Page 175 of Rags to Royals

"We were just coming down for dinner," Scarlett tells them.

The girls look at each other and then look at us. "Dinner was over an hour ago."

Yeah, I’d called it. We’re probably going to need to get food brought up again.

The girls plop onto the sofa right next to one another.

"So what happened?" Scarlett asks, dropping onto the cushion next to Mariah.

"You know how Leah texted me yesterday?" Mariah asks.

Predictably, the podcast had covered the fact that Scarlett and I got married. And all the other royal family news. Including that I was now a stepfather to a fifteen-year-old girl named Mariah.

Not long after, Leah McDonald, of all people, had texted Mariah a wide-eyed emoji, a crown emoji, an hallelujah hands emoji, and a heart-eyes emoji.

Mariah had been shocked. She had also taken it as a pseudo apology.

"Of course," Scarlett says. It had been huge news in our family, obviously.

"Well, Greta sent me this from a little bit ago."

I round the back of the couch and lean over so I can also watch the video Mariah is showing Scarlett on her phone.

It only takes me two seconds to recognize the lunchroom at Emerald High School.

The video is of Leah walking into the room…and being booed.

She stops, looks around as if confused, and then a girl in their class named Skyler stands up and calls out, "Mariah was telling the truth this whole time!You’rethe liar!"

Leah looks shocked, then embarrassed. She gets very red in the face, but then straightens her spine, and says, “I know! I was wrong, okay?”

But there’s more boo-ing and eventually Leah flounces out of the lunchroom followed by her two best friends.

Greta is obviously the one recording the event because she turns the phone around to show her face and mouths,holy shit. Then laughs, blows a kiss to the camera, and says, “I miss you, Princess Mariah!”

Mariah stops the video and looks up at her mother, then up at me. "Can you believethat?"

Scarlett’s eyes are wide, but she smiles. "You deserve that."

Mariah sighs. "I know. But after Leah texted me yesterday, now I kind of feel bad for her."

I put my hand on top of her head. "Imagine how great it will be when you get back to school and you can show everyone that you’ve forgiven her and you can both just move on from this."

“Yeah. I guess I can make this better for her,” Mariah says thoughtfully.

“Exactly. You have the power to make this hard on Leah or show everyone what grace and forgiveness looks like,” Scarlett says. “I don’t think anyone would blame you if you wanted to make her face what she did, but I know you’ll do the right thing.”

Mariah is still clearly mulling that over. “Oh, well, just so you know, something similar happened to Hannah,” Mariah says.

Scarlett sits up a little straighter. “What?”

“Yep. She went to the café with her friends, and someone there said something about how now everyone knows that you really did date a prince and were telling the truth and she should be ashamed of how she talked about you.”

Scarlett looks at me. “Oh. That’s…”

“Great,” I say. “You both deserve to have the town know the truth.”

Scarlett nods her head. “Yeah. I guess. I just wish…”

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