Chapter 9
Mariyah
W e returned to Chaukham Palace late in the evening after grabbing a takeaway dinner on the way back. Kai and Esmeralda went to their room, I couldn’t have cared less where Shehryar went, and I showered and changed in my bedroom before getting comfortable on the bed to ring my mum.
“Hello, Mar,” Mum answered.
“Hello,” I replied. “You guys still at work, or…”
“ Or is the option I’d go for,” I heard Dad’s voice in the background.
I chuckled, slightly confused. “Hey Dad.”
Mum must’ve put it on speaker because Dad’s voice loudened. “Hello, Mar. How are you?”
“Great. But what did you mean by that? Didn’t you go to work today?”
“Something like that,” Dad said, a little harrumph in his voice. “Dear, would you like to tell Mar what you did?”
I grinned up at the chandelier. My dad had a dry sense of humour to match his stoic personality, but my mum matched that with her flamboyant flare and sass. It was easy to spot that I’d inherited the loud, sassy, sarcastic traits from the two of them, while my older sister, Lily, had Mum’s passion with Dad’s quiet attention to detail in love and life.
“Mum?” I said slowly, laughingly. “What did you do?”
She huffed. “Oh, nothing for your dad to be such a moody bum about.”
“She booked us a four-day trip by the coast and didn’t even tell me until she whipped out a suitcase this morning and gave me an hour to pack,” Dad explained, sounding exactly like a moody bum. “And she booked it a week ago. We are now in the car driving there.”
Ah . No wonder Dad sounded stressed. He liked well-thought-out plans made weeks if not months in advance, while Mum, on the other hand, liked planning one day and doing it the next.
“Had I told you sooner, you would have refused to go, but you needed the rest, Gerald. Tell your dad, Mar.”
“Rest is important too, Dad,” I said. “And you and Mum haven’t been on a holiday together at all this year, so it’ll be fun.”
Dad sighed. “We haven’t, have we?”
I shook my head in silent agreement as Mum said, “No, we have not.”
I heard the soft sound of a kiss. “So, how was your day, sweetie?” Mum added.
“It was great…”
I told them about the museum and art gallery, skipping the obvious details about Shehryar until Dad asked about him, because for some reason, they were best buds.
“On our way back, Prince Kai mentioned a famous market—”
“The Falasteen Market,” Dad said like he was reciting a travel book. “It’s been the open-air mall and trade centre of Pavilion City since the end of the Great Rebellion.”
I snapped my mouth shut. “Yep, probably that one. He said it was really big though, so we’ll probably spend a whole afternoon there.”
“Make sure you get the kids a few souvenirs,” said Mum. “ The kids ” were Lily and my brother-in-law’s three children and their new baby girl, only three months old.
“Wouldn’t dare forget.”
“And if you find any of Touma’s famous loose-leaved jasmine tea—”
“Three boxes. I remember.”
“That’s my girl.” I could hear the grin in Mum’s voice. “Okay, you rest up now, and we’ll—”
“Wait,” Dad quickly said. “Tell her about the job.”
Job? A knot started tightening around my chest, causing me to hold my breath.
“She doesn’t need to think about it now,” Mum said.
“No, but there’s no harm in letting her know.”
The anxiety rising to my throat didn’t agree, but I dared to ask, “What job?”
“Remember your dad’s friend, Patch?” Mum said, and I hummed quietly. “Well, we saw him yesterday, and he told your father about a job opening at the Central Bank that you might be interested in.”
One knot turned into two sickening knots.
“It’s for the position of economic analyst,” Dad said. “A more senior role, but he said with your experience, you’d be more than capable. It would be a great step in your career too.”
“But,” Mum quickly added, “you’re currently on vacation, so you don’t need to worry about applying or anything. We just wanted to let you know so you had time to decide if you were interested because the application deadline is mid-December.”
I should’ve told them I didn’t need time to think—I didn’t want to apply. But I couldn’t say it.
I gulped slowly and forced myself to smile even though they couldn’t see me. “Thanks Mum. I’ll definitely think about it.”
“Great,” she chirped. “Okay, well then, you sleep well and ring us again tomorrow.”
“You too. And let me know when you get to the coast safely.”
“Will do. Bye, Mar. We love you.”
“Love you,” Dad said at the same time.
“Love you too guys.”
When she cut the call, I let my phone slip out of my hand and bounce on the bed next to me. I dropped my head back against the wooden headboard and stared at the gold-corniced ceiling.
It was as if my insides were being twisted and untwisted like an aluminium can as I breathed through the small bout of anxiety. I said small because I’d experienced far worse moments in the last six months where the unease gave me the worst stomach cramps that left me unable to eat.
Six months ago, after my twenty-third birthday, I’d moved out into the apartment my parents owned just like my sister had done nine years ago. It was quiet sometimes, but I liked the independence and the time I got to myself.
Moving out was fine. It wasn’t the problem.
My job was the problem. The reshuffle. The workload. My rubbish manager. The same old tasks. The draining day in, day out lack of feeling like I was actually achieving anything.
I’d loved studying economics in university, but nearly two years of working as an assistant economist, with the past six months being the absolute worst, made me realise that I hated it as a career.
I hated it so much that it made me sick to my stomach. And it should’ve been easy to tell my parents that I had a draft email of my resignation waiting to be sent to HR. But it wasn’t.
Because then what? If I left my job, then what? Why had I spent three years studying economics to not have a career in it?
My parents weren’t like that. Neither was Lily nor her husband, Drew. They were all high achievers, and I didn’t want to be the only failure in the family who couldn’t decide what she wanted from life. Nor did I want to be the rich kid living off her parents’ money. That wasn’t me.
But neither was I cut out for the career they wanted me to have. Even if they had never expressed that expectation aloud, I saw it in their eyes and words. And while I wouldn’t have cared if it was anyone else, they were my parents. I wasn’t brave enough to fail at the one thing they genuinely wanted me to excel at, especially not at the chance of disappointing them.
But their unspoken expectation weighed so fucking heavy on me.
So, coming to Touma with Esmeralda wasn’t just a once in a lifetime vacation. It was an escape too from the crippling burden on my shoulders—to breathe and think and relax before I faced the storm called “Trying to figure out what life I’m meant to lead” again.
But the new job my parents had sounded so enthusiastic about threw off the recalibrating I’d spent the last couple of days trying to do. And now anxiety was rearing its evil head again.
I scratched my belly, wishing I could unpick the knots inside, and sighed.
It was going to be a long fucking night.
I swore it had barely been an hour since I finally fell asleep. At least that was what it felt like when I was startled awake by my blaring ringtone the next morning.
Eyes refusing to open fully, I groaned and patted the bedside cabinet until I found the rectangular device and blindly swiped on the call. “Hello?” I croaked.
“Are you awake?” Esmeralda whispered on the other end, sounding almost breathless.
“Yeah, I’m awake now, you little bitch,” I grumbled without malice. “Why are you calling me when you should be sucking on your boyfriend’s morning wood?”
“He’s in the palace gym,” she dismissed hurriedly. “Can I come to your room? Now. Please.”
There was something about her tone that had me rolling over and frowning up at the ceiling. “Is everything okay, Ez? Did you and Kai have a fight? Do I need to punch him?”
“No, no. No.” I could hear her shaking her head. “It’s not that. But…I can’t explain over the phone.”
“Okay. Okay, come. But I’m going to need details because you’ve got me all worried now.”
She cut the call, and I sat upright, dropping my phone on the duvet to tame my hair. I combed two hands through it and tucked it behind my ears, then scrubbed my eyes and wiped the slight residue of drool from the corner of my mouth. I sat my pillows against the headboard, and—
A rapid succession of quiet knocks echoed into the room.
Bloody Neves, did she run over?
I rolled off the bed and sashayed to open the door.
Esmeralda stood there, drowning in a black hoodie I assumed belonged to Kai with shorts underneath that were barely visible and socks but no slippers. She chewed on her bottom lip, almost bouncing with an overflow of energy, but there was a glazed, nervous flicker in her eyes.
“Dude, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” I said as she shuffled in. I closed the door behind her.
She abruptly stopped near the foot of the wooden-framed bed and spun around. I couldn’t quite tell if she was a child on an overexcited high or if she was about to burst into tears.
I moved towards her cautiously. “Esmeralda, you’re scaring me. What happened?”
Filling her lungs on a long breath, she tugged one sleeve back from her fingers, paused, then raised her forearm and showed me the back of her left hand.
My brows pulled together in confusion. “What am I—”
A gasp ripped my words to shreds as I found what I was supposed to be looking at. My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and my brows disappeared into my hairline.
“Is that a fucking—”
Esmeralda closed the distance between us and slammed her palm over my mouth. “Shhh!”
I blinked and blinked again, staring cross-eyed down at the diamond on her ring finger.
Latching onto her wrist, I quickly pulled her hand off. I took in the ring one more time before I gawked at her. “Did Kai propose?”
With a shy smile, Esmeralda nodded. My jaw collapsed to the floor.
Bloody fucking Neves…