Page 30 of Tall, Royal Hater
Other thanthatminor issue, I was having fun with Esmeralda, and Kai turned out to have a decent sense of humour, though half the time it seemed like he was doing it by accident. A few people did stop to take pictures of the adorable royal couple, but Kai’s security team did a good job of intimidating them away, so not many disturbed us.
“Doesn’t that kind of look like that macro seminar tutor we had?” I said, pointing at the engraved plate in the lit-up display cabinet.
Esmeralda shuffled closer to me. “Which one?”
“The guy in the green dress.”
“No. The tutor, Mar.”
“Oh.” We chuckled together. “Don’t you remember the bald guy we had for the second half of first year, who always wore those rancid green trousers and had that stringy beard on his chin?”
“Oh, him.” Esmeralda leaned in close to the cabinet, and I tapped the glass, pointing at the painted man on the giant, cream plate. She gasped. “That looks exactly like him.”
We snickered like school children, falling and bumping into each other as we walked away. Down the rest of the length of the cabinet, we stopped and pointed out the sixth-century items of tableware on display that we would have liked to have in our own homes.
At the end of the display, we found Kai and Shehryar in front of a display of silverware in the opposite corner of the gothic-style room. They stood out amongst the light crowd in the way two tall, stupidly good-looking men muttering to each other did.
I understood why on the phone Esmeralda had compared Kai to a jock. The man was bloody built. With his and Esmeralda’s coats draped over one arm and his other hand in his pocket, his biceps and shoulders bulged against the fabric of his midnight-blue knit jumper. But he still looked every bit of the modern-day prince he was with the looser fit of his top around his waist and tailored suit trousers, making him look smart and gentlemanly.
Shehryar, on the other hand, wore black-on-black, his collared, ribbed jumper lazily tucked into slim-fit black jeans. He had a black belt cinched around his sturdy waist and clean, white, laced trainers on his feet. His thick, chocolate-brown hairwas flowing over the top curves of his ears and over his head as if he’d run his hand through it. It had been like that since the morning, so fucking effortlessly set it was annoying. And with the way he held his black coat, hooked over his left shoulder on two fingers, he really thought he was the main character.
“Hi,” Esmeralda said once we were beside Kai.
Kai’s dimple appeared deep in his right cheek as he smiled lovingly at her. “Hello.” He glanced over her head, offering me a quick smile too. “Did you have a look at everything?”
“We did,” she answered, leaning into him.
Kai pulled his hand out of his pocket and lifted his arm, giving Esmeralda space to slip right under it. He bent his head and dropped a kiss on her hair. It was so damn cute the way he went back for a second like one wasn’t enough.
But all the cuteness was quickly forgotten when I caught TRG’s gaze slip down and linger on his pretty princess’s chest. I didn’t blame him. The dull blue, asymmetrical top she was wearing hugged her boobs, without showing any part of them, in a way that had leftmeogling her breasts, so it was no surprise Kai couldn’t keep his gaze away. They—shelooked deliciously hot.
“Have you been standing here the whole time?” Esmeralda asked.
“No. We had a look around too.” Kai looked to Shehryar for agreement, and he nodded. “Should we move to the next room?”
Esmeralda looked to me for an answer. “Yeah, let’s go,” I said.
Hand in hand, my adorable royal babies led the way through the large open doorway into the next room. It was in the gothic red and black style of the previous room with gold-painted vines carved all over the ceiling and bigTregency-style windows along the right side, but it was far longer, almost like a massive hallway.
Esmeralda and Kai headed right around a line of black columns with different vases balanced atop them ahead of us, but I stopped to look at them.
“Mariyah?” Esmeralda called softly, twisted slightly away from Kai, waiting for me to join them.
Oh, my sweet little Ez.
I flashed her a smile. “Go with your man, Ez. I’m gonna walk this way around.” I lifted a finger. “Wait! Actually, don’t move.” Swinging my camera into my right hand, I levelled it roughly in front of my chest, then snapped a picture of Kai adoringly staring at Esmeralda like he was in his own little world. If it hadn’t been for the flash, I doubted he would’ve realised I’d taken a picture.
“Okay, you can go now,” I said. “You can collect the picture at the other end.”
I winked and walked off to the glass display case on my left. I held on to the camera until the blank film fell into my waiting hand, then let it hang from the band around my left wrist. With the picture pinched between my fingers as the image developed, I leisurely looked around the display cabinets.
At some point, I swapped the printed photo for my phone and snapped a few pictures of the artifacts, the general room, and some candid ones of Kai and Esmeralda too.
I was slowly rotating around on the spot, taking a three-sixty video of the room to send in my family’s group chat when a black brick wall got in the way and ruined the clip.
My lashes snapped up, and I didn’t mean to, but an irritated grumble vibrated in my throat.
Stupid fucking Shehryar.
