Rejected Heiress, Reigning Queen novel Chapter 145

Carter's mind went entirely blank the second that word left her lips.

He couldn't even process the rest of her sentence.

That single 'husband' brought an unstoppable smile to his lips. He eagerly gave in.

"Yeah."

Emma leaned back, pulling her hands away from his.

"Dress me."

Huh?

It took Carter a full second to blink past the haze. He stared at Emma, completely dazed.

Catching the wicked, victorious gleam in her eye, it finally dawned on him—he had just been played by a honey trap.

"You—"

Carter stopped himself, letting out a long, defeated sigh.

Emma knew exactly how to wrap him around her little finger.

"Don't do that again."

Emma flashed a smug little grin. She wasn't entirely sure if 'that' meant she shouldn't ignore the nurse's instructions, or if she shouldn't call him her husband, but who cared?

Mission accomplished.

Even she was surprised at how easily Carter crumbled. One word was all it took.

Carter gingerly draped her button-down over her shoulders. Before she could even attempt to slide off the mattress, he scooped her up into his arms.

"The wheelchair is in the hallway. Julian explicitly ordered that your feet don't touch the floor."

To avoid aggravating her shoulder, Carter didn't cradle her against his chest; instead, Emma essentially sat sideways across his heavily muscled forearms.

Feeling slightly off-balance, she nervously hooked an arm around his neck. "You—"

Tristan pressed his lips into a thin line. He had been worried about Emma on the drive over, but seeing her sitting there, she looked completely fine, didn't she?

But Mavis's friends were locked up, and...

"Gillian already promised Mavis she would get her friends bailed out. If Gillian can't pull it off, she'll... she'll..."

Emma simply offered a sweet, menacing smile. She waited until Tristan felt too humiliated to finish his sentence before cutting in.

"She'll look like a fool, right?"

Emma stared at him with mocking amusement. Tristan knew he was out of line, but he remembered Gillian bragging in front of all their friends that she could handle it. He had no choice but to bite the bullet and beg Emma.

"Speaking of which, I should actually thank you. If you hadn't dumped me on the mountain the other day and forced me to hike for hours, I never would have memorized those trails. Seriously, thanks for not letting me die out there."

Emma's sarcastic gratitude made Tristan want to crawl into a hole and die. Beside him, Sebastian looked like he was about to grind his teeth to dust.

"Tristan, what the hell is wrong with you?"