Page 15 of Tall, Royal Hater
I shook my head. “No.”
“If you really mean to keep your word, then a pinkie promise is no big deal.”
That was a lie. It was the biggest deal in all of Neves that outranked a legally binding contract. Once I’d given my word, I really would have to try to be civil with Shehryar. But her challenge irked me, and despite my reservations, I found my little finger rising on its own.
Before I could pull it away, Esmeralda snagged her own around mine. “Pinkie promise.”
“Pinkie promise,” I croaked out, sealing myself to ten days of being “civil” with the dickhead.
Chapter 5
Mariyah
The State of Touma had a very different landscape to the kind I’d grown up around in Raven, but it was beautiful, nonetheless. Like something out of a historical romance book. All patches of enchanting forests, old, red-brick buildings, and traditional towns with stone houses that seamlessly transitioned into cities with the perfect blend of modern and preserved architecture.
I’d visited before. Not the royal city of Pavilion where we were headed, but I’d visited the south of Touma where my cousins lived several times. Still, I kept my eyes glued to the window ofthe Jeep as if I was absolutely mesmerised by the sights we drove by. I even resorted to counting the number of cows and horses to keep myself entertained before the countryside turned into twisting city roads.
Twenty-five horses. A hundred and eight cows, give or take a few. Oh, and fifty-two sheep.
It was that or face the fact I was sitting in a Jeep beside Shehryar, with the driver and a fucking tense silence that sang louder than the radio as my only companions.
Not by choice. Esmeralda had fucking betrayed me.
Prince Arsh had been at the half-military base, half-royal airport where we’d landed to take us to Chaukham Palace. We’d split ourselves between two vehicles, but instead of Esmeralda and I taking one, and Shehryar and Prince Arsh the other, she’d gotten in with Kai’s uncle, leaving me to get into the second Jeep with Shehryar. I couldn’t exactly have thrown a tantrum. Especially not when Shehryar simply climbed in as if it wasn’t a bother.
In my head, it was Esmeralda’s way of punishing me and forcing me to form a temporary reconciliation with her stupid private secretary. In reality, I knew she’d been too desperate to get to Kai as quickly as possible to care about the politics of who rode with who.
But the weight of our pinkie promise on the plane was unforgiving in the awkward atmosphere. It crushed all my other thoughts, no matter how many times I tried to create one just to keep from thinking about it. It inevitably came back around every single time.
Why should I be the one to try to come to a truce with him? None of it was my fault.
But Esmeralda was my best friend, and she deserved at least that much from me.
I swayed gently with the movement of the car as we came to a stop in front of a red traffic light. I nearly jumped in my seat when the driver, who was Kai’s head of security, spoke over the music.
“We will be arriving at Chaukham Palace in around fifteen minutes,” the bald, giant of a man said, looking at us through the windshield mirror. “As Prince Arsh said, we’ll drive around to the staff entrance so there’s little chance of Prince Kai spotting us.”
Shehryar offered the man a single nod. “Thank you, Rocco.” The light turned green, and we drove away, but a time bomb started ticking above my head.
Speak now or face Esmeralda’s disappointment. Speak now or break your pinkie promise. Speak now or fail to be a good friend. Speak now or be the one to ruin everything.
My conscience was a taunting beast, and within five minutes, I was so angry and restless that I wanted to break something.
So, sucking in a deep breath, I chose—for Esmeralda and Esmeralda only—to break the tension.
“I have something to say to you, Shehryar Timur,” I declared before I had the chance to let pride get the better of me. His left ear with the little dent in the top curve twitched like a cat’s would, but he kept his head turned away. I steeled my shoulders. “I said, I have something to say.”
“I heard you the first time,” he bit back, his timbre rough and deep.
“Then look at me, because I’m not going to say it to the back of your head.”
It took more than a few seconds, but he finally faced me, his piercing eyes dead and his jaw set firm. “What?”
A boiling sensation filtered through, and though I refused to react to his obvious egging, it took me two breaths to suppress the feeling. “We both love Esmeralda,” I said. “That’s about theonly thing we have in common. It’s the only reason we’re sitting in the car together. For Esmeralda. Because we both know she needs this time with Kai,withoutany stress.”
“So, don’t cause her any.”
He glanced away, leaving me gaping for the split second it took the volcano inside me to erupt.
