Page 169 of Rags to Royals

“Oh,” Mariah says, sitting up straight in the chair. “I forgot to tell you. Linnea and Henry have talked to Mrs. Brown.”

“Your principal, Mrs. Brown?”

“Yeah. They’ve arranged it so that I can do remote learning for the rest of the semester. They’ve assured her that I will be able to take all of the exams from my classes and pass them. They will make sure that I am doing all of my work and learning all of the material while we’re gone and said I’d even do an extra report on indoor farming that includes an interview with Abigail and a history paper interviewing King Diarmuid.”

I frown. “While we’re gone the rest of thesemester?”

She nods. “They want us to stay here for a while.”

“I guess I figured we would for a few days, but…”

There’s a knock on my door.

“Come in,” Mariah calls.

Linnea peeks in. “Do you have a minute?” she asks.

The robe I’m wearing is huge so I am completely covered. I also have no desire to get out of it any sooner than I need to, so I wave her in. “Sure.”

Linnea comes in, followed by Jonah, Torin, and Abigail.

I sit up straighter. Okay. Well, I would have gotten dressed if I’d known I’d have this many guests, including theprinceandprincess.

Ruby gives me a grin.

I am really not used to having this many people around all the time and she knows it.

They all drop onto various sitting surfaces. I’m not sure how to host a meeting like this in my boyfriend’s bedroom.

“Anyone want coffee?” I asked.

“We’re fine,” Linnea says, clearly comfortable answering for the whole group.

“Where’s Cian?” Jonah asks, looking around.

“I’m here.” Cian strides through the door.

My heart gives a funny little staccato beat when I see him, even though he just left me about an hour ago.

He makes a beeline for me. “Jesus, I didn’t think you were going to accost her.” He scoops me up, turns, and sits, settling me on his lap, and clasping my robe shut across my breasts, even though there’s so much material there’s no way anyone can see anything.

He uses that grip on my robe to pull me up so he can kiss me quickly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I say with a little laugh.

“Here you all are,” Henry says, also coming into the room.

Is this what it feels like to have a bunch of siblings, I wonder. Because this familiarity, and the way they all seem to always want to be together, feels a lot like how Ruby and I are. No one seems to blink at the fact that I am still in a robe, or that they’re all gathered, essentially in Cian’s bedroom.

I notice that Henry immediately looks at Ruby when he comes into the room and that my sister stoically keeps from looking at him.

Henry takes a seat at the table right next to Ruby. Ruby scoots her chair a few inches away from him.

Yeah, that constant annoyance seems very sibling-ish.

Except that those two arenotlike siblings in any other way.

Fortunately, there are so many people in the room and they’re all talking to one another, so no one else really notices the two of them.

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