Rejected Heiress, Reigning Queen novel Chapter 104

"He's full of crap."

Emma was sitting in the passenger seat of Carter's car, talking on the phone.

Hearing her suddenly curse, Carter didn't mind it at all; in fact, he found it incredibly endearing.

His wife had personality.

"Charles actually thinks I didn't see through his little setup dinner. He really thinks I'm an idiot."

On the other end of the line, Julian rubbed his temples. "Just ignore them. The professor sent over a new set of experimental data. You couldn't slack off now even if you wanted to."

Emma sighed, gave a quick acknowledgment, and hung up.

She didn't explain the call, and Carter tacitly didn't pry.

However, when Carter woke up in the middle of the night and saw the light still on in Emma's room, he frowned in concern and knocked on her door.

After a few unanswered knocks, he gently pushed the door open.

He saw her sitting in bed, her laptop glowing on her lap, but her head was tilted against the headboard. She had fallen asleep sitting up.

Carter's heart ached. He walked over quietly, lifting the laptop to set it aside. Noticing it was full of English documents, he didn't close it, just plugged it into the charger and placed it on the nightstand.

Emma, who was only lightly asleep, felt someone touching her and instantly lashed out in self-defense.

She drove her elbow hard into Carter's chest.

"Ugh..."

Carter dropped to one knee by the bed, looking to be in considerable pain.

Emma was startled wide awake. She hadn't hit him that hard—had she struck a nerve near his heart?

"Carter, are you okay? I—I'll call 911, just hold on."

Emma scrambled frantically for her phone, only to hear a low chuckle from the man beside her.

"I'm fine. Just messing with you."

Carter had just had a sudden whim, wanting to see if she would worry about him.

Even though the strike had caught him off guard, years of intense workouts meant he was far from being injured by a hit that felt more like a swat from a kitten.

Emma froze mid-search, turned around, and kicked him hard, grinding her teeth.

"Is scaring me fun?"

Was it really just out of a sense of responsibility?

Meanwhile, Carter, who had just been acting so cool, let out a massive breath the second the door clicked shut.

Terrified Emma might hear him, he breathed as quietly as humanly possible.

He rubbed his burning face as he hurried back to his room.

That was too close.

Thank god his hand had been quick enough on the light switch, or she would have seen right through him.

A grown man blushing after saying a few sentences? If Emma saw that, she would definitely think he wasn't man enough.

For the rest of the night, Emma slept soundly, but Carter was so wired he didn't sleep a wink.

The next morning, sporting dark circles under his eyes, he left the house early to avoid Emma noticing.

As luck would have it, Helena had just arrived and saw the whole thing. She quickly pulled Scarlett behind a hedge to hide.

"You see that? What did I tell you? If your brother actually liked this Emma girl, would he be rushing out of the house at the crack of dawn? He's definitely suffering in secret!"