Chapter 5
Elena
Harry’s hand is warm and steady on my elbow.
He guides me toward the private elevator across the hotel lobby, the one reserved specifically for the penthouse.
The bass of the music from the main function room still pounds.
But the bride and groom are gone.
Whether my parents like it or not.
The doors close behind us, sealing us into polished mahogany, glass, and brass. He holds a keycard to the scanner, the light blinking green, and we begin our slow, smooth ascent in silence.
We’re alone again.
But this feels like more than it was in those brief few minutes earlier. There are no murmuring guests in pews outside a wooden door to the church, no George playing on his phone beside me, no parents breathing down my neck.
The weight of it crashes over me — what they all expect, what Dad expects, and my stomach turns, bile creeping up my throat.
Harry stands beside me, his fingers deftly working at his tie to loosen it, and I can’t help but notice how the motion draws my gaze to the strong column of his neck and the veins on the back of his palm.
Stop, Elena.
But the words tumble out anyway. “I’m not having sex with you.”
His fingers pause as his gaze locks with mine.
The silence stretches, the only sound is the soft hum of the elevator.
I brace myself for anger, for demands, for entitlement — but instead, his expression softens. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”
…What?
That catches me entirely off guard.
It isn’t necessarily that I thought Harry was the type to pressure, but two people spearheaded that contract—my father and Harald Highcourt—and at least one of them has already insisted tonight. It’s… easy to loop them together.
I blink at him. “You wouldn’t?”
I can’t tell if it’s irritation or hurt that flashes across his features for a fraction of a second before he manages to rein it in.
“Elena,” he says, turning to face me fully, the tie finally pulling free.
All at once, the spacious elevator feels too intimate, the space charged with something that makes my skin prickle.
“What your father said was ridiculous, and if I’m being entirely honest, disgusting.
What we do—” he gestures between us, “—or don’t do is for no one to decide but us.
If that’s not on the table for you, then it isn’t.
You’ve already made it clear that neither of us has to be fully in with this marriage. It’s your choice. End of story.”
Just the way he’s looking at me, intense and unwavering, makes heat pool in places it definitely shouldn’t be. “Thank you,” I say, but my voice comes out breathier than I meant it to.
I smooth the skirt of my dress with only slightly shaking hands, desperate for something to do with them, but I don’t miss the way his gaze drifts as I do it.
Dark green eyes trail my body, and it takes every bit of fight I have not to wrap my arms around my stomach just to hide.
The second one of them twitches toward my waist, his gaze snaps back up to my face.
I can’t decide if I want to run from it or see just how much heat is behind it.
Stop. You’re being insane.
This man was supposed to be my goddamn father-in-law, and now he’s my husband, and my brain keeps wanting to drift to picture what his shoulders look like beneath that stupidly nice charcoal suit, the way his hands would flex if he gripped my thigh.
“Why do you think he did it?” I ask, desperate for a distraction. “George, I mean.”
Harry’s jaw ticks again, more obvious now in the confines of the elevator, less hidden. “My son has always been selfish. But abandoning you at the altar…” He shakes his head as the ding rings out, the doors opening to a private hallway. “There’s no excuse for that cruelty.”
Neither of us moves to exit the elevator.
I swallow. “I think I know why he ran,” I murmur.
Harry’s attention sharpens, the intensity of it making my breath catch. “Tell me, then.”
“I’ve seen the women George prefers,” I say, forcing my voice to steady. Heat creeps up my neck, Harry’s eyes darkening as he notices just how much I hate saying it. “The ones he’s been photographed with, the ones he hides with during events. They’re… thin. Model-thin.”
The silence sits heavy between us, charged.
The elevator doors slides out of their pocket before Harry’s hand stops them.
But he doesn’t move.
He doesn’t speak.
“I’m not naive. I know what I look like,” I continue, mostly to fill the silence. “I’m not exactly what most men consider—”
“Elena.” His voice is rougher than before, like silk over gravel. I can’t tell if he’s insisting I stop talking or if he’s trying to get me to leave the elevator.
Either way, both work.
I step out into the lowly lit private hall, eyeing the locked double doors opposite the elevator.
The wedding suite.
Harry follows me, hovers the keycard again, and pushes against the polished wood, gesturing stiffly for me to go in first.
The penthouse suite is breathtaking. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the expanse of Saratoga Springs, all light marble and deep wood, a bottle of champagne sitting in a wine cooler on the coffee table between two flutes.
Through the open door to the bedroom, rose petals sit scattered across the floor and the king-size bed, and I cringe internally at the thought of walking into this with George.
But it’s not George.
It’s Harry.
And I can’t decide if that’s better or worse.
Behind me, I hear the telltale click of the door closing and the electric whirr of the lock.
Silence stretches between us, heavy and thick, and I don’t know what to do — don’t know if I should move, should look at him, should react in any way.
I know how to handle events with hundreds, if not thousands, of people, but this and him… I have no idea what I’m doing.
“You’re wrong, you know.” His voice cuts through the quiet.
I turn to face him, my pulse pounding through my veins as I find him already staring at me. “About what?”
“About George running because of how you look.” The tie hanging open around his neck slips free, his fingers depositing it on the table by the door. “That wasn’t the problem.”
My cheeks heat. “How would you know?”
He levels me with a look that says he’s not playing with me. “Because I have eyes, Elena,” he says, his gaze traveling over me with intention this time, slow and deliberate. “And because my son is an idiot, but not that much of an idiot.”
Harry moves closer, crossing the space, his cologne invading my senses again as he stops just short of me.
“Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?”
I should step back.
Should remember that this is likely temporary.
Should remember that he’s almost twenty years older than me and he absolutely wasn’t supposed to end up as my husband.
Instead, I find myself rooted to the spot, nodding so weakly I’m almost embarrassed by it.
“A woman who clearly has no idea how beautiful she is.” His hand lifts, and a faint pressure pushes against the underside of my chin, forcing my head up just a hair. “Something my son was too immature to appreciate.”
The touch alone sends electricity through my body. My heart slams against my ribs, violent enough that I’m worried he’ll notice.
But I clock the way his eyelids lower halfway.
Oh, god. “Harry—”
“I know you won’t sleep with me, and I would never expect you to.
” His thumb brushes across my lower lip, and I swear, I stop breathing.
This man is far too attractive for him to be talking to me like that, but my traitorous body ignites anyway.
“But I wouldn’t be opposed to other things, if you wanted them. ”
My knees feel weak. “What—what kind of other things?”
His hand finds my waist, pulling me in closer to him, and I barely manage to fight the hitch in my breath. “The kind that would make you forget every doubt my son conjured up in your head,” he says. “But only if you want.”
I force myself to swallow, sense and reason losing the battle that’s barely playing out in my mind. “And if I do want to?”
For the first time in all the years I’ve known him, Harald Highcourt’s mouth twitches into a genuine grin. Not one out of professionalism, not one out of obligation. “Then I’ll make you feel good enough to drown out the bullshit in your head.”
I should say no.
I should laugh, pull away, remind us both that this is supposed to be a business arrangement currently held together with duct tape and glue until we deal with the legal bit in the morning.
But the weight of his hand on my waist makes my head spin, the heat of it seeping through the layers upon layers of silk, and when his fingers dig in, the noise in my head quiets for the first time today.
So I don’t laugh.
I don’t say no.
I arch into his touch instead.
The sound he makes, half sigh and half groan, sends a shiver down my spine.
He leans into me, his mouth brushing the curve of my ear. “Tell me what you like,” he rasps. “You want my hands? My mouth? Got something in your bag that you prefer?”
My face heats exponentially. “I…”
“Don’t tell me you’ve lost the nerve you showed me back in the church,” he chuckles. His hand moves at my waist, sliding around to the ribbons holding the dress closed, and begins to pull. “Use your words.”
The words slip out before I can second-guess myself. “I didn’t—I didn’t pack anything.”
He hums softly against my ear. “Then you’re down to two options.”
My mouth goes dry, struggling to swallow nothing. When the single word escapes me, it’s nothing more than a puff of air, a sound so quiet I’m not even entirely sure he’s heard it. “Both.”
“Greedy.” I can feel the curve of his lips against my cheekbone, the faint breath that warms my skin. “I like that.”