Page 126 of Tall, Royal Hater
A bright aura blinded me from the side, and I glanced ahead to find Esmeralda grinning from ear to ear, foaming at the mouth, and practically bouncing in her seat.Fuck.
“Mariyah, where were you at that time?”
I’m gonna fucking kill you, I threatened with a sneer. “In my room,” I gritted out.
She ignored the warning and widened her eyes. “And when did you go to bed?”
When?
I had no fucking clue.
Shehryar hadn’t left my room after we had sex again. He wiped me down and stuck around. He tucked me under the duvet, then went back to the other side of the bed and we…
We talked. Just talked. About random shit, some of which I’m sure was just tired nattering.
The last thing I recalled was yawning repeatedly, my eyes growing heavy, which was when Shehryar said, “Stop talking, little menace, and go to sleep.”
To which I replied, “Shut up, dickhead. Don’t tell me what to do.”
I remembered the warmth of his arms encircling me and then nothing, which meant I fell asleep.
I woke up to an empty bed, but there had been an indent next to me, evidence that he’d stayed.
And it had been warm. Evidence that he’d only left moments before I woke up.
I had since desperately tried not to think about what that meant or signified, but Esmeralda’s nosey questions weren’t fucking helping.
“I don’t know,” I bit out slowly.
“Sher,” Esmeralda said like a shameless little bitch. “What time did you and Mariyah go to bed?”
A choked sound escaped my mouth as I gaped.
Fucking Neves, she hadn’t just—
“It was nearly four a.m..”
My heart ricocheted on the spot as Kai brought the car to a stop at a traffic light. I twisted my head around so abruptly, I swore I gave myself whiplash.
I gawked at Shehryar, who held Esmeralda’s wide gaze with undeterred confidence. Even Kai turned and looked at the man who’d basically admitted to sleeping with me, even though everyone present knew we didn’t like each other.
Why? What the fuck? Why did he say that? Why why why?
It was one thing telling Esmeralda so that she didn’t get her hopes up for something that wasn’t going to happen. And averydifferent thing to announce we were sneaking into each other’s rooms like we were telling the family about our relationship—which it couldn’t be called anyway.
I should’ve been damn well annoyed after all the time I’d spent trying to stop Esmeralda from planning a wedding and baby names for me and Shehryar. I supposed Iwasannoyed. But not as much as I was puzzled by his openness about the situation. But the kind of puzzled where something was flying inside me, zigzagging around, and lost as to which direction it was supposed to go.
I wanted to dig my hand inside and throw it out.
But I also wanted to see where it was trying to go.
“Oh, is that so?” Esmeralda sang, smugness as thick as syrup coating her words. “But I thought you didn’t like each other. A week ago, you threatened to throw each other out of the plane.”
Her teasing tone scratched at a sore spot that made my left eye twitch. “Okay, that’s enough.” I peered over the driver’s seat. “Kai, control your freaking woman, please.”
“Hey!”
Kai smiled at me through the rearview mirror. His dimple deepened in his right cheek as he turned to Esmeralda and placed a hand on her thigh. “I don’t think I could even if I tried to,” he said, then turned his attention forward as the cars ahead started moving again.
