Chapter 9
Elena
Highcourt Hall takes my breath away.
I stand at the edge of the circular cobblestone drive, my luggage sitting on the ground by the moving truck, and try to absorb the sheer magnitude of what Harry calls home.
The estate rises before me like something out of a goddamn fairytale — all weathered gray stone and soaring windows that catch the mid-afternoon light.
Ivy creeps up the walls in elegant patterns that look intentional, the slate roof’s peaks and valleys illuminated against the Hudson Valley sky.
It’s not just a house. It’s a legacy carved in stone, one far bigger than my family’s.
The front entrance sits beneath a grand archway, heavy wooden doors securing the house, strong enough to withstand a siege.
Wings of the house extend on either side, creating a sprawling U-shape around the courtyard where a fountain bubbles quietly in the center.
Everything about it whispers old money, established power, and the kind of wealth that doesn’t need to announce itself.
But what draws me in isn’t the obvious grandeur. It’s what surrounds it.
The estate sits nestled in what must be hundreds of acres of pristine woodland.
Ancient oaks and maples frame the house, their canopy so thick in places that it creates natural archways.
I can make out walking trails disappearing into the forest on the edge of the woodland, a glimpse of what might be a pond through the trees.
The air here is so different from the air near my parents' home — clean, wild, like earth and moss and growing things, and I love it.
My fingers itch to explore the trails.
“Mrs. Highcourt?” One of the movers appears at my side, clipboard in hand. “Where would you like us to unload?”
Mrs. Highcourt. The name still sounds foreign.
“Harry—Harald said there was a guest house on the property,” I say. “I think it’s around the back.”
He’d said it was a smaller, stone building behind the main house, about fifty yards back. Apparently, he has calls all morning, so he can’t even come down to direct them for me.
I walk around the side of the house, phone in hand, staking it out. A small, gravel driveway leads around the edge, and just beyond the back of the east wing, a smaller stone building stands amongst a garden. I snap a picture and text it to him.
Me:
[Attachment: 1 Image]
This, right?
I stare at the screen, biting my thumbnail as I wait for a response.
Harry:
Correct. One gold star for identifying the only stone building fifty yards behind the house.
I roll my eyes and shove my phone back in my pocket. I motion to the movers, pointing it out, and grab a handful of my bags from the hotel before making my way back toward it.
The cottage is beautiful from the outside.
Two stories of the same weathered stone from the main house, with old-style windows and a slate roof that matches.
Climbing ivy and greenery frame the front door, matching the carefully maintained gardens around it.
A flagstone pathway winds carefully through it back toward the sliding glass doors of the east wing, close enough to be convenient but far enough to maintain that illusion of distance he so desperately insisted on.
Ridiculous.
I direct the movers inside, taking a couple of minutes to explore it myself and figure out which room is where.
The downstairs holds a simple, pristine kitchen, a sitting room, and a washroom, and upstairs has the bedroom, the office, and a full bathroom.
Everything is immaculately clean, smelling faintly of wood polish from the floors, like someone has obviously prepared the space for me.
But as I move through the rooms, I can’t shake the feeling that this space has a history.
The living room furniture sits beneath dust covers.
A reading nook by the window has the faint impression of years of use, a darker spot where someone would’ve sat.
There are lighter patches on the white walls, perfect squares and rectangles where pictures probably hung before.
In what will be my bedroom, the wardrobe doors stick before prying open, like they haven’t been used in years.
This wasn’t just guest quarters. This was used frequently.
Hours later, when the movers have shifted in all of my belongings that Harry had instructed be brought down from my parents’ house, one of the men approaches me.
“That’s the last of it,” he says, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Unless there’s anything in the car.”
“No, that’s all.” I offer him a small grin, just wanting them gone so I can unpack in peace. “I don’t—do I need to pay you?”
He chuckles softly. “No, ma’am. It’s already handled.”
He disappears down the gravel side driveway, leaving me alone in my new temporary home.
Temporary.
The word sits heavy in my chest as I survey the boxes and luggage scattered about the house.
For the next three hours, I spend my time slowly unpacking, trying to make the space feel like my own.
My clothes look strange in the antique wardrobe, too modern for the old wood and brass fittings.
My books fill only a fraction of the built-in shelves.
My laptop and paperwork seem almost ridiculous on the ornate writing desk by the window.
Everything about this feels temporary, provisional, like I’m playing house in someone else’s life. And I am.
By the time I finish, dust motes dance in the slanted evening light pouring through the windows and my muscles ache from lifting boxes.
My sundress clings to my skin, damp at the lower back from sweating in the sun, and I can feel grit under my fingernails from handling my own dusty artifacts that Mom and Dad apparently thought were necessary to send.
A bath. That’s what I need. A hot bath to wash away the day and help me process the absurd, surreal turn my life has taken.
The bathroom matches the rest of the cottage's theme of wild elegance—a claw-foot tub, marble countertops, wooden cabinets, a rainfall shower, and a window that looks out over the gardens. Someone’s stocked it with expensive-looking bath salts and towels so thick they could double as blankets.
I turn the taps, adjusting the temperature until steam begins to rise. The sound is soothing, the one thing I feel like I can control right now in a life that’s somehow spiraled completely beyond my grip.
I wander back to the bedroom as the tub fills, my mind running too quickly.
Tomorrow, Harry will be buried in his work on the Switzerland project again.
I’ll have to sit in that window and plan the next event for my family’s distillery from a beautiful prison.
We’ll be polite estate-mates, careful not to touch, careful not to cross his lines.
But then what? George will come crawling back, and every empty word Harry spoke to me about being able to tell him when I don’t want to do something will be obvious as a lie.
You don’t have to agree to things you don’t want just to keep the peace.
Bullshit. If he meant it at all, he only meant it in the abstract — don’t like this lamp shade? Tell me! I’ll get you a new one.
Absolutely ridiculous.
I catch sight of myself in the wardrobe’s mirror, my cheeks flushed and my hair slipping from its ponytail. I look tired, overwhelmed, like a woman who’s been handed a life she didn’t want and didn’t ask for. Shocking.
I reach around to my back, fumbling until I manage to grab the zipper for the sundress, and pull, letting it slip off my shoulders and pool around my feet. My bra and underwear follow after, leaving me bare in the evening light. Laundry hamper. That’s something to start the list off with.
I take a single step toward the bathroom before the bedroom door bursts open without warning.
“Elena—”
The sound that comes out of me barely sounds human as I spin, my arms flying to cover myself as Harry freezes in the doorway, fully dressed in his neatly pressed slacks and button-up shirt.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. His eyes go wide, his mouth still open from whatever he’d been about to say, and I can see the exact moment his gaze drops unintentionally before he forces it back to my face.
“Get out!” I shriek, grabbing for the first thing I can reach—a throw pillow from a chair by the window—and hurling it at his head. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”
He ducks, the pillow bouncing off the doorframe instead. But he doesn’t leave, just stands there, his jaw working like he’s trying to find words, his knuckles white where they grip the door handle. “I sent you texts,” he says. “Multiple texts. About dinner. You didn’t answer.”
“So you decided to just barge in?” My face heats from both embarrassment and anger, my hand doing fuck all to cover myself. “Have you never heard of knocking?”
His gaze flickers down again, just for a second, before he seems to catch himself. The muscle in his jaw ticks, and I want to fling myself out the goddamn window. “I knocked. You didn’t come down.”
“Because I’m getting ready for a bath, you absolute lunatic,” I snap. My fingers close around the comforter on my bed, and I yank, pulling it enough to at least cover half of me.
“I waited—”
“For what, thirty seconds?” The anger, shockingly, feels good — far better than the confusion and vulnerability that’s been eating me alive for two days. “You could have called out. You could have come over earlier and actually helped instead of leaving me to handle the movers alone.”
His gaze narrows. “I was busy.”
“Well, so was I, but you don’t see me barging into your house when you’re naked to demand things of you.”
He takes a single step into the room, and my breath catches, my jaw steeling against the almost predatory way he moves. “You want to know why I actually came over?”
“I want you to leave.”
He ignores me. “I was going to inform you that dinner’s been ready for an hour now, while I’ve patiently waited for you to reply to me.
I thought maybe we could try to have a civil conversation about how this whole thing is going to work since you’re here.
” His voice drops lower, more controlled, but I can hear the irritation simmering beneath.
“But you’d rather throw things at me than listen. ”
“Civil? You didn’t even knock on my bedroom door. How is that civil? You just barged in like you own it—”
“I do own it.”
The words hang in the air between us like a bomb, crackling, threatening, counting down, down, down. “Excuse me?”
He at least has the brains to look like he regrets saying it, but he doesn’t take it back. “This is my house, Elena. My property. I’m trying to be accommodating, but—”
“But what? I should just be grateful for whatever scraps of privacy you decide to give me?” My hands shake against the comforter, whether from cold or anger, I can’t tell. “Is that how this works? You get to walk into my space whenever you want because you technically own it?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” I take a step forward, forgetting for a moment that I’m naked and only half-covered, that I should be embarrassed. “That I’m just another piece of property you own?”
“Stop.” His voice is sharp enough to cut glass. “You know that’s not it.”
“No,” I snap. “You want to know why I didn’t answer my phone?
Because for three hours, I’ve been trying to make this place feel like somewhere I can live instead of a museum, that I’m not just an annoying presence you’ll have to deal with, that I’m not just someone to take pity on because my parents suck and this whole merger is insane. I’ve been trying to breathe.”
His eyes darken, his gaze fixed wholly on my face with an intensity that sets me on edge. “Elena.”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand, clutching the comforter with the other. “And don’t look at me like that. It’s not fair.”
His gaze flicks down over me again, lingering on the side of my hips that aren’t quite covered, my exposed thighs, my shoulders. “Like what?” he asks, his voice quieter now.
Like you want me.
Like you’re remembering what we did two nights ago.
Like…
The silence stretches between us, charged and dangerous, his chest rising and falling with each careful breath. His hands are clenched at his sides like he’s fighting something.
This is exactly what he wanted not to happen, what he said couldn’t happen. But he’s standing here, staring at me still like that doesn’t go against all of it, and it makes heat pool low in my belly despite my anger.
I lift my chin, meeting his stare. “Like you’re about to break your own stupid rules.”
His nostrils flare. For a moment, I think he might step closer, might reach for me the way he did in the penthouse suite. The air between us crackles like I’m standing too close to a live wire, but then something shutters in his expression.
He takes a step back.
“Dinner’s in the main house,” he says, his jaw tight, his voice carefully controlled again. “Whenever you’re ready.” He turns on his heel and grabs the door handle.
“Harry—”
The door clicks shut behind him.