Page 59 of Tall, Royal Hater
“I like you,” I said.
“I like you too,” he replied, then offered me his arm. “Shall we go piss off Ryan Ronal and plan Shehryar’s demise?”
“Candy,” Zain grumbled in warning.
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” I said, slipping my hand around Candy’s arm.
“I get the feeling I’ve just been replaced,” I heard Pierre say quietly behind me as Candy and I walked away. I looked over my shoulder and threw him a wink.
We couldn’t have taken more than a dozen steps when I felt a prickle skate up the sides of my neck. Glancing to my left, my body pressed on the brakes so hard my heart rebounded off my rib cage, and I almost staggered to a stop. It was only Candy’s gentle pull that kept me walking.
Shehryar’s gaze jabbed into me from across the hall where he stood close to the wall.
They were hard to ignore anyway, but his all-black suit, coloured only with a red tie and pocket cloth, made his pale irises look even sharper and more commanding than usual. But he didn’t attempt to look away and pretend I hadn’t caught him staring.
In fact, his eyes narrowed as he lifted a glass flute to his lips, angrily stripping me down until a cool breeze rushed up the length of my legs and across my shoulders but left a warm flush in its wake.
Swallowing, I rolled my eyes and flicked my head away.Dickhead.
Yeah, I was going to keep planning the wedding in secret, but I was going to bring Shehryar Timur to his knees before I even considered forgiving him.
For what he said, for what he did after, for the aching buzz he’d left in my body, I’d make him pay.
Chapter 15
Shehryar
Islammed the empty glass in my hand down on the serving tray of the young girl standing before me. Her eyes widened as the tray wobbled on her palm. I reflexively grabbed one side as she grabbed the other. She blinked at me, slightly taken aback by my aggression.
Fuck. Shit.
“Apologies, it slipped,” I said, offering the staff member, whose face I recognised but name I’d forgotten, a stiff smile.
She returned my smile with a swallow. “It’s okay, Shehryar.” Fuck, she knew my name, and that made me feel worse.
It wasn’t her fault nor the glass’s that four hours into Prince Kai’s birthday party my social battery was dead, and I was fucking restless from the build-up of irritation in my nervous system.
The girl greeted me and left, and I shifted back against the wall again, trying and failing to find some comfort in the familiarity of the position.
Esmeralda had dragged me away multiple times, so had Prince Fay under the instructions of my mother, and even Gigi too. But each time they’d been distracted by someone else, I drifted back to the edges of the room where it was familiar and safe, and I felt the freest.And most like me.
Stuck amongst the crowd of celebrities, politicians, and royalty that I had little in common with, I’d pulled at my tie in discomfort so much that I had to redo it in the bathrooms twice. Not that it was all bad—some people were fine, but the moment someone asked who I was, the feeling of being out of place rose up strong.
That wasn’t, however, the reason my frustration was strung up so high.
That was down to the blonde-haired, curvaceous, menacing nymph dressed in brown silk, whose bright blue eyes I kept catching before she rolled them away likeIwas the fucking nuisance.
Shewas the bloody pest. A stubborn fucking brat who was driving me mad with her attitude and refusal to listen to my apology.
And her loud, shameless laugh. No matter where I was in the hall, I heard it clearly over every other sound. It grated at my bones in a way it never had before.
Every time I glared in the direction of the sound, she was messing around with Candy and Pierre—the two people in Kai’s friendship group who were just as loud and proud as her,if not more so. Though she didn’t have a problem laughing and conversing with anyone. In a room full of strangers, she managed to get on with almost everyone as if she’d known them for years.
Everyone except me.Though we were both the culprits of that problem. But it had never felt so apparent until now. For more than one reason.
“How did you end up against the wall again?” Esmeralda said, sliding into my vision from the side. Her face was a little flushed and her skin painted in a damp sheen from the exertion of dancing.
“I walked,” I said blandly. Her face fell, and my mouth rose.
