Page 53 of Tall, Royal Hater
King Kareem arrived from Jahandar early the next morning for Kai’s official birthday party in the evening, but it wasn’t until lunch, after he’d rested, that he was informed about Mum and Prince Arsh’s private wedding ceremony in a few days’ time.
“I offer my congratulations, and regret that I won’t be able to attend,” the young king said in the dinging hall, smiling with genuine happiness for them.
“You can’t stay for it?” Mariyah said, giving him a stupidly sweet look in the seat next to him.
King Kareem’s warm skin pinkened across his cheeks, but he shook his head. “Unfortunately not. I have a visit planned to the northeast of Jahandar between the twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth that I won’t be able to rearrange.”
“That’s a shame,” Prince Arsh said. “It would’ve been great to have you there.”
“Yes, it would have been,” Mum added, glancing between me and Mariyah. “From the sounds of it so far, Mariyah and Shehryar are planning a wonderfully intimate ceremony.”
Mariyah smiled at Mum, but she didn’t look at me. She didn’t announce that she no longer planned to help me with the wedding. But then again, she’d said yesterday that she wanted me to take the fall for her dropping out, so it wasn’t a surprise she pretended everything was fine.
It wasn’t, of course. But between trying to categorise and burn certain memories of the disaster that had unfolded the previous evening and growing irrationally irritated with the way Mariyah openly flirted with King Kareem, I completely forgot to feel uncomfortable about dining with royalty.
Once lunch had been eaten, everyone dispersed. Esmeralda and Prince Kai left with King Kareem to talk to him about their engagement, but I followed after Mariyah needing to fix the mess between us sooner rather than later because I couldn’t plan Mum’s wedding on my own. Mariyah drove me mad, but I needed her, and I’d made a fucking hash of things yesterday. Unnecessarily too.
She’d been right. I’d been acting like a neglected child, but the news of my fucking father being in contact with Mum and wanting to see me had thrown me off badly. What I’d said to Mariyah hadn’t been our usual, enraging back-and-forths. She’d hit the nail on the head, and I’d in turn lashed out and been cruel with my insult, but that wasn’t okay. I shouldn’t have said what I did.
And what came after…I crossed a line I never had with her before. But she’d acted like a brat in need of someone to ground her feet to the floor before she shot off the walls, fucking clawing at my ear and battling me, so I’d reacted accordingly and physically restrained her.
In hindsight, it was my own fault her soft, round arse ended up against my dick, but when she’d pushed back against me, all the pretence of indifference I’d played so well for five years had blown away like dry sand in the wind. There was no denying that my cock grew hard for her.
Once the restraint slipped, all my desire rushed forward. When she blushed and still defied me, but her eyes grew frantic and furious, I wanted to bind her and tease her to her limit, bully her and fuck her, drive her insane with pleasure. Even when she still made me want to strangle her.
Now that I’d had one small glimpse of what it could be like, I was concerned I would want to do it again. And more. Push her so she pushed back, and we both snapped.
The fact that she was Esmeralda’s best friend seemed to have less significance by the second.
I caught up to her just as she rounded the corridor that headed towards the palace library.
“Mariyah,” I called out.
She looked up from what I could only guess was her phone by the way she was holding it and glanced back over her shoulder. Her upper lip lifted in disgust, and she flicked her hair at me, bangs swishing, without stopping.
My mouth parted in shock.Did she just fucking ignore me?I gritted my teeth and scowled at the back of her head.The little—
“Mariyah,” I growled, charging towards her.
“What?” she grumbled, swinging around aggressively. Her hands were balled in fists by her sides, and one hand clutched her phone as I stopped before her.
“We need to talk.”
“Then talk.”
Irritation waved from its usual seat within me. I pulled in a breath from my nose. “Are you still going to speak to Queen Leila about the decorations for the wedding?”
Her lips pulled apart in disbelief. She clapped them together and cocked her hip to the side. I tried not to look, but my eyes dipped out of their own volition.Fuck…
Just glimpsing the shape of her voluptuous body was bringing back the feel of it pressed against—
The wave of her hand snapped my attention back up. “Are you genuinely stupid? Or are you pretending to be?”
My brows pinched together. “What kind of question is that?”
Widening her eyes, she shook her head. “I don’t know, you tell me. Because I clearly remember telling you yesterday, I’m not fucking helping with the wedding anymore.”
Fuck. She was dead serious. I’d foolishly been hoping seeing Mum talk about it so animatedly over the dining table might have swayed Mariyah to change her mind. I should have known better.
