Page 54 of Tall, Royal Hater
I shifted on my feet, scrubbing a hand over my beard—I needed to give it a light trim soon. “Look, I’m sorry for what I said—”
“Yeah, no.” She put her hand up. “Let me stop you right there. Because I’m not interested in hearing some shitty half-hearted apology.”
My frown deepened. “How do you know it’s half-hearted when you won’t give me a chance to say anything?”
She rolled her eyes. “The only reason you’re trying to apologise is because you know you can’t plan the wedding yourself. So yeah, I don’t need to hear anything to know you don’t mean it.”
Frustration combined with embarrassment flooded my cheeks as I stood silent and fuming. But when she raised an audaciousbrow waiting for me to tell her she was wrong, I couldn’t bring myself to lie.
“That’s what I thought,” she said as she turned away, but her smile wasn’t exactly triumphant.
I watched until she disappeared around the corner of the corridor, then swung around on a snarled curse and racked a hand through my hair.
Instinct told me to follow her. Reasoning said that wasn’t a good idea. And logic reminded me I had to get ready to go out with Mother and Prince Arsh, so maybe some space was the right course of action after all.
So, I headed in the opposite direction to Mariyah and made my way up to my assigned bedroom.
It was a large space with a king-sized bed against the right wall in the centre flanked by a dark wooden bedside cabinet on either side, a window on the left, and a red-velvet chaise at the end. There was a tall chest of drawers in one corner, a desk in the other, and a door to my ensuite next to the open walk-in closet. Two chandeliers on the ceiling made up for the lack of another window.
I headed straight into the walk-in closet and swapped the sweater-shirt combo and smart shoes I was wearing for a V-neck grey jumper and white trainers. Coat in hand, I walked back into my room.
The charcoal-grey watch Esmeralda had given me for my twenty-fifth birthday nearly three years ago was lying on the bedside cabinet next to my mobile phone. I picked it up and slipped it onto my wrist, but as I snapped the clasp in place, my attention was drawn to the crumple of white tucked next to the digital clock. My movements slowed to a stop.
The rectangle of paper was the one Mother had given me with my father’s email address on it.
The one he’d been using to contact Mum every few weeks for the last two years. To ask about me apparently. But why fucking bother when he’d made it clear I was never to show my face in front of him again? Wasn’t he done fucking with mine and Mum’s lives?
The anger from yesterday hummed in my chest, and I gritted my teeth.
If I looked at it impartially, contacting him while he was in Touma made more sense no matter what his answers were. But what was the point of getting answers? Nothing that fucking piece of shit could say would change what he’d put Mother through nor the way he’d abandoned me like I wasn’t his flesh and blood. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t known about me. He had. From the beginning.
I snatched up the piece of paper. With gritted teeth, I opened the drawer, dropped it in, and slammed it shut again.
I didn’t want answers.I didn’t need answers.
All I needed was him fucking gone from our lives, that was the only potential reason I had for contacting him. He needed to be reminded that Mother wasn’t a nineteen-year-old with only her poor parents to lean on anymore. She had me, and I’d fucking tear all his money from under his feet if he continued to bully her to get to me.
There was one thing in that moment I was reluctantly thankful for, and that was the knowledge that Prince Arsh would probably do the same. And if not, Esmeralda definitely would.
That didn’t make the whole situation any more comfortable, though. It never would.
Chapter 14
Mariyah
Kai’s thirtieth birthday party was being held in the Grand Hall of the unapologetically gothic Westcombe Palace in Central Pavilion City.
The majority of us arrived from Chaukham Palace two hours before the guests to get ready there, while Katiya, Prince Arsh, and Shehryar arrived a half hour later after their trip out. A lot of the staff went even before that to prepare the hall and food, and they stuck around to join the celebration.
The other women—Queen Leila, Gigi, and Katiya—had left the large black and purple sitting room connected to a bedroomwe’d been getting ready in, but Esmeralda and I were still adding last-minute touches for her grand entrance with the birthday boy.
“Okay,” I said, stretching the word as I tilted my head to the opposite side, checking the deep red I’d painted on my best friend’s lips looked even. “Press your lips together lightly. Now lick.” I squinted as she followed my instructions, then straightened my head. “You need gloss in the middle. You got any?”
“In the pink bag,” Esmeralda said, pointing to the black dressing table from where she was sitting at the edge of the four-poster bed.
I dug through and found the clear, stumpy tube. Just as I finished dabbing the wand against Esmeralda’s bottom lip, the sound of a door opening and closing came through the threshold of the bedroom. Footsteps tapped against the wooden floor.
“Ladies, are you ready?” Pierre said, his voice deep and cheerful.
