Page 10 of Rags to Royals

Right. My grandfather said the engagement would be announced in three months. We’ve got a little time. But not fucking much.

I’ve been looking for Scarlett for nineteen months. Now I know where she is. Or Henry does at least. Three months isplentyof time to let her know exactly how I feel and what I want.

“Thanks, Astrid.”

She nods. “You’re saving me from marrying Miles. I owe you, too.”

“Brat,” Miles mutters.

She shoots him a smile, then looks back to me. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to…” I look at Henry.

“Emerald, Ohio,” Henry tells us.

I narrow my eyes. Emerald? Immediately I thinkEmerald City. Scarlett’s mom, Judy, is obsessed with the Wizard of Oz. If I’d known there was a city named Emerald, I probably would have thought of looking there.

So we’re going to Ohio. Okay, then. Makes sense why it was hard to find her. Ohio is a long way from the luxury hotel in New Orleans where I last saw her. Or the Pink Ladies strip club on Bourbon Street, where I first saw her.

But it’s not too far away to keep me from going to her.

Nowhere is too far away.

Chapter 3

Scarlett

“Oh my God! Mom! Did you hear the podcast?” Mariah comes sliding into the kitchen on stocking feet.

I place her breakfast burrito on the center island. Ireallywant to say no. I really want to say, ‘I barely think about that podcast until you or Ruby brings it up’ and mean it.

But of course, I heard it. Because I’ve subscribed to the stupid thing, and I get notifications and that one pinged first thing this morning. And I’m clearly a masochist because I listen to every single episode. Usually twice.

I’m pathetic.

It’s one thing to be hung up on a hot one-night stand—okay, it was three nights, and it was beyond hot, so I give myself a little grace there—but it’s an entirely different thing to stalk the guy afterward. Especially after telling his best friend, in no uncertain terms, that I forbade him to even tell the guy where I am now living.

I cannotsee Cian O’Grady again.

I’d known that even before I left him sleeping, all gorgeous and rumpled and sexy in that hotel bed—the nicest hotel and best bed I’ve ever slept in.Ever.

I can’t see him again because he’s wrong for me. I’m wrong for him. We’re wrong for each other. He’s exactly the opposite of the type of guy I should ever get involved with. I’m not interested in any guy really, but especially not a guy like Cian.

And he doesn’t want me.

I guess he thinks he does. According to Henry anyway.

Okay, and according to Cian and his, ‘I know it’s crazy but I’m falling in love with you, Scarlett,’ that last night we were together.

I can’t get that out of my head. I can still hear it as if he just said it last night.

But it was over a year ago.Wellover a year ago. A year and a half now. Still, that deep, gravelly voice is crystal clear in my mind. And at night, when it’s quiet and dark, I can close my eyes and conjure how his hands felt stroking my back, how his hard, hot chest felt against my cheek, and how those words wrapped around me.

Right before cold reality splashed over me as I remembered that he didn’t know me. That he was falling in love with another woman all together.

Which was fine then and it’s fine now. It was one weekend andonlyone weekend.

I believed that when I thought he was just a cute, young, sexy, rich guy who made me lose my mind for a weekend.

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