Chapter 38
Harry
Elena wakes up muttering about feeling like a whale.
I’m halfway through buttoning my shirt, standing at the edge of the bed, when she groans from beneath the covers.
One arm is flung over her eyes to block the sunlight coming through the window, the other over her stomach, tracing the outline of it like it’s betrayed her.
“I swear to god, I grew another inch outwards. I can feel it.”
I don’t see anything different, but I don’t dare tell her that.
I also don’t tell her that I’ve been awake for over an hour just watching her twist and turn and cuddle up to me, so thoroughly, ridiculously gorgeous that I had to remind myself over and over not to touch her more than what wouldn’t wake her.
“You’re not a whale, darling,” I say instead, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from chuckling.
“I am,” she protests. “I’m a whale. A massive blue whale, those ones you see in photos next to a diver and it looks the size of the Empire State Building.”
I grin softly. “You look beautiful.”
She lifts her arm enough to glare at me. “You’re a liar.”
I take the few steps to her side of the bed, rest my knee beside her, and lean over her just enough to make her squirm. “I swear it on her,” I say, flicking my eyes to her stomach.
Her answering little pout tells me she’s trying to believe it.
I press a kiss to her forehead and stand back up to my full height. “Come on, get up.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“Why?”
“We’ve got somewhere to be,” I grin, holding out my hand.
Her brow raises as she takes it. I lift her carefully, enough that she’s sitting up. “Business?”
I shake my head. “Nope,” I say. “No suits, no handshakes. Just you and me.”
“That’s so suspicious,” she grumbles, shifting her legs off the side of the bed, sitting there in all her naked glory as she stares up at me. “Should I be scared?”
I shrug, taking a step back, baiting her to actually stand. “Probably.”
————
The ride to Boyds is quiet — the kind of comfortable silence that feels earned.
Her fingers are laced with mine as she sits in the passenger seat, her other hand resting over her belly.
I don’t tell her where we’re going. I just let her figure it out as I slide into the private parking spot in front of the store, her head turning toward the well-dressed staff member opening up the front door with a grin directed at my car.
“Harry?” she asks, her voice wavering.
I don’t answer. Instead, I push open my door and get out, round the hood, and open her door for her. “Come on.”
“What did you do?”
“You were complaining last week about your dresses not fitting right anymore,” I say casually. “Got you a private styling appointment.”
She blinks at me, still sitting in the passenger seat, slowly undoing her seat belt. “Are you serious?”
I lean on the hood. “Darling,” I say, chuckling softly. “I’m entirely serious. The store’s shut down just for you.”
She turns, kicking her feet out and onto the curb. “You’re kidding. Why would they do that? That’s terrible for business.”
I snort. “I paid them enough that it wouldn’t hurt them.”
“You’re insane,” she mutters, hoisting herself out with one hand in mine and the other gripping the handle above the window.
“Probably.”
She gives me a look like she might cry, or punch me, or both.
Inside, the showroom is warm and glowing with curated lighting, racks of maternity wear waiting in neat lines in her private dressing room.
There’s a spread of refreshments on a table, everything from juice to water to soda to sparkling apple juice imported from god knows where, and at the center of it, a jar of pickles, sans the pickles.
She blinks at it. “Oh my god,” she says, a laugh creeping up on her until she’s fully cackling. “You didn’t.”
“Ross might’ve mentioned it when you were packing your bag.”
She turns to look at me, her eyes shining, grinning like crazy. “You don’t think it’s weird?”
“I didn’t say that,” I say, giving her a look. “But I’m not going to judge you.”
I don’t say a goddamn word as she gets to work making some kind of hideous concoction of pickle juice and lemonade.
Instead, I look through the rail of clothes, taking stock of what they’d brought up for her.
I’d given them a vague description of the things she likes to wear, and they’d pretty much nailed it, especially for the season.
“I hate how good this is,” she mutters, sucking her poison through a straw.
Stylists flutter around her when she finally abandons the drink and starts looking through the clothes.
I sit down in the armchair, letting them take their measurements as she stares at me in slight discomfort.
I mouth a, You okay? to her, and she nods, then flinches as a measuring tape wraps around her breasts.
They guide her into a smaller room off the main room, one that’s separated by a cloth curtain. A few moments later, I hear her grunting, and one of the members of staff leans their head in, offering help. She leans back, making eye contact with me.
“Mr. Highcourt,” the woman, whose name badge reads Emily, chirps. “She’d like your assistance, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” I say. I push up from my chair, brushing my slacks flat.
When I slip behind the curtain, Elena’s face is bright red, her breasts half out, a dress half on. “Please help me before I tear this thing.”
I stifle my laugh as best I can, stepping up behind her. “Are you… trying to get it on? Or off?”
“I was trying to get it on,” she groans. “But it’s too complicated and I want it off.”
“Okay, okay,” I chuckle, finding the hem in the sea of fabric. I nudge her arms up with my hands, but it seems to somehow get caught around her shoulders — until I find a random set of buttons going around the front of her bicep. “Who on earth thought buttons here were a good idea?”
“I don’t know, but I hate them,” she mumbles. “Put them in prison.”
I nod sagely as I loosen the buttons and free her from the silk. “Definitely a felony.”
I grab something a little simpler from the rack. It’s just a sweater dress, one that should hang loose and comfortably, and come back to her.
“Arms up, El,” I murmur.
Her brows knit, but she lifts them anyway, letting me pull it over her head. “You’ve never called me that.”
“Do you not want me to?”
“No, it’s… It’s nice,” she says. “I’m just not used to it.”
I move out of her line of sight, shifting around to her back, so she can look at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks are still flushed, and she turns once or twice in the mirror, her brows furrowing.
“What is it?” I ask. “Don’t like the dress?”
She huffs, a tuft of hair jumping in front of her face. “It’s not that I don’t like the dress. I just…” Her lips form a hard line. “I don’t know. I just feel huge. Constantly. More than I normally do. It’s hard to like anything.”
I wrap my arms around her from behind, my hands gliding over the soft brown knit covering her stomach. “Elena,” I murmur, resting my chin on her shoulder and staring at her in the mirror. “I know you feel massive. I do. But I promise you, you look beautiful.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t know how you see me like that.”
My thumb strokes absently over the knit. “I know.” I press a kiss to her neck. “But I thought you were beautiful the moment I met you. And now — now you’re glowing and stubborn and carrying my child, and I can’t look at you without feeling like the luckiest bastard alive. It wrecks me.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“I’m not, darling.” I move my hand up, caressing her cheek gently. “I’m not.”
She sighs. “Okay. Fine. We’ll get this one.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head as I begrudgingly dislodge myself from her. “We’ll find you things that actually make you feel good, not things that make you feel bad enough that you need compliments to feel somewhat okay.”
“Okay,” she rasps.
We move together, pulling the knit off of her and moving on to the next item, and the next, her choices getting a little bolder, her face lighting up a little more. But there’s still something there, something that isn’t quite right, even as she happily puts something in the yes pile.
“You okay?” I ask carefully, pulling the next item off the hanger.
“Honestly?” She glances at me as she takes it, pulling the sweater over her head. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
She rolls her eyes. “I just feel like we need to do something about George.”
I freeze for a moment, watching as she turns in the mirror before nodding to herself about the sweater, then peels it off. I take it and put it in the yes pile. “What about him?”
“I don’t know. I just hate how you’re barely speaking, and I don’t know how to be in the middle of all of that when she comes.”
“You’re not in the middle,” I say, pulling a loose blouse off the rack. “You’re not responsible for what he’s done, and you’re definitely not responsible for what’s happened between us. That’s my problem to sort out, not yours.”
Her lips go flat as she holds the blouse in her hands, not moving.
“But you’re going to have a daughter,” she murmurs, staring down at the fabric, her thumbs stroking the fabric.
“And at some point, she’ll want to know her brother.
I don’t want this… rift between you two to make her feel like she’s already a part of a fractured family. ”
I gently take the blouse back, undoing the buttons one by one.
“I don’t know what to do with George yet,” I admit, holding the open fabric out for her to slip her arms into.
“But that doesn’t make it your burden to carry, and certainly not hers.
I’ll figure something out at some point, make peace with him.
Or not, if he won’t let me. But if he won’t, I’ll make sure it doesn’t feel like that for her. I promise.”
She’s quiet for a while as I do up her buttons, then let her look in the mirror again.
I don’t push her. But when she turns back to me, fiddling with the buttons on the cuffs, her cheeks are still that faint shade of rosy pink they were when I came in.
“I love you,” she says, her voice soft as the silk hanging around her body.
My hand slips around the back of her neck, and I pull her toward me, pressing my lips to her forehead. “Love you too, darling,” I murmur. “More than I ever thought I was capable of.”