Page 7 of A Royal Deception

“Are you laughing?” I snarled.

That wiped the laugh from her face.

“Would you prefer it if I cried?” she asked in surprise.

“No,” I replied hastily. “But there’s no call for hysterical laughter, either.”

She straightened her spine and glared up at me.

“I’m not hysterical, Your Highness! I was just laughing at the irony of the situation.”

“Explain,” I barked.

“Well, your snapping and snarling didn’t scare me half as much as your cousin’s soft laugh did,” she explained reluctantly.

Fuck me. She really knew how to gut a man using just her words.

I wanted to rip Sangram apart limb to limb and feed him to the hyenas in the desert for what he had done to this fierce woman. I wanted to do something… anything… to make her feel better. But before I could even move, she swayed in place.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” she said, but I knew she was lying because she looked pale.

I reached out my hand to steady her but stopped before I could touch her. I didn’t want to make her feel even more uncomfortable. Instead, I pulled a chair closer and placed it next to her. She sank into it gratefully.

“I’m fine, Your Highness. It’s just the reaction hitting me,” she said shakily.

“Do you want some water?”

I looked around, but there was no water anywhere in the room. What kind of palace were we running, I wondered wrathfully. My eyes landed on the trays of sweets covered with some sort of fancy, gauzy cloth. I ripped one off and grabbed a motichoor laddoo.

“Here, eat this,” I ordered.

Shivina’s eyes widened in horror, and she shook her head violently.

“That’s for the guests,” she exclaimed. “I can’t eat that.”

For fuck’s sake! Guests… staff…weren’t we all human? Weren’t we all the same? Why was she worrying about such crap right now, I wanted to roar. But I knew this thinking had been ingrained in her for years, and I couldn’t undo it with one roar. So, I decided to be sneaky.

“I’m hungry, Shivina. But obviously, I can’t eat all by myself,” I improvised. “You’ll be doing me a big favour if you eat a laddoo with me.”

She stared at me in disbelief.

“It’s your palace, Your Highness. You can eat the full tray of sweets if you like. Who’s going to stop you?” she asked drily.

“Have you met my mother?” I asked with a shudder. “She’ll be very upset if she sees me being greedy. And trust me, you don’t want my mother to get upset.”

“She sounds like an ogre,” she replied, a small, enchanting smile tipping up the corners of her mouth.

I cleared my throat and forced my gaze away from the tiny dimples that peeked out when she smiled.

“I can feel my blood sugar dropping,” I said theatrically. “If I faint, you’ll have to call for help. And I’m not sure I can trust you to do something so important. So just take the damn laddoo and let me eat mine in peace.”

This time, when I thrust a laddoo at her, she took it gingerly. I picked another one and took a large bite, gesturing at her to start eating. She had just taken a small, dainty bite when I heard Veer calling out to me.

Shivina’s eyes flew to mine in a panic. I knew how it would look to anyone who saw us like this. I was about to get engaged to another woman in a few minutes, which meant I shouldn’t be sitting with Shivina in an empty bedroom at all.

I pulled out my phone and called Veer.

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