Chapter 16
Harry
There’s nothing like a private members’ club for a post-board-meeting drink to remind you how little people change.
It’s all glossed oak, cigar smoke, and overpriced whiskey, men in expensive suits still trying to out-alpha each other like we’re in the middle of a business school pissing contest and not a three-hundred-year-old Georgian townhouse in the heart of Tribeca.
I’ve barely taken a sip of my scotch when I hear it.
“Jesus, Harry. Heard what’s going on from Paul, but I didn’t think you’d go that far.”
I turn. David Rothschild comes up behind me — a hedge fund parasite who I’ve had the displeasure of working with a handful of times, including on the Switzerland project.
He has eyes like a weasel and a Rolex heavy enough to sink him if he ever fell — or was pushed — into the Hudson. “Good afternoon to you, too, David.”
He chuckles, but there’s no warmth in it. “So it’s true, then? You knocked up your daughter-in-law?”
The room stills, a breath held, before I set my cup down carefully. I’m going to kill Paul. “She’s my wife,” I correct, keeping my voice even. “And George made sure she was never truly his anything.”
Another man in a leather chair raises his brows behind his newspaper, his ice going still in the glass he’d been swirling a minute ago.
Michael Barnes. One of my longer-standing connections, though we never speak much.
He’s quieter, but just as curious, and I know damn well the secret is already dead.
“Still,” David says, resting his hand on my shoulder like he has any right to, “it’s quite the scandal. She’s what, twenty-nine? Thirty? And your kid’s fiancée just a few months ago?”
“George left her at the altar,” I say. “I did what I had to do to preserve a critical partnership. We married. The rest is none of your fucking business.”
David whistles, low and sardonic. “Must be some partnership.”
“She’s carrying my child,” I add, because if they want to gossip, they might as well know for sure that it’s mine instead of theorizing.
His jaw ticks, his brows raising. He hadn’t quite believed it before, I suppose — it was still just a rumor. But now it’s real. “Hope you’re ready to be a father again,” he says, his voice lilting with dry sarcasm.
I lift my drink to my lips. “I am.”
He doesn’t answer. Just smirks and slinks off, leaving the scent of his cologne and the heavy weight of cowardice behind him. Michael Barnes, on the other hand, stays quiet — and I almost thank him for it.
————
“This car is insane. You know that, right?”
Elena’s words tumble out as she climbs out of my Bentley in her light brown coat and jeans, shutting the door behind her and hopping up onto the sidewalk.
The valet worker outside my hotel holds out his hand, and she glances at me for approval, waiting for my nod before dropping the keys in his hand.
“I googled the cost at a red light. You cannot seriously have paid that much—”
I don’t wait another second.
I close the distance in four steps, reaching out my arm to wrap my hand around the back of her neck, and pull her into my chest before she can protest.
She stiffens, just slightly, before her hands come up and grip the lapels of the light jacket, sinking into me far too easily.
“You stink of cigars,” she grumbles, her voice muffled with her head against my collarbone.
“Yeah, well, almost everyone in the members’ club was smoking,” I say. “I didn’t. Didn’t want it bothering your nose.”
“You’re lucky it smells nice and isn’t making me want to vomit.”
I squeeze the back of her neck, tipping her head back a bit to look up at me.
God, she looks gorgeous — if I didn’t know better, I’d think she belonged to this city.
Her effortlessness that somehow turns into polished beauty, her soft curves that, even beneath the coat, would make people glance twice.
But the way she’s looking up at me, as if my touching her is enough to make her weak, sends my pulse skittering.
I turn her head slightly, lean down, and press a kiss just beneath where her ear meets her neck, so soft it’s almost nothing. Her hands clench around my jacket, her cheeks flushing deep red. I pretend not to notice.
“Come on,” I say, my lips tipping up at the corner. “Baby shopping awaits.”
I lead her down 5th Avenue, Central Park disappearing behind us to our right as we cross into Midtown proper. The store in question is one she’s been talking about all week — if sending me links to every single thing she wants to buy from there counts as “talking about.”
Inside, the store is all white marble and soft lighting. It’s the kind of place that sells strollers for thousands of dollars and cashmere onesies the kid will outgrow in a matter of weeks, not months, and the sales associate zeroes in on us immediately.
“Can I help you two?” she asks, grinning wide. Her high ponytail swishes behind her head as she comes to a stop beside us.
“We’re just browsing for now,” I answer, my hand sliding along Elena’s waist until it’s wrapped around her. She tenses again. “We’ll let you know if there’s anything we’re after.”
“Of course,” the girl chirps. “My name’s Rebecca. Just shout if you need something.”
Elena gives her a nod, but her smile is thin.
I lead her down an aisle filled with bassinets that look more like they belong in a museum than a baby store. She pauses beside one with walnut legs and cream linen lining, the edges carved into intricate mermaids and fish.
“Online, these all seemed so…” Elena starts, her brows furrowing. “Shit, what’s the word?”
“Luxurious? Lavish? Opulent?” I offer.
Her nose crinkles. “Yeah. Those. And now it just seems gaudy.”
I snort, tucking her into my side. “They do look gaudy,” I say, dragging my hand along the plush cream. “Would look better ten times bigger, with you in it.”
She laughs, shoving at my chest to break free from me. “Behave.”
I don’t.
My hand finds her again, curling a little more insistently around her hip and dragging her back to me, grinning down at her. “What, you don’t like it when I touch you in public?”
Her eyes roll. “Don’t act like you’ve been touching me this much at home. You’re oddly affectionate today.”
“Tell me to stop then.”
She shoots me a glare but doesn’t say the words.
As we move from aisle to aisle, I stay close, closer than I usually would, with my hand on her arm, her back, the curve of her hip.
I watch how people look at us, not all with disapproval — some just curious.
She’s young, glowing, pregnant — though that one’s less obvious, even in a baby store. But I’m not blind. I know how it looks.
I just don’t care today.
This baby is real. She’s real. She’s mine, at least for now. They both are.
“George used to scream bloody murder every time I tried to change him,” I say absently, lifting a designer diaper bag that doesn’t have a price tag but definitely costs more than a used car. “Once peed directly in my face. First week home. Nearly swore off fatherhood right then and there.”
Elena chuckles, her cheeks still rosy pink. “So this is your redemption arc.”
I grin at her. “Something like that.”
Her smile falters, just a little, and I pause. I can see something there, something that isn’t quite right, but I can’t place it.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods quickly. Too quickly. “Just tired. And this place is ridiculous.” She holds up a tiny toy sports car, the price tag dangling from it reading at least four figures, and pulls a face. “Jesus. Let’s just buy stuff from Target like normal people.”
A bark of laughter threatens to spill out of my mouth, but I hold it back, little snorts coming out of my nose instead as I cover my mouth with the side of my hand. “Target?”
“Or Walmart, I’m not picky.”
“Christ.”
————
We don’t stay at the penthouse. At least, not tonight — not when something’s not quite right with her, not when she’s tired. I don’t want to push things.
So on the drive back upstate, I let the silence stretch for a while, the soft hum of music playing through the speakers the only sound between us. She watches the stars out the window, her body angled away from me just enough for me to notice.
I let myself talk when I pull into the neighborhood. “You’ve been quiet.”
“Just tired.”
“You kept going rigid when I touched you earlier.”
That gets her. She turns, and I glance, watching the way her lips part as her brain works. “I wasn’t,” she lies, her cheeks heating. I shoot her a knowing look, and she folds. “Okay, fine, I was. I was just… I don’t know, Harry, overwhelmed.”
My brows knit. “By what? The baby? Shopping? The city?”
“You.”
I let my foot linger on the brake at the stop sign, turning to look at her. “Me?”
She sighs, her head tipping back onto the headrest, her shoulders shaking with… silent laughter? “You, being affectionate.”
I blink. “I am your husband.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but it’s still weird. You’re not normally… you know.” Her cheeks flush deeper in the dim car light. “I feel weird. My body is doing weird things. My emotions are all over the place, and everything you do makes me feel like I’m either going to cry or fucking pounce on you.”
I snort. “Pounce?”
She turns her head away from me. “Don’t make me repeat it.”
“You’re horny?”
Her groan is muffled by her hands as she pitches forward, burying her face in them. “Jesus.”
Now I’m the one laughing, fully, boldly, for the first time in far too long. The idea of her pushing me away, blushing, grumbling at me in the city, all because the hormones are making her horny, is just too much to bear.
It cracks something open in my chest, something warm and bright.
I reach over and brush her knee with the back of my knuckles, letting off the brake and turning into the drive before hitting the button to open the gate. “If that’s what it is, Elena, I can absolutely help you with that.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Oh, I’m very serious.”
She hides her smile behind her hands, but I still see it. Something about it loosens a knot in my chest I didn’t even realize was there.
I’m still chuckling when the trees part, my headlights illuminating the circular drive outside the estate, but the smile dies on my lips the moment I see it.
There, parked in front of the front door, is a sleek, midnight-blue sports car I know all too well.
Jaguar F-Type ZP. Limited edition.
George’s.
He’s standing at the top of the front steps, one hand in the pocket of his linen trousers, the other holding his phone. His posture screams impatience and entitlement, staring me down like he owns the place, like we’re the ones who should explain ourselves.
Elena stiffens in the passenger seat.
My jaw clenches as I pull the car slowly up the gravel, the tires crunching on it like bones beneath the Bentley.
“Well,” I grumble. “Look who finally decided to come home.”