Page 115 of Tall, Royal and Grumpy

“You mean like the floor-length bear suit you’re wearing?” I buried the toothy curl taking over my mouth behind the collar as his death glare became death-glare-two-point-oh. A muffled giggle bubbled from me. “Oh, come on.” I lifted my chin and leaned into him. “You worry too much, Mr Perfect Prince. My jacket is fluffy and warm, I promise.” I took one of his hands in both of mine and tugged at it. “So, shall we go now? You told Jorge we’d be there ten minutes ago.”

He looked like was going to grumble something else but then he pursed his lips into a thin line and huffed a long exhale through his nose. “Fine. Let’s go.” He dropped his head and I rose up on my toes. Our mouths mashed together in the middle. “If it starts raining, we’re leaving immediately.”

“We can further discuss that if it rains.”

“Babble,” he warned. But I was already swivelling away with a flick of my hair, pulling him along towards the arched garden doors.

We had only made it two steps when, “Princess Esmeralda.”

I came to abrupt halt, my gaze flying across my shoulder. A cold pebble slipped down through the middle of my ribcage and settled in my stomach as a pair of ice blue eyes greeted me.

“Sully,” I said as I faced the tall, slim older man who’d worked as a secretary for Jahandar’s royal family since before I was born.

Kareem’s private secretary, Sully, hinged at the waist in a bow, then clasped his white-gloved hands in front of his navy-blue suit trousers. “I apologise for interrupting, Your Highness, but His Majesty, King Kareem, sent me to find you after you didn’t answer your phone,” he said, his full, neatly groomed moustache moving more than his paper-thin upper lip.

Another cold pebble fell through me. Kareem…called me?

Shoving my free hand into my coat pocket, I pulled my phone out and my heart did an odd wobble. There was a missed call notification on the screen with His Majesty under it.

Another pebble tumbled through me, knocking against my bones as it did.

Kareem didn’t call me. Kareem never called. Not directly at least. If he wanted to speak to me, he always rang me through Shehryar. If it was official, I received an impersonal email from him. That was it. Nothing else. Never anything else.

“Oh.” The sound slipped from my mouth as a breath. I lifted my head, searching Sully’s poker face for an answer but not a single one of his wrinkles twitched out of place. “Is something the matter?”

“His Majesty has requested to see you, Ma’am, and His Highness, Prince Kai, in his room.”

A handful of icy pebbles scattered through me, and I tensed under the light battering. Then the usual feeling of centipedes, eels, snakes, and worms wriggling all over each other inside me whenever Kareem asked to see me rose instantly.

I was supposed to feel reassured by the new hope of reconciliation these past few days had given me. But years of bad experiences had conditioned this anxious reaction and there was no off switch that could put a stop to it immediately.

I felt a strong pressure around my hand and my attention dropped to the security being offered by the callused palm pressed against mine. And up to the owner.

A fiery resolve, a promise, and reassurance all rolled into one radiated from Kai. My shoulders eased as it wrapped around me.

Maybe it was just about us? Me and Kai. Our relationship. It had to be. That was probably the only reason Kareem wanted to see the both of us. So, it was fine. Everything was fine.

Holding onto those three words, I smiled at Sully. “Just give us a moment to take our coats off.”

* * *

“Your Majesty,” Sully said into the dark wood of Kareem’s bedroom door and Kareem’s softened call from the inside came within seconds. The older man opened the door for me and Kai to enter.

I hadn’t really paid attention to the interior the last time I was there, but the room Kareem had been given was massive. It was two connected rooms actually. A sitting room immediately through the entrance and a larger bedroom on the right, divided by a rectangular cutout in the wall. In the sitting room, there was a desk perpendicular in the far right corner, and two red velvet sofas opposite the window close to the door. There was a dark oak coffee table between them and a closed laptop on top of the polished surface.

Kareem was sat on the sofa facing the same direction as the door, looking worn and quiet. When I saw who else was there, the collapse of my heart to the floor made me stumble to a stop.

Shehryar was there. Standing with his hands clasped before his black chinos to the left of the red velvet sofa, opposite the one Kareem was sitting on. He wasn’t frowning, but there was a cautious alertness in his piercing pale green eyes, his six-foot-five frame pulled rigid.

I knew instantly then something was wrong, and dread seeped through my skin as a cold sweat.

“Your Majesty,” Kai said from next to me with a bow of his head once Sully closed the door.

Kareem offered Kai a pursed-lip smile and a nod. Belatedly, I remembered to bow too, but I couldn’t seem to get my mouth to unhinge to speak when my brother’s gaze trained on me. It was intense with something I didn’t recognise on him.

“Come, take a seat, please,” Kareem said, gesturing to the sofa opposite him.

Kai’s gentle push on my lower back urged me forward with a promise to be there right behind me, so I moved like I was walking a plank. I went around the sofa one way, and Kai went around the other, passing Shehryar. We sat down next to each other with a slither of space between us.

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