Chapter 10
Mariyah
“ D amn, the man has taste,” I said as I cradled Esmeralda’s hand in both of mine.
After several minutes of chaotic excitement, Esmeralda and I climbed onto my bed and got comfortable against the pillows and cushions so she could explain everything, though most of it came out in mixed-up, babbled sentences.
I was still in shock and awe, but by the look and sound of it, so was Esmeralda.
“I know,” she breathed out, her glazed stare locked on the ring. “The thing is, he kept looking through my jewellery when he came to Jahandar last time, but I never assumed it was because…”
“He was going to propose,” I finished. She nodded dazedly.
Kai really did deserve a pat on the back. He’d chosen according to what he’d seen inside Esmeralda’s jewellery boxes, and it spoke volumes for how much he cared for her.
The ring itself was in a beautiful cushion-cut style, a rounded square diamond bordered in glittering smaller ones, set on a simple, deep gold band that complemented her warm skin tone. It was elegant and delicate but still made a statement on her slim manicured hand, because it screamed her name.
“Fuck.” I chuckled breathlessly and released her hand. “You’re bloody engaged, Ez.”
Her cheeks glowed as she cradled her fingers. “I know…”
“How the fuck did this happen?”
“I don’t know…”
“This is insane.”
“I know,” she said, eyes tearing over. “I really thought I was going to die, Mar. Like my heart was going to stop from too much joy. I couldn’t believe he was on one knee, but at the same time, it felt so right. Like everything had been leading up to that moment. And I know some people might think it’s too quick, but I have never been more certain of anything in my life.” She smiled light-heartedly. “So much so, I said yes even before he’d finished asking.”
I let out an overexaggerated gasp. “No, you didn’t!”
“I did,” she said through an embarrassed laugh. “I was so excited I forgot to wait.”
A tear escaped as I chuckled. “What an ego boost for him though,” I said, wiping the happy dampness from under my eyes. “I bet TRG was grinning like a fool after.”
“He was.” She sighed down at the ring, an aching, adoring look melting her expression.
My heart turned squishy in delight too, but something about her expression reminded me of her earlier panic. “So, did you scare me shitless this morning because you were excited to tell me?”
“Partly, yes. But…” She sighed again, but this one wasn’t as happy sounding.
“Do you regret saying yes?”
“No,” Esmeralda said immediately and firmly. “No, not at all. I want to marry Kai, and only ever him. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. But when he woke me up to tell me he was going to the gym, I was lying there after, staring at the ring, and I…”
“You felt overwhelmed?”
“Kind of. But it was more like the reality of life hit me hard.”
I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”
She looked me dead in the eyes. “I can’t marry him.”
I opened my mouth, pursed it again, and straightened my head. “Come again.”
Her lips rolled into a smile, not making her seem uncomfortable, but it wasn’t exactly a comforting smile either. “I can’t marry Kai. Yet .”
Okay. Yet. That’s slightly better. But my entire being still warred against the idea of her being unable to marry the guy she’d been in love with for over six years before finally making him hers.
“Oh, fuck no,” I said, sitting upright and angry. “Why not? Why the fuck can’t you marry him? Yes, you damn can. No one can stop you, Ez, and I’ll rip them to shreds if they—”
“Hold on, Mariyah,” Esmeralda said, giving my knees a squeeze and a shake. “Let me explain.”
“Yes, explain. Quickly. Because I’m about to lose my shit.”
She grinned. “I can’t marry Kai yet because we’re both crown prince and princess—”
“So what?”
“Mar! Listen first.”
“Sorry. Carry on.”
She started again with an exhale. “Kai and I can’t get married yet because under international law, written at the time of the Peace Treaty, a royal heir from one state cannot marry the royal heir of another state. It goes against what the treaty stood for because it compromises the independent rule of the states if two royal heirs are in power of two different states together. It’s not allowed for the sake of political stability.”
“So, then what? You can’t marry him at all?”
“I can marry him, but one of us has to give up being heir first. Essentially, we have to pick—does he leave his title and come to Jahandar, or do I give up mine to rule with him in Touma.”
“Oh. That…that’s not so bad.” I searched her expression. “Right?”
“It’s not bad, but it’s not doable right at this moment.” She shook her head. “I can’t ask Kai to give up his claim to the Touman throne when he’s the only one out of his brothers who genuinely wants it. But neither can I renounce my claim because there is no other Jahandari heir.
“Kareem isn’t married, and he doesn’t have any children, but we don’t have any immediate cousins of royal blood either. Our aunty—Father’s only sibling—didn’t have children. And when it took so long for the conservative politicians to accept Kareem as king because he was so young, despite having been raised for the role, I doubt they would ever accept someone several places down in the line to the throne as his heir, who hasn’t had any experience of ruling.” She scoffed lightly. “I understand now why they call it the ‘ Royal Blood Curse .’ The last a hundred and fifty years or so have been tough for Jahandar’s line of succession.”
A heavy silence followed as I processed the frustrating truth of what Esmeralda told me.
“Damn,” I muttered, my brows knitting together. “I didn’t realise royal marriages were so heavily influenced by politics. I mean, no, I did, but I thought that was a thing of the past. Not something you would have to consider now.” My best friend nodded, fiddling with her engagement ring, and my attention dropped to it. “But you know he would, right? You wouldn’t even have to ask; Kai would give up his title in a split second to spend the rest of his life with you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But it wouldn’t be fair on his brothers, and I’d hate myself if they ever grew bitter towards him because of it. I know what it’s like to have a bad relationship with your sibling, and I wouldn’t want to put Kai through that when he’s so close to them. It would destroy him.”
“Okay, fine. Fay might not be interested at all, but Adam’s still young. He might change his mind.”
“That’s true. But it could take years for Adam to change his mind, and that’s if he does.”
“So, what’s the other option?”
She shrugged. “Kareem gets married and has a baby. But that could take years too.”
Esmeralda stared at me. I stared back. She curled her bottom lip in. And I puffed my cheeks out.
“I mean…I’d be more than happy to volunteer to marry your brother and have his babies if that’s what you’re asking. It wouldn’t exactly be a chore.”
A surprised laugh burst from her mouth before she scrunched her face in disgust. “No, that wasn’t what I was asking.”
“Okay. Then, I’m offering.”
“Don’t offer! Stop offering.” I fell sideways against the pillow laughing when she shoved me. “And you would hate being queen anyway.”
“Probably.” I smirked suggestively. “But I wouldn’t hate being with Kareem.”
“Mar!” She slapped my thigh. “Stop.”
“Ow,” I cried through a laugh. “It’s your fault for having a hot brother.”
Esmeralda rolled her eyes but chuckled with me. When our laughter died away, her expression watered down too. “I’m kind of scared, Mar,” she said. “Being apart from Kai is already so hard; I don’t think I could wait years to marry him on top of that. But I’m not sure I have any other choice.”
An ache tore through my chest, and I reacted to it, practically straddling her lap to lock her in a hug. “My beautiful, baby girl, you are not going to have to wait years to marry Kai. We’ll set Kareem up on a dating app and find him a girl ASAP.” She giggled against my shoulder, and I absolutely loved the sound. “Maybe he already has a secret girl? He’s coming tomorrow, isn’t he? Talk to him. Maybe he’ll have a solution we haven’t thought of yet.”
“Hmm, I will.” She squeezed me tighter. “Thanks, Mar.”
“No thanks needed, dude.”
“I know. But I feel like I’ve been dumping a lot on you recently, so thank you.”
The little forgotten knot of anxiety from the previous night made a quiet appearance, taking signal from the opening she had offered me. I hesitated to take it immediately.
“You haven’t been dumping, but…I can return the favour if you want,” I mumbled.
Esmeralda slowly pulled back to look at me. “Tell me.”
We hauled the duvet over our legs and got comfortable against the pillows again.
“So…” I started. “I’ve had a problem for a while that I haven’t mentioned to you.”
She arched one brow teasingly. “Does this problem have anything to do with Sher?”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “ Please . He’s not a problem, just a nuisance.”
“Really, Mar?”
Something about the challenge in her eyes made my cheeks warm, but I swiped a hand between us. “This problem has nothing to do with that irritating man-child, okay.”
“Okay.” Laughter laced her tone. “But we will discuss him after this.”
“There is nothing to discuss.” Esmeralda opened her mouth, but I raised my voice and blurted, “I hate my job.”
My best friend clapped her lips together and frowned. “What do you mean? I thought…I thought it was your dream job.”
I grunted and dropped my head against my pillow. “So did I. I mean, it started off that way, but in the last year, I’ve come to absolutely hate it. Everything about it. To the point it’s been giving me anxiety, and I haven’t been able to eat properly.”
“Mariyah,” Esmeralda said, sounding somewhere between shocked and upset. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lifting my lashes, I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to burden you with my problem when you had so much going on already, especially since they’d only just been getting better too. But I also didn’t know what to say. I’m not…I’m not an anxious person. I don’t usually doubt myself or my choices, but that’s all I’ve been doing recently. And it was hard to come to terms with it myself, let alone figure out how to explain it to someone else. So, I just…kept my mouth shut.”
In the silence that followed, I glanced at Esmeralda to find her cheeks coloured pink and her eyes filled with tears. “Why the fuck are you about to cry?” I said harsher than I meant to. “Don’t fucking cry. I will punch you if you cry, Ez.”
“I’m not going to cry,” she snapped back. “I understand why you didn’t, but I’m angry at you for not telling me, and I’m angry at myself for not seeing it. And now I feel like a shit friend.” She scowled. “I cried to you on the phone about Kai so many times too, and you never said anything.”
“You’re not a shit friend, dummy.” I poked the crease between her brows. “You gave me the best escape when you invited me on this holiday, and I was so grateful for it. I really needed the break from real life, just to breathe and figure things out again. But…”
I sighed and tucked my hand back into my lap. “Mum and Dad told me about some economic analyst job in the Central Bank of Raven that they think I should apply for. But I can’t do it, Esmeralda. Just the thought of it is making me sick to my stomach again. And I know I can’t assume that because I hate my current job, I’ll hate that job too, but I don’t think moving to a different sector will make a difference. As much as I loved studying Econ at uni, career-wise, it’s not for me at all.”
“You need to tell them, Mariyah,” she said.
“I know.” I shook my head. “But they would ask me what my plans were next, and I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t know what I want anymore, and as much as I act like I only live for myself, I love my parents, Ez, and I care about what they want and expect of me. They might not voice it, but I feel it all the same, and you know what that’s like.”
Esmeralda scrunched her lips to the side as I gave her a soft smile. “I know I’m the loud and proud wild child of the family, but I don’t want to be a disappointment. I don’t want to give them a reason to think they didn’t do a great job as parents. And truthfully, it’s not just about them. I expect something of myself too…I just don’t know what that expectation is anymore.”
“I understand. I do. But you’re being a dummy too, Mar,” Esmeralda said. “Your parents will not expect you to know exactly what you want to do next immediately. They’d support you no matter what, even if you wanted to take a break.”
I knew she was right. My parents had pushed me and my older sister to work hard and strive to be and do our best, but they had never dictated what that had to look like. They had given us lots of freedom, but at the same time, they’d still had expectations of us. Now, those same expectations hung over my head like blocks of stone attached to fraying rope, threatening to crush me.
I dragged my teeth across my bottom lip, struggling to sit still while my belly churned. “A career break is supposed to end with another job lined up. I haven’t even thought about one yet.”
“Okay.” Esmeralda shuffled closer. “Then was there any aspect of the job that you did actually like, or do you want an entire career change? They’d support you if you wanted to go back to uni too.”
I sat there for a minute thinking. “I don’t want to study again. But I don’t know…I guess there were a few occasions where I had to plan networking events with a small team of others. They weren’t ever massive events, but I enjoyed them. Connecting with new people and just the whole process.”
“So, something like event planning maybe?”
“I guess…”
She smiled and nudged my arm lightly. “See. You do have some indication of what you might be interested in, which is a start. And it makes sense too because you’re great with people. Maybe event planning is something you should look into.”
I returned her smile. “Yeah, I should. I mean, I will.”
“But not right now, of course.” Esmeralda waved the idea away. “After our holiday.”
“Oh, agreed.” I nodded along with her before we both chuckled. “Thank you, Ez.”
“No thanks needed, Mar.” A mischievous grin swept over my best friend’s face as she swivelled around, crossed her legs, and shuffled closer. “So, can we talk about Shehryar now?”
“Oh, no.” I pushed the duvet off my legs and rolled away. “No, no, no, no. No.”
“Mariyah!” She managed to grab onto my forearm.
I climbed off the bed and contorted my body to turn around in her grasp, facing her at the edge of the mattress. “Nope. This conversation is over. Thank you very much for the heart to heart. Now get out and go wait naked for your boyfriend to come back—sorry, I mean, fiancé.”
“Mariyah,” Esmeralda whined through a laugh, leaning forward at a funny angle as I tried to pull my arm back. “You can’t keep running from this conversation.”
“There is no conversation, Ez. I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me. End of story.”
Her face dropped in disbelief. “How long are you going to keep lying to me?”
“I’m not lying!”
“Yes, you are! I know you like him.”
I spluttered in outrage as if she’d accused me of eating the last slice of cake she’d saved for herself—which I had, so the sound came out forced and artificial. She smirked knowingly, and rather than caught red-handed, I was caught red-in-the-fucking-face.
Esmeralda threw me off balance when she tugged on my arm. I squeaked and slammed a hand and knee to the mattress to stop myself from face-planting the silk-covered duvet.
“What the fuck?” I rumbled.
She grinned proudly. “Admit you like him.”
“Did you not hear me just now? I don’t bloody like him.”
“Okay, fine.” She tugged on my arm again, and air cracked through my shoulder joint. I gaped from my arm to her, but her eyes shone with impish determination. “I will let you go if you admit you liked him at one point and tell me what happened that made you start acting like you hate each other.”
“It’s not acting,” I said through gritted teeth as I tried to pry her hands off me. But fucking Neves, her nimble fingers had an insane grip. “We hate each other.”
“Stop lying and tell me.” She yanked on my forearm as if it were the cord of a steam engine’s whistle.
My other arm shook as I fought her pull, causing strain on my joints. “Bitch, my shoulder!”
“Tell me.”
“All right!”
Esmeralda instantly stopped pulling and grinned with innocent excitement. She didn’t let go of me, but there was no trace of the wicked mastermind fairy who’d just tortured me for information.
“Go on,” she encouraged sweetly, and my hanging mouth slackened further.
I pulled my lips into a snarl and narrowed my eyes. “Does your fiancé know how evil you are behind this bullshit innocent facade?”
“Of course,” she said, chin tipped and brow audaciously arched like the fucking queen in the making she was. “But he has permission to punish me in a way you do not.”
I choked on a shocked sound as my brows flew up. I angled my head, trying to think of something to say, but I was coming up blank. I shook it off. “Do you know what? I’ll let you have that.” I nodded in acknowledgment. “Good on you, girl. Get the spanking you want.” Esmeralda’s grin deepened, and I rolled my eyes with a reluctant smile. “You gonna let go now, so I can sit down?”
“Will you tell me?”
“Yeah, I will, you stubborn little bitch.” She let go, and I huffed in mock annoyance and climbed back onto the bed. She shuffled closer, and I let out a resigned breath. “Yes, fine. I, once upon a time, in first year, liked your stupid-ass bodyguard, private secretary, whatever he is. But he shut me down.”
Her brows lifted in surprise. “You told him?”
“No. He assumed—not that he assumed wrong—and told me I was a spoiled brat who he only put up with because you cared about me, and that nothing I’d do would make him want me. So, I threw some insults back and might have said something about his dad, and that was the end of that.”
Esmeralda’s expression slipped and fell and plummeted to the centre of Neves throughout my explanation, all hope depleting from her posture. I held still in her silence, waiting for her to react. It took some time for the confused flicker of emotions to set into a frown.
“I can’t believe Sher would say that. You know that’s not true. At all. And he should never have said something like that to you.” She let out an adorably frustrated breath. “If I’d known, I would have set him straight immediately. Actually, I’ll—”
“No,” I said roughly. “There’s no need to bring it up after five years. It’s in the past, and I’d like it to remain there. I don’t fucking care anymore anyway.” That was partially true.
She opened her mouth to argue, but I gave her a hard stare. “Esmeralda. No.”
I felt a little mean as a drooping shadow cast over her eyes. The plucking sensation heightened when she asked, “You said something about his dad?”
It was no secret that Shehryar’s dad had ditched his mother and him when he was a child, and I wasn’t exactly proud of the fact that I’d used that knowledge to hit him where it hurt most.
I gave a small, shameful shrug. “He hurt me, so I lashed out. And I regretted it. But he ignored me and was so bloody rude when I tried to apologise that I didn’t bother again. I decided if he thought I was a bitch, then I was gonna act like it. And it kind of just escalated over the years into mutual abhorrence for each other.”
That hatred wasn’t going to change. The past few days had solidified that fact.
After a minute of silence, Esmeralda shook her head. “You’re both idiots, do you know that?” I pushed my lips into a defensive scrunch. “You turned one angry moment into five years of animosity, and for what? Because you don’t truly hate each other.”
My face deadpanned. “Are you not getting it on purpose? Or is this a side effect of getting engaged?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not blind, Mariyah. You two may act like you can’t stand each other, but it is very obvious how you look at each other.”
A wary stillness fell over me. “What does that mean?”
The girl opened her mouth, stopped, and pressed it closed. Like some cartoon character, her lips spread and spread, up and up, until a creepy grin took over her features.
“I think I’ll let you figure that out on your own,” she chimed.
“No, no. Tell me. I insist.”
“Now who’s being dense on purpose? Or is this the side effect of misplaced hatred?” she parroted with a teasing tilt of her head.
My face fell. “Don’t be a bitch.”
She patted my knee. “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”
I shook my head. “Esmeralda, don’t bloody piss me off.”
She fucking giggled, and it snapped loose a wild need to know what she meant.
Did Shehryar look at me in a certain way?
Did I look at him in some way too? Seriously? How? In what way?
I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Bitch, fucking tell me.”
Esmeralda threw her head back and cackled loudly, but she didn’t break no matter what I tried.