Page 173 of Rags to Royals

Chapter 38

Cian

"Oh my God, we’re two hours late for dinner!"

Scarlett comes out of the bedroom, redressed in the clothes I stripped off of her two and a half hours ago when we came upstairs to get dressed for dinner. The dinner that started two hours ago and has easily been over for an hour.

Her hair is still wet from the shower we had to take after I got her nice and messy.

"Well, now you know what happens when you refer to yourself as my wife," I tell her unapologetically from the couch in the sitting room, where she ordered me when I wouldn’t keep my hands off her as she was trying to do her make-up and get dressedagain.

She laughs. "I wasn’t even saying thattoyou."

I shrug. "Doesn’t matter. You being my wife makes me feral."

She smirks as her hand drops away from brushing through her wet, dark hair. "I noticed the same thing happened when I referred to myself as Princess Scarlett."

Yes, the same thing definitely happens when I’m reminded she’s my princess. I growl and get up from the couch. "If you want dinner at all tonight, you’ll control your wicked side. At least until we get back up here."

The grin she gives me in return is also completely without apology.

"We have to go to dinner tonight. Everyone let us get out of everything all day yesterday and most of this morning. People are going to wonder if we’re still alive up here."

I walk over to her, take the brush from her hand, and turn her to face away from me. I start pulling the brush through the long strands. "The empty dishes we keep setting outside of the room are proof of life."

She laughs and the sound hits me hard, filling my chest with emotion. It’s not just lust, but the overwhelming love that I feel for this woman that has intensified now that everything is open and official, and she is freely sharing all of her emotions with me. I had no idea I could feel this way about someone.

"I guess you have a point. Still, I have an impressionable teenage daughter. I need to resurface at some point. Even if we are newlyweds."

I chuckle as I divide her hair into three strands. "If you think your fifteen-year-old doesn’t understand what we’re doing up here…"

"Do not finish that sentence," she tells me.

I don’t. And I understand why that makes her uncomfortable. Mariah is now officially my stepdaughter. She is far too young to know anything about sex. Way too young to date. I don’t want her even remotely interested in boys. Or girls, romantically. And I feel a very strong surge of protectiveness go through me at the idea of some stupid teenager showing up at our doorstep, wanting to take her out. There is no chance there is anyone good enough for her out there.

Hope she’s okay with being a spinster.

Then again, she’s going to be so busy changing the world, that she might not be interested in silly things like romance.

But then I take in the woman before me and think about how much better a person I am with her than I ever was without her. She’s mypartner,not just my lover or even my friend, and I realize I do wantthisfor Mariah. I want her to find someone that builds her up and worships her and wants her happiness even more than they want their own.

Scarlett reaches back to feel what I’m doing with her hair.

"Hey, don’t mess with it," I tell her.

"Are you French braiding my hair?" she asks, surprise in her tone.

"It’s still wet. This is probably easier and will take less time than if we wait for you to dry it," I say, finishing the braid and reaching for her wrist. I know she has an elastic band there. I pull it from her wrist and wrap it around the end of her hair.

She turns to face me. "You know how to French braid hair?"

"That’s nothing. I can do a lot better than that. I have been doing princess hair since Saoirse’s got long enough to put in a barrette. Don’t insult me."

Scarlett’s lips curve into a bright smile that I swear I will never get tired of seeing.

"I guess I didn’t think of that. You helped with her hair?"

"Fiona’s too," I tell her, mock insulted.

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