Disclaimer: I own nothing regarding GWTW

Author's Notes: Thank you for all the many reviews and feedback. Judging by all the reviews I got most people are happy with the twist the story took.

Chapter Twelve

The next week was fun and delightful for both people. Rhett was happy with how excited Scarlett got when they were getting ready for bed. He knew that she was now looking forward to their intimate time together.

One night over supper, Rhett said, "Just so you know, you can touch me with your hand. In fact, you can touch any part of my body you want to touch."

"Rhett not here."

"Why not here. Nobody can hear us."

"I could never do that."

"Just letting you know. Also, I would not be horrified or appalled if you initiated something between us."

"I could never do that."

"One final thing, you could give me oral pleasure also."

Scarlett's curiosity was greater than her embarrassment and she said, "How?"

"By taking my penis into your mouth."

"Rhett!" Scarlett's eyes got as big as half dollars then she quickly looked around to see if anyone was near them. When no one was, she primly said, "I could never do that. I am not a whore."

"Of course, you are not a whore. You are my wife and my best friend, Sweetheart. We are just playing together. You do have fun while we are playing, don't you?" Scarlett reluctantly nodded her head. Rhett continued, "I am just letting you know other ways to play. It makes me happy to give you pleasure. I was just letting you know how you could give me pleasure if you wanted to."

"I could never do that."

"Alright. I will not force you to do anything in our marital bed."

"Really?"

"Really."

"What about if I don't want to …" Scarlett rolled her hand to indicate what she was talking about.

Rhett smiled and said, "I will be disappointed, of course, but if you don't want to, we won't."

Scarlett stared at Rhett and finally said, "Thank you, Rhett."

"You're welcome. Do you want dessert?"

Scarlett had smiled and said, "Of course."

A week later as Rhett and Scarlett were lying in their bed after having just made love, Scarlett sighed in the night.

Rhett said, "My dear, now that I'm your husband you will not think of another man while I am around especially not in our bed. In case you think I won't know that you are thinking of another man. I just did. I suspect you were thinking how perfect everything would be if Mr. Wilkes was here instead of me. I don't know why I need to explain this to you, but I will. He isn't here with you because he is married to another woman, remember that fact. Also remember he will never leave Miss Melly because his honor would not allow him to. He will never marry you if you choose to divorce me because that wouldn't be honorable. So, you have to wait until both Miss Melly and I die. I can make our marriage a happy, fun-filled, enjoyable heaven on earth or I can make your life a living hell. It is your choice. I would suggest you decide to forget all about Mr. Wilkes until both you and he are free. Just as a warning, you would not like to see my anger."

Scarlett laid there wondering how he knew. She nervously said, "Of course not, Rhett."

"Do you remember all the hurtful words I said to you the day I proposed?"

"Yes, you called me a cat."

Rhett smiled a nice smile and said, "There were also some uncomplimentary adverbs in front of the word cat. I always know when you are thinking of him, and I don't like it."

Scarlett had a healthy fear of Rhett, and she decided right then and there not to think of Ashley again when Rhett was around. Rhett said, "Furthermore, Miss Melly and I might outlive you and Mr. Wilkes. So, let's enjoy our lives now. When someone passes away, we can come up with a new plan."

Scarlett smiled tentatively at Rhett and said, "Alright."

She was still a little bit nervous because despite his gentle words she could see the anger radiating off of Rhett. He opened his arms, and she rapidly went into them. She felt safe now. She laid there and thought about Rhett's statement of their marriage being either heaven or hell. She knew without a doubt Rhett could make her life a living hell.

The rest of Rhett and Scarlett's time in New Orleans was fun and she worked extremely hard to not think of anyone or anything but Rhett and what they were doing at that moment. They were having so much fun. To Scarlett it was so nice to be able to spend money recklessly not that she would ever spend money recklessly again. Rhett was buying her anything she wanted or even that he thought she might want.

Rhett had them go and get their picture taken. When they left the portrait studio Rhett said, "When we get back to Atlanta, we need to have a picture taken of the four of us."

"The four of us?"

"You, me, Wade, and Ella. Our family."

That statement had made Scarlett smile and she replied, "Our family."

Later in the day she had smiled at him when he had given her the praline.

Scarlett had frowned at Rhett when he had said, "If you get as fat as the Cuban women, I will divorce you."

Scarlett had replied, "You will never divorce me. You worked too hard to get me."

Rhett had roared with laughter, and he had finally said, "So true.

One night over supper, Scarlett said, "I don't think I will ever get tired of French food."

"Wait until you try it in Paris. It is even better."

"I don't know if I will ever be able to be away from my businesses long enough to go to Paris. My being away from them for three weeks was all I could afford. I wonder how my businesses are doing."

"Horrible. Johnny is robbing you blind and Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Elsing are slowly driving them into the ground. Fortunate for you we will be back in Atlanta by the end of the week. We will probably be back in time for you to save them."

"Rhett! How can you talk so flippantly about my businesses failing."

"Because you have inferior men working for you."

"Nobody else will work for me because I am a woman."

"Although both Elsing and Wilkes are fine gentleman neither one of them is a good businessman. You can't fire either one of them because the matrons would come down on you hard for being so cold-hearted," Rhett looked matter of factly at Scarlett and continued, "That is because you are a woman also. They certainly wouldn't criticize a man for firing an employee. They would assume he was doing what was right for his business."

"I certainly got a lot of grief over demoting Hugh."

"Even though you went against my instructions to never hire Mr. Wilkes, you had no way of knowing he was going to be as bad a businessman as he has turned out to be."

Scarlett couldn't believe the way Rhett was talking to her. He was talking straight forward without any mockery or flippancy. In fact, he was actually talking to her with sympathy in his voice. She said, "Ashley is not a good businessman because the work is beneath him."

"My dear, it doesn't matter why he is a bad businessman, he is."

Scarlett begrudgingly admitted, "I didn't think he was going to be this bad."

"And you can't fire him because of the matrons and Miss Melly."

"No, I can't."

"I know you love running your businesses, but you might consider selling them now that you are married to me. After all, you certainly don't need the money."

"Rhett, you promised I could continue to run my businesses even after we got married."

"I did and I will not renege on that promise for now, but you are doing a lot of work that you don't need to be doing. Just think about selling them."

"Alright. I think I am going to change the name of the store."

"What to?"

"I don't know."

"As flattered as I would be, please, don't use Butler's"

Scarlett smiled and said, "That name never entered my head."

"How about The Emporium?"

"What does that mean?"

"The shop."

"You are suggesting I change the name of the store to The Shop?"

"Yes, because I think it sounds more sophisticated than Kennedy's"

"I do too. I am going to do that."

"Great. Now, let's talk about the house we are going to build."

Scarlett let Rhett change the subject. She said, "I want my house to be built in the Swiss Chalet design."

Although Rhett knew what she had said, he asked, "Swiss what design?"

"Swiss chalet."

"Spell that last word," Scarlett did. Rhett said, "No."

"But Rhett it is beautiful."

Rhett sighed and said, "I see I am going to have to work closely with you on the design of our home."

"But you said it was your gift to me."

"I did say that, but I am going to have to live in the house also therefore, I want it to be something I will be comfortable living in."

"I won't live with bland and boring décor."

"What makes you think I have bland and boring taste?"

"Your taste in clothes."

"But haven't I always brought you the most beautiful gifts. Like your green hat or your gold shawl or your huge diamond engagement ring."

"That's true."

"I will work with you, but I do have veto power over all of your choices."

Rhett was not living in the house of horrors again. After a few minutes of Scarlett pouting, Rhett said, "Tomorrow we will drive around New Orleans and look at home designs. I'm sure we can find one we both like. Now give me a little smile."

Scarlett smiled at Rhett and said, "Alright."

Surprising to Rhett, he and Scarlett found several house designs that they both liked. That fact had made Scarlett happy. She had been afraid Rhett was going to insist the outside of their house be a Georgian style of architecture.

When Rhett and Scarlett got back to Atlanta, they went to the Wilkeses' home on Ivy Street. While they were at the Wilkeses home, Rhett watched both Mr. and Mrs. Wilkes carefully. When Miss Melly started giving Scarlett instructions on the care of Wade and Ella, he had to smile. He guessed Miss Melly considered both Wade and Ella her children also. Mr. Wilkes made no overt actions towards Scarlett except kissing her cheek. Scarlett practically ignored Mr. Wilkes. He guessed he really had scared her while they were in New Orleans. He guessed she had believed him about making her life hell.

After Rhett's future self had warned him about his disastrous life, he had been able to get Scarlett to basically forget about Wilkes because their three years before had been hell. She had been so happy he was being nice Rhett again. Therefore, she hadn't wanted to ruin it by being overly attached to Mr. Wilkes. Rhett sighed. Eventually, she would challenge him about not thinking about Mr. Wilkes or not giving Mr. Wilkes too much attention when he was around.

The couple had been back from New Orleans for about two weeks when Mr. Powe contacted Rhett. Rhett had an offer on his half of The Painted Lady. He had not even offered to sell his half to Belle. He had not trusted what she would do after she found out he was terminating their partnership. He had gone out a couple of times at night. Before he would leave the hotel suite he said to Scarlett, "I am going to conduct business. I won't be too late. I'm going to the Blue Bird of Happiness because it doesn't have a brothel attached to it. I now have a reputation to protect of sorts."

Scarlett had laughed but he could tell she was pleased he wasn't going to a saloon that was attached to a whore house. Although, he didn't care about his reputation in Atlanta he did care that he did not shame Scarlett by anyone seeing him entering or leaving a whore house.

Rhett was not going to humble himself to be received in Atlanta this time. He had only done that because at the time all he had was Bonnie. He also knew now that he had done that to disrespect Scarlett. He wondered how many times he had intentionally hurt Scarlett at his own expense. What is that saying…. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. He now knew he had done that time after time. He was at peace because now he knew he would eventually have Scarlett, Bonnie, his son, and all their other children. He was not going to intentionally get Scarlett pregnant except the night of Mr. Wilkes' surprise birthday party. He wanted his son back. His son deserved to live and by God Rhett was going to make sure Gerry lived.

Once Scarlett finally discovered she didn't love Wilkes, Rhett was going to move Scarlett and his family to either Boston or New York. Or maybe London or Paris. Or maybe San Francisco or Denver. Anywhere but the South.