Page 168 of Tall, Royal Hater
“Levine,” I said blankly.
“Miss Levine.” He gestured to Shehryar. “I mean, you must know why the error was easy to make considering the situation.”
“No, I don’t actually. But don’t worry, we all make mistakes.” I smiled and shrugged. “Yours was calling me atawaif, and your father’s was you. Right?”
His face flamed red with fury. “You fucking little—”
I was abruptly moved out the way, and in my place stood Shehryar, staring down a fuming Johnny. “Finish your sentence. I dare you,” he growled.
Johnny was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and backed away, pulling at the lapels of his suit jacket. “I’d advise you to keep your girlfriend on a leash,brother.”
And then he walked off, smiling like a little ball of snot.
“What did he call me?” I asked once Shehryar stopped glaring after him.
He ground his teeth together, a ferocious fire burning in his eyes. “A prostitute.”
“Wow.” I scoffed and shook my head. I wasn’t offended. It was just so damn predictable.
“I’m so sorry, Mariyah,” Ablah said, worrying her hands. “He can be such an ass sometimes.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said and placed a hand over Shehryar’s pounding heart. “It’ll be fine.”
I said that, but I had a bad feeling about Johnny.
And how fucking right I turned out to be.
Chapter 40
Shehryar
Though Mariyah and I had agreed in the car not to stay long, Ablah had somehow managed to keep us around even after eating a five-course dinner. It was kind of hard to say no to her when she was so bright and bubbly just like Esmeralda.
I did my best to block out the judgemental stares I got every which way Ablah took us, but it was impossible not to tense up, ready for battle when I felt like I was being crowded in with pikes from all sides. It helped that Ablah’s friends—Kiran and Louise, or Ki and Lu—who stuck around us, were much nicer than the majority of the people in the hall.
My father lingered about every so often, and it was clear through his quick glances and pursed lips stuck on a silent syllable that he wanted to speak to me, but it never got past a few generic questions here and there. I wasn’t sure I was ready for more in-depth conversations with him yet.
Oddly enough, the one person who I’d thought would throw a fit at my presence didn’t even approach me once. I wasn’t sure what he’d said to her, but despite her sneering looks, my father’s wife kept away and stuck to her group of snobbish rich wives.
Johnny, though…the fucking bastard.
After what he’d said to Mariyah, he still had the nerve to fit himself around us a few times. He never said anything, but I didn’t like the way he looked at me so smug, bitter, and scheming. I had no doubt he had some surprise up his sleeve that I wasn’t going to like, and that made it ever harder to relax the further the evening went.
“…so, to our dearest Ablah, we wish you a very happy eighteenth birthday and look forward to watching you take your first steps into adulthood,” Andrew Platmon finished, glancing between his wife beside him and daughter before him.
A controlled echo of claps and a few loud cheers from Ablah’s friends ran around the semi-circle of people where everyone had gathered in the middle of the hall as Ablah threw her arms around my—I meant, her—our father. He chuckled as he hugged her tightly. She hugged her mother next, but it was far more subdued and more of an awkward pat of the back from the older woman.
“That woman is fucking pissing me off now,” Mariyah muttered next to me.
I tamed a smile as I tucked my arm around her waist. “Easy tiger.”
Her lips curled in annoyance. “You shouldn’t be stopping me after what she did to you.”
“I’m not,” I assured her. “But unless she comes to us, we ignore her. That was the plan, wasn’t it?”
“Fine,” she grumbled, but distaste poured off her like a cloud of poison.
I kissed the side of her head just as Johnny crossed over to the rest of his family. “All right, all right, that’s enough. Hand over the mic, Dad. It’s my turn.”
