Page 192 of Tall, Royal Hater
I huffed out a breath and straightened from my bent over position, wincing at the way my lower back creaked. “He’s grovelling.”
“Grovelling?”
“Yeah. You know, apologising with actions—”
“I know what grovelling is, Mar. But usually, you bring the guy home to meet the familyafterthe grovelling has been done. Not during it.”
I shrugged. “He didn’t have anything else to do. And he knows everyone already.”
Lily stared unblinking, then a slow, amused smile lifted her mouth. “So, the grovelling is done.”
I scrunched my face. “You still got baby brain? Because I just said—”
“Oh, I know what you said.” She pointed a finger at me. “But I know you too. And he”—she directed her finger towards the door in the corner—“wouldn’t be here if you were still angry.”
Telling heat coloured my cheeks as I rubbed my teeth together. “Yeah, well, I’m not angry anymore,” I admitted aloud for the first time. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him yet.”
“Why not?”
I threw a hand out. “Because it’s just about been over a week since he showed up and apologised, and that’s not long enough to prove he regrets what he said and will do better.”
Lily shook her head in disappointment. “I can’t believe you’re telling me you haven’t forgiven him just because of that. Does the length of time really matter that much?”
“Yes,” I said a little harshly and grabbed a plate before bending over the dishwasher again.
“Mariyah,” she said with a sigh. “How long he grovels for doesn’t matter. He could be doing it for months and not actually prove he won’t repeat the same mistake again. What’s important is that he’s shown you he’s sorry and that he genuinely cares about you and wants to make it work with you.”
I grabbed another plate and silently shoved it into the dishwasher. And another. And another.
As I put the last plate in the rack, Lily said, “He already has, hasn’t he?”
My hand stilled before the front of the drawer. “No,” I said as I pushed the dishwasher rack back into place, but there was no conviction in my tone.
“And yet you still won’t forgive him? Why? Because that’s not even petty, Mar. That’s just silly.”
I glared at my older sister. “Why is that silly? No one can prove themselves in a week.”
She glared back. “Your opinion of him changed in a week. Afterfiveyears.”
“Yeah, well…” My voice faded as I failed to come up with a counterargument. “Maybe I’m just not convinced he’s proven himself yet.”
“Okay, fine.” She tossed her hands up and widened her eyes. “What has he yet to prove?”
I opened my mouth…
Nothing. I came up blank.
“Has he not spoken to his dad about what happened?”
I rolled my bottom lip into my mouth and sucked on it, stubbornly staying quiet.
No, he’d done that. And he hadn’t flashed it in my face like a “get out of jail free”card, trying to use the fact he’d come to a middle ground with Andrew Platmon to win me back.
“Has he not apologised?” He had. “Not told you he cares about you?” Multiple times. “Doesn’t he want to work things out? Has he shown it to you through his actions?” Check and check. “I mean, you said he’s been here for over a week. What has he been doing the whole time?”
“Fine,” I bit out. “He’s been doing everything you said and more. But Lily, in comparison to the five years he’s been an ass to me, one week of apologies isn’t really much when we only just started trying something new and it blew up in less than a day. How do I know he’s not gonna change his mind every few weeks and we just end up falling out over and over again?”
Lily’s blue gaze softened, and she moved towards me. “I understand. But be honest—did you or did you not play into his bad opinion of you?” I pursed my lips together, and her mouth curled. “Exactly. But now that his opinion has changed, I doubt it’ll go back. Shehryar doesn’t seem like a back-and-forth kind of man. And if he does mess up again, you are a force to be reckoned with, Mariyah, and are more than capable of telling him to sod off.”
