Page 34 of Tall, Royal Hater
I struggled to hold on to my smile when all I wanted to do was turn around and punch Shehryar in the gut. I discreetly edged my elbow back and pressed it into his stomach, though it obviously didn’t have the same effect as jabbing him so hard he couldn’t breathe.
“Okay, last one,” Rocco said, turning my phone portrait again.
I jerked my elbow, poking Shehryar in the stomach, warning him to remove his fucking hand.
He didn’t.
His fingers dug in, and he squeezed. Hard.Mean hard.And it hurt.
I straightened, muscles locking in place, and my smile stiffened to the point I probably looked constipated. There was a war of emotions inside me that I couldn’t hear or think over.
It was only when Rocco lowered my phone that Shehryar tore his hand away. The lack of his onslaught gave way to a charge of fury, driven by the throbbing pain in my arse.
I flew around, huffing through my nose and glaring at Shehryar. Eyes glinting with arrogant amusement, he pushed the hand that had assaulted me into his trouser pocket, a light smirk that could’ve been mistaken for a lazy smile on his mouth.
“Thank you, Rocco,” I heard Esmeralda say behind me, and Kai echoed her words.
Shehryar lifted his brow mockingly.What?
The fucking—
I went to lurch forward to wrap my hands around his fat throat, but Esmeralda said, “Mar, come look at the pictures.”
Grinding my teeth together, I rolled my hands into fists. “You’re fucking dead,” I hissed.
He bent into me, pale eyes tearing me apart. “Learn to keep your hands to yourself, Mariyah.”
Before I drained his blood and stained the hundred-year-old wooden floor, I took three deep breaths and circled around to Esmeralda.
My body thrummed like a livewire as we skimmed through the pictures, and the lingering pinch burning my arse was impossible to ignore. Or forget.
I wasn’t going to forget the feeling of Shehryar pawing my arse any time soon.
And that pissed me off to the moon and back.
Chapter 9
Mariyah
We returned to Chaukham Palace late in the evening after grabbing a takeaway dinner on the way back. Kai and Esmeralda went to their room, I couldn’t have cared less where Shehryar went, and I showered and changed in my bedroom before getting comfortable on the bed to ring my mum.
“Hello, Mar,” Mum answered.
“Hello,” I replied. “You guys still at work, or…”
“Oris the option I’d go for,” I heard Dad’s voice in the background.
I chuckled, slightly confused. “Hey Dad.”
Mum must’ve put it on speaker because Dad’s voice loudened. “Hello, Mar. How are you?”
“Great. But what did you mean by that? Didn’t you go to work today?”
“Something like that,” Dad said, a little harrumph in his voice. “Dear, would you like to tell Mar what you did?”
I grinned up at the chandelier. My dad had a dry sense of humour to match his stoic personality, but my mum matched that with her flamboyant flare and sass. It was easy to spot that I’d inherited the loud, sassy, sarcastic traits from the two of them, while my older sister, Lily, had Mum’s passion with Dad’s quiet attention to detail in love and life.
“Mum?” I said slowly, laughingly. “What did you do?”
