision I will probably ever make in my life.
When my eyes open again, she’s still there, too close, looking at me like I’m the only choice she has left.
And I can’t be the man who says no to that.
Not today. Not after the carnage my son has caused. Not after the things I saw play out in that room.
I can help her. I can give her a small mercy.
I let out a slow breath, the kind that feels like it’s taking something on the way out. Maybe my better judgment, maybe my last ounce of self-preservation.
“Alright,” I rasp.
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.