Without questioning myself too much, I typed “wedding dresses” into the search bar, almost sighing as I hit enter and the most gorgeous creations started filling my screen.What am I even doing?
That one stubborn voice shouted from the back of my mind. Harrison probably hadn’t even meant it when he’d told my parents about a Christmas Eve wedding in New York. He’d been bluffing, throwing Regina off our scent, buying us time to get out of her insane plans for the Hamptons with five hundred people neither of us had ever met.
When we got married, it would probably be in some stuffy courthouse with a judge who couldn’t care less, just signing the papers like a business contract. Still, while I knew all that, my heart skipped as my gaze swept across the ivory gowns loading on my screen.
I was so wrapped up in the daydream about actually getting to wear one of these that I didn’t hear the knock until it was practically a bang. I frowned, but before I could even rise from the couch, my front door swung open and Harrison stormed in.
All broad, stiff shoulders, a jaw set like granite, and stormy eyes. The air around him was practically crackling with thunder, and yet, for some utterly absurd reason, my first thought wasn’t about what was wrong. It was,Thank God, you’re finally here.
“Harrison?” I rose from the couch, setting my laptop down and instantly forgetting about it.
He looked like he was about to explode, his spine rigid and his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. I crossed the room quickly, my pulse racing, and I wrapped my arms around him without thinking.
Pressing my chest close to his, I caught his face in my hands and just looked up at him, working hard to keep my own breathing under control. “Harrison, look at me. Just breathe, okay? Breathe with me. Come on. Inhale and exhale.”
He was like a block of concrete against me, his chest rising and falling in harsh, sharp bursts. I tilted my head further back and caught his stormy gaze, holding it directly and intently. “Hey, what’s going on? Just breathe with me, baby. Come on. Whatever it is, we’ll work it out together.”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “Your mother called me.”
I tensed. “And? What did she say?”
“She wanted me to know we don’t have her blessing.” His jaw flexed. “Apparently, she doesn’t approve of me, or of us.”
For a second, I just stared at him but then I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It was a sharp, incredulous sound that startled me, but it bubbled up anyway. When I could finally manage to talk, I was still laughing, borderline hysterical. He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing as he watched me, a faint grin appearing on his lips in turn.
“It doesn’t matter, Harrison,” I forced out between giggles. “Hey, look at me. It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?” He’d glanced toward the windows, but he slowly brought his gaze back to mine, not pushing me off, but running his hands along my forearms that were still resting against his chest. “What if I told you that my mother doesn’t approve either? She doesn’t want this wedding to happen any more than your mother does.”
Okay, so that hurts, too.
It was just another sting, though. It wasn’t like I’d thought CC was crazy about me. In fact, I’d known all along she wouldn’t want this to happen, so I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head.
“That doesn’t matter either,” I said. “This isn’t about my mother or yours. It’s business and it’s between you and me.We’regetting married. Nobody else gets a say in that.”
Instead of relaxing, his scowl deepened. His hands lowered to grip my waist, holding me there as though he needed the anchor as he ground out his next words. “It matters tome.”
That stopped me cold. His voice and his expression were so troubled that it suddenly didn’t look like this was just about him being annoyed by our mothers. It seemed to be about something else entirely. Something deeper.
Harrison actually seemed really upset about this. I blinked up at him with my heart thudding against my ribs. For the first time, it really occurred to me that this yearning, the ache I’d been trying to stuff down, pretending it didn’t exist, might not be one-sided at all.
His eyes burned into mine, the expression in them too intense, and I could feel the storm churning inside him as clearly as if it were brewing deep within my own chest. I swiped my tongue across my lips. “It matters that much to you?”
“Something is very wrong between our mothers,” he said, his voice all gruff and hard-edged. “We have to get to the bottom of it before we move forward. We’re running out of time to book a venue in New York, and if we don’t?—”
I pressed a hand flat against his chest, cutting him off and feeling his heart pounding beneath my palm. “We don’t need to go to New York and make a big deal out of this. It’s just a wedding. We can do it here. We can elope, we can?—”
“I’d like to see my wife,” he interrupted, his voice ragged and a little breathless, “in a white dress.”
My own breath caught, then.
Wife.
He’d said wife, not business partner. Not co-conspirator. Wife, and the way he’d said it, with his voice all husky like that, made it sound like it wasn’t just business anymore at all.
It’d sounded like it mattered more to him than I’d ever imagined. LikeImattered.
The word settled between us like a live wire, sparking. My body moved before my brain caught up, taking a small step back. I needed air. Just a minute to process.
