Chapter 35
Mariyah
E verything, every-fucking-thing , had been finalised to working, scheduled perfection yesterday. I’d made sure of it all myself, triple-checking everything.
Yet somehow, the very next day, less than two hours before the ceremony was to begin, everything was falling apart and going kaput .
“What do you mean?” I questioned, staring wide-eyed at Prince Adam.
“Uh…” The boy’s gaze sheepishly darted past me, then he winced. “The projector isn’t connecting to the laptop.” My shoulders sank. “Kai’s gone to get his own laptop, and we’ll try on that, but…”
“Fucking—but it was working perfectly fine yesterday,” I rumbled and charged past him with the skirt of my dress scrunched in one fist. I heard Adam’s footsteps follow behind.
The wedding ceremony was being held in the smallest of four public rooms in Chaukham Palace, though it wasn’t exactly what I’d call small.
It was a spacious ballroom with a gorgeous waxed dark wooden floor, an intricately painted ceiling, four big gold chandeliers, and the same red-and-gold patterned walls that matched the basement. Six big windows lined the left wall with dark gold velvet curtains tucked around them. Large, old paintings of animals, people, and landscapes between ornaments decorated the other two walls. On the far wall, an arched decorative nook was cut and shaped out from the wall, giving the vibe of a flower bud on the verge of opening with two chainmail armours sitting on either side.
The head of the wedding was set up before the arch with a small table draped in an ivory cloth and decorated with a flamboyant display of red and white flowers and the small lanterns Esmeralda and I had found at Falasteen Market the other day. A metre before the table, ceramic vases full of red and white flowers sat atop two ivory columns that weighed fucking ten tonnes. A rose-red carpet was rolled out to the arched entrance, where two more columns and flower vases sat. I owed half the guys from all the security teams my life for their help with moving them.
Seventy chairs were in rows of seven on each side of the carpet, and everyone who wasn’t getting ready or cooking in the kitchen was whizzing around and between them, helping with last-minute decorations and tidying and whatnot. The bride and groom were with Queen Leila, Gigi, and King Rami, respectively, while Candy and his assistants helped get them ready.
The projector was set up by the chairs and angled towards the front so that Katiya’s parents, still in Jahandar, and my parents too could watch the wedding, and so Katiya could see them too. But if it didn’t work, then a daughter would go without having her parents present at her wedding, official or not, which was fucking unacceptable.
I jabbed the “ Find Source” button on the mini projector angled towards the rolled-out screen. Impatiently tapping my slipper on the floor, I watched the little square icon flash in and out slowly while the projector tried to find the laptop connected to it. But after a dozen or so seconds, it flashed the words “ Source not found ” in place of the icon.
“No, no, no,” I grumbled and picked up the laptop. “Don’t fucking do this to me, please.” I yanked out the HDMI cable, blew on it like I was casting a spell, and then shoved it back into the slot.
“Kai’s laptop normally works with this projector, so don’t worry,” Adam offered.
I smiled, but it felt more like a grimace. “I hope so. But then I’m gonna have to sort the Room app on there too.”
“If you tell me the email and password, I can set it up.”
“That would be—”
Someone crashed into the room, whipping several heads up and around, including mine.
Michael, Kai’s equerry married to the head pastry chef, Roger, righted the chair he knocked over. With an attempt to mask the look of panic on his boyish, freckled face, he headed straight for Esmeralda at the back, laying the last of the lanterns on the table at the head of the room with Fay.
Dread dripped down my spine.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. What now?
“Adam,” I said as I rapidly set the laptop down on the table. I opened up a new document to type on. “I’m going to leave you with the email and password, and then I’ll come back to check, okay?”
“Okay.”
I barely spared a second to give him a grateful smile before I hiked the skirt of my dress in my hands and rushed towards the small table.
Michael was dressed in a crisp black suit. Fay was in his dark blue suit trousers and white shirt, but his waistcoat, blazer, and tie were missing. And Esmeralda looked gorgeous in the deep blood-red dress Candy had designed for her, but her makeup was missing some final touches.
“…it just means the painting can’t go on the table yet,” Michael finished, unable to keep still.
“What do you mean the painting can’t go on the table yet?” I asked.
Michael swerved around wide-eyed, and Esmeralda and Fay grimaced. “It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine, really. I came to assure you of that,” he said rapidly with waves of his hands.
I gritted my teeth. “What happened?”
He pulled in a deep breath. “A chunk of the cake fell off while they were setting it on the table, but luckily Lola was there so she caught it, and now Roger, Pierre, and her are fixing it, but they need the table for now, so I was told to come tell Prince Fay to delay grabbing the painting for twenty minutes.”
My brain just about kept up with his word vomit, and the more he spoke, the narrower I squinted as a hard pulse throbbed in my temple. “The cake, what?” I asked slowly.
Michael gulped as Esmeralda stepped up beside him. “I’m sure it’s fine—Mariyah!”
I swung around and charged off down the rolled-out carpet towards the exit. Michael followed closely behind me, assuring me repeatedly it was fine, but I ignored him. I had to see for myself.
Around the corner was the entrance to the public dining hall, where the reception and dinner were being held. And situated in the bottom corner of that room was the round table positioned against a rectangular table, both draped in an ivory-coloured cloth.
There was in fact a big vanilla sponge chunk missing from the middle tier of the four-tiered wedding cake where Roger was working in a thin layer of buttercream over the crumbled side. On the rectangular table, Lola and Pierre were trying to hide the evidence of the mishap on the broken chunk, while Shehryar watched with his hands on his hips.
Nothing about the situation looked fine . It looked like a fucking surgery theatre.
“What the fuck happened?”
Four heads turned in my direction, and their faces fell.
“Michael, you had one job,” Lola, the second sous chef, said, shaking her head of red curly locks.
“I know, but she saw me so what was I supposed to do?” Michael defended, and Pierre grinned, shaking his head.
“What happened to the cake?” I said again, moving closer.
Shehryar’s hulking body appeared in front of me to my side, and he banded an arm across my stomach, gently slowing me down to a stop. “It’s okay, Mariyah. They’re fixing it.”
“Okay?” I echoed in disbelief. “Shehryar, half the cake is on the other table. How the fuck does that look okay to you?”
“Hey,” Pierre said, his voice soft with reassurance. “Don’t you trust me, Mar? We won’t let you down. We’ll have it fixed before the guests arrive. I promise.”
“We will,” Lola confirmed with a positive grin. “And it’ll look like nothing ever happened to it.”
But the stress was winding me up so tight, I wanted to pull at my hair. The only thing stopping me was reminding myself I had pins holding my curled hair in place that I had yet to take out.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I repeated more for myself than for them as I looked around the dining hall, checking if anything else looked amiss.
“You haven’t finished getting ready yet,” Shehryar then said.
“Yeah, no shit,” I said without looking at him. “We’re behind as it is, and things are fucking falling apart. The projector wouldn’t connect to the laptop, so Kai went to get his, and I’ve left him and Adam to login for the Room call. Fay still needs to put the painting on the table but can’t because of the cake. Bruno needs to finish decorating the table where Nur is going to officiate the ceremony. And—” Realisation smacked me in the face. “The fucking petals. They’re still in the bags.”
I swung around searching for someone who could help me distribute the petals.
Shehryar wrapped a hand around my wrist. “Come with me.”
Before I could argue, he was already gently pulling me away from the table towards the exit. I shook my wrist in his hand, trying to free myself. “Shehryar, I don’t have time to—”
“You need to finish getting ready before the guests arrive.”
“I will after I make sure everything’s in order first.”
But he didn’t let go, not even when he stopped in the archway of the wedding ceremony room and stepped in halfway.
“Princess Esmeralda,” he called in.
“Yes?” she replied, though I couldn’t see her.
“Could you please come out into the hallway?”
“Of course,” she sang. “Give me a second.”
He nodded, and then we were off again, heading towards the end of the corridor.
“Shehryar, I seriously don’t have the fucking time,” I grumbled.
More than halfway to the end of the corridor, he tugged me to the wall and crowded me in.
I angled my chin high and stubborn. “I’m going back in there.”
“No.” He nodded his head in the opposite direction. “You’re going upstairs with Esmeralda to finish getting ready.”
“ Shehryar .”
“It’s just the projector—”
“And the petals and cake and painting. I can’t just—”
“Shh.”
I gaped, taken aback. “Did you just—”
“Shut the fuck up, Mariyah.” I clapped my lips together and glared. He smirked in satisfaction, but his voice softened. “You’re going to go upstairs with Esmeralda and finish getting ready, and I’ll watch over everything else.” He shook his head as he traced one set of fingers along my jaw. “You’ve done all you could to make the wedding look great, and a few mishaps are not going to take away from that. Everyone knows what they’re doing, so let them get on with it while you take care of yourself.”
“But the guests are going to be here soon—”
“I can’t help with the cake or flowers, but I’ll make sure the painting is on the table as it should be if Prince Fay can’t. And tell me where the petals are. I’ll sort those out too.”
I huffed out a breath, annoyed with his high-handed behaviour, but his encouraging assurance was making it so easy to consider relying on him. “Fine,” I uttered. “They’re in four pink boxes at the back of the ceremony room under the last window. They need to be put into a bowl so everyone who wants to throw them can grab a handful. And then the rest need to be put into the two baskets for Alisha and Zain’s kids to carry. And the stand for the painting is under the table.”
“Okay.”
I narrowed my eyes and jabbed a finger into his sternum. “And just because I’m listening to you this once, doesn’t mean you get to boss me around again.” His lips slowly spread wider. “Don’t fucking get used to it.” And wider. “I won’t be told what to do again.” And wider.
“Hmm,” he hummed, his palm slipping across my jaw as he started leaning in.
I drew back, even as I circled my other arm around his neck. “I’m serious.” I angled my mouth under his. “If you ever try to—hmm.”
He settled his lips so softly over mine that I couldn’t help but moan and melt against the wall. I wanted to yank him closer, but I resisted crumpling either of our clothes and allowed him to kiss me slowly and thoroughly. By the time it fizzled out into repeated long pecks, I felt lighter than air.
“You look beautiful, little menace,” he rasped, brushing a lock of my loose bangs off my forehead.
His voice tugged at my belly, and I smiled breathlessly as I played with the ends of his hair at his nape. “You don’t look bad yourself, dickhead.”
He looked so much better than not bad . He looked fucking gorgeous.
His tall, bull-sized frame was clad in a suit that was the duller blood-red equivalent to Esmeralda’s dress. I wasn’t sure where he’d left the blazer, but the finely fitted waistcoat tapered from his broad chest to his narrower waist like a second layer of skin. Tucked into his matching suit pants was a black collared shirt and tie paired with freshly polished black shoes.
Candy had seriously done Shehryar justice with both the fit and colour, though I knew for sure the colour wouldn’t have been Shehryar’s first choice. But bloody fucking Neves, did it suit him. It complemented his golden skin tone, plus with the way his flowy hair was combed back, one lock kissing his temple, and the neat trim of his beard, he looked undeniably droolworthy.
I felt a little proud looking at him. Maybe a tiny, tiny bit possessive too.
That’s mine .
Not that I’d tell him. Yet .
But that was just the game we enjoyed playing with each other.
Shehryar’s glowing eyes darkened. “I’m pissed off though.”
I arched a brow. “Why?”
“Because…” He skated the hand that had found my hip mid-kiss around to my arse. “The dress you’re wearing was made by Candy, and it feels like you’re wearing a part of him. Thinking about it is driving me fucking mad.” He gave my arse a greedy, lifting squeeze. “I want to rip it to shreds.”
“Don’t you dare,” I warned with a smug grin. “I like this dress, and I look fucking great in it.”
“You do.” His claiming gaze tracked down my decolletage and up again. “But please, menace. Make this easier for me—go get your gorgeous ass ready so I can show everyone that you’re mine even if you’re wearing his label.”
An excited gasp cut through the hot rawness of the atmosphere between us. We both looked down the corridor.
Esmeralda, barely out of the threshold of the public room, slapped a hand over her mouth and giggled into her palm. “Apologies,” she said after dropping her hand. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I can come back in a minute.”
“No,” Shehryar said. He took his time to extract his arms from around me, letting me drop mine too. “You two need to finish getting ready.”
Esmeralda sauntered over, her smile growing impossibly wider with each step.
“Can you drop the creepy-ass grin please?” I said, but a reluctant smile played across my lips. I was surprised she wasn’t bouncing off the walls with how happy she looked.
“No, I can’t,” she declared, and I rolled my eyes.
And Shehryar? He was brushing a thumb across his nose, hiding a big, fat smirk.