Epilogue
Mariyah
Three months later
I understood fully now why Esmeralda rang me up crying about not being able to see Kai during the months they spent apart.
I meant I had sympathised with her frustration of being in a long-distance relationship then, but now I had firsthand experience of how shit it really was.
The struggle of finding time when we were both free to call each other. The twinge of longing when we video-called but really, I wanted to be able to touch and hold Shehryar. The dwindling fun of phone sex because I couldn’t smell him or feel the heat of him around me. And the disappointment when we tried to plan a visit, but the conversation always ended prematurely with, “I can’t do that week.”
Yet, oddly, not once in the near three months since I’d last seen Shehryar did I consider calling it quits. In fact, our relationship grew more solid and my feelings even deeper day by day. And it was all because he kept true to his word, prioritising communication between us so it didn’t feel as crappy not having him close by all the time.
Shehryar didn’t wait until after New Years to head back to work with Esmeralda. He wasn’t overtly restless about it, but I noticed he was keeping in contact with Yunis much more. And while his face always twisted in distaste at the idea of leaving Raven, I knew he missed his duty too. It was his life’s work after all, and as much as I selfishly wanted to keep him with me, I didn’t want him to feel like he had to pick between me and Esmeralda.
I was the one who urged him to book his ticket to Prio for the morning of the thirty-first of December so he could accompany her to the New Year’s party. Little did I know that he’d booked a ticket for me immediately after, having planned with Esmeralda to add me to the soiree’s guest list. I was confused as fuck when my parents arrived at my apartment, claiming they were dropping both of us off at the airport, when I’d been preparing myself to drive Shehryar and say my goodbyes.
I’d been pleasantly surprised, but I’d also been pissed that he hadn’t given me any time to pack. Only to discover that he’d already packed a small suitcase with basics and a party outfit and given it to my parents to hide at my family home. I wasn’t sure what I’d been more baffled by, the fact he’d paired my shoes, dress, and jewellery perfectly, or that I hadn’t once noticed that some of my possessions were going missing, considering I’d been officially unemployed and at home with him for nearly a week.
Nevertheless, I’d had a great night with him, Esmeralda, Kai, Kareem, and all the royals of Touma. But on the evening of the very next day, he went back to Jahandar with Esmeralda, and I flew back in the opposite direction to Raven.
I lasted about one week of joblessness into the new year before I asked my parents to onboard me as the events and networking admin in their firm. As much as I fit right in and fell in love with my role, things had been super hectic with meeting clients and planning a schedule of events for the year.
Shehryar had been just as busy, travelling Jahandar with Esmeralda to her meetings and public appearances. But only as her private secretary. After a lot of back and forth between him and her, that I somehow ended up being the mediator of, Shehryar handed over full rein of her security to Yunis, allowing him to focus solely on managing her schedule.
He’d also kept in touch with his dad and had even met up with him twice. It was slow progress, understandably so, but I’d noticed the way he sounded less and less tense on the phone when he told me about Andrew Platmon. He was getting on a lot better with his half-sister, Ablah, and Esmeralda and I spoke to her a lot too. The same couldn’t have been said for her brother, Johnny. Shehryar hadn’t spoken to him since their fight, and it hadn’t seemed like that was going to change any time soon.
But before either of us knew it, Shehryar turned twenty-eight and Esmeralda twenty-four, the Peace Celebrations in Khaas came and went, and the end of March was in sight.
Yet not one of our plans to visit each other had managed to work past the discussion stage.
It was frustrating and soul-crushingly disappointing, but if I’d learnt anything from my five years of being irritatingly hung up on him even when I didn’t want to be, it was that Shehryar Dickhead Timur was worth the wait, and I wasn’t planning on letting him go any time soon.
So, it was no surprise that I was bloody annoyed when on the day of my birthday, Shehryar went radio-fucking-silent on me without warning.
Not a single message from him had popped up in my phone’s notifications amongst the birthday wishes from friends and family. Not one. Not a “Sorry, baby, I’m busy so my replies might be slow.” Not even a fucking good morning.
He hadn’t even read my “Is everything okay?” text!
I rubbed my teeth together as I stared down at the empty notification bar on the lock screen for the hundredth time since I’d woken up and gotten ready for work.
Brows crinkling, I let out an exasperated sigh and thumped my mobile face down on the white laminate desk I was sitting at in the office before setting my fingers over the keyboard. There was an email open on the large black monitor that I’d been trying to reply to for the last fifteen minutes, but being so pissed with Shehryar, I was struggling to concentrate on my work.
What the fuck are you doing that you can’t even drop your girlfriend a quick happy birthday message, huh? Fucking dickhead.
I doubted he’d forgotten. Shehryar wasn’t forgetful, plus he had a calendar entry for everything—we’d spoken about it less than a week ago too. I hadn’t been demanding, hadn’t fucking asked for anything or for him to come see me, but I’d expected some sort of message of acknowledgment at the very least. Apparently, even that was asking for too much.
“It’s your birthday today, so why are you grumbling and sighing like your enemy stole your man?” someone said in the desk chair next to me, snatching me away from my irritated train of thought.
“Huh?” I said as I snapped my head around.
Priya, the twenty-eight-year-old social media manager of my parent’s company, cocked a dark brown brow in amusement. “I said, it’s your birthday, so why do you keep sighing so much?”
Before I could answer, Martin, the dark-skinned man of a similar age, sitting on the other side of Priya, angled his head past her shoulder. “It’s the phone. She keeps sighing and glaring at the phone,” he said.
Heat snuck across my cheeks as I realised my irritation had been so obvious to them, and I looked back to my monitor. “It’s nothing,” I muttered as I continued typing.
Priya chuckled. “Oh, it’s something all right. Are you waiting for someone to message you?”
“It has to be someone important,” Martin said, musing it over. “The boyfriend?”
I gritted my teeth when he hit the nail on the head, my fingers halting over the keyboard.
“Oh, that makes so much sense,” Priya agreed, and her chair squeaked as she swivelled back to face me. “Is it the boyfriend? Has he not messaged you?”
I glanced across my shoulder at them both, my lips curling up, unable to decide if they wanted to pout or sneer. “No, he bloody hasn’t.”
Priya and Martin both bared their teeth in a grimace before Priya said, “Like at all? Or he just hasn’t said happy birthday?”
With a nudge of my foot, I jerked my chair around to face them. “At all. I even fucking messaged him and asked if he was okay, but nothing. This idiot hasn’t even read my message!”
“Damn, he has a death wish,” Martin mumbled out the side of his mouth.
Priya offered a shrug. “Maybe he’s really busy. I mean you said he works for the Crown Princess of Jahandar, right?”
I grunted and narrowed my eyes. “What? So damn busy he can’t even leave me a single bloody message that wouldn’t even take him five seconds to type out?”
Priya pursed her plum-coloured lips together before they slowly twitched into a wide, laughing grin. My face fell. “Sorry,” she said through a snicker, lifting one hand up apologetically. “I’m not laughing because he hasn’t messaged you. I’m just…surprised. I didn’t really take you for the needy girlfriend type.”
A blush lit up under my skin again as I gawked at her, completely aghast, and her and Martin fell against their chairs, laughing.
I wasn’t—I wasn’t being needy!
It was completely normal for me to be pissed that my boyfriend hadn’t messaged me on my freaking birthday when I’d video-called him at midnight to wish him a happy birthday. I wasn’t making comparisons, but I could complain about not receiving the same energy from him. That wasn’t being needy. That was well within my rights as his girlfriend.
Before I could defend myself, a steady knock came at the glass doors behind the three of us. Everyone’s heads popped up from around or over their computer screen in the open office space. Long desks lined up with the windows at equal intervals, and the door to my parents’ shared office space closed at the far end.
Priya, Martin, and I swivelled around too.
And my heart slapped the back of my rib cage in shocked hope.
“Oh, shit,” I heard Priya whisper.
Standing on the other side of the entrance doors to the office floor was one of the ladies from the building’s postal room.
On her plump face was a massive, knowing grin. And in her hand was an expensive-looking bouquet of bright red roses.
Everyone remained completely still, either out of curiosity or they were all waiting for someone else to get up and let the woman in.
“I’ll get it,” Priya volunteered loudly, shooting out of her seat.
I watched rapt as she sauntered over to the glass doors, tapped her ID on the scanner attached to the wall, and opened one of the doors from its long metal handle.
The plump lady thanked Priya as she walked in, then tilted the bouquet to look down at the front of it. Upon glancing up, her eyes tracked everyone behind a desk. “I have a special delivery for Mariyah Levine,” she said.
My heart thudded like the drum bass of a love song as my lips parted. No fucking way…
Priya excitedly jabbed a finger in my direction. “That’s her. Mariyah Levine.”
The woman chuckled and crossed the short distance to me. Still numb from surprise, I just about forced my hands to cooperate as she laid the pristine bouquet, packaged in cellophane and matte black tissue paper that looked like it had been ironed, into my arms. Then she left the way she’d come in.
There was an instance of silence as Priya let the door swing shut, before the entire office floor broke out into hollers and squeals that shook the four walls and every picture and pin board hanging on them.
The burning blush their excitement elicited finally snapped me out of my shocked state, and I dared to swivel my chair to face the onslaught of Esmeralda-level creepy grins from everyone.
“Who’s that from, huh, Mariyah?” one of the younger lads two desk rows down called out, and laughter skittered around.
I narrowed my eyes at him and pushed my tongue against the back of my teeth, trying hard to fight the bashful grin desperate to spread across my mouth.
Priya came bouncing over to me like a fairy intoxicated on laughter. “He didn’t forget! He didn’t forget,” she squealed and collapsed into her own chair. “He did not forget, Mariyah!”
“Gotta give the man credit where credit is due,” Martin added with an appreciative nod.
“Open the note!” Priya said, dragging her chair closer. “Open it now.”
A chorus of cheering agreement followed her demand.
I admitted I was struck dumb by the gift that had turned up, but I wasn’t struck stupid that I was going to open the note tucked into the roses in front of a number of my colleagues.
Before they could all think to get up and crowd me in around my desk, I shoved my chair back and stood. But as I reached for my phone, it started vibrating loudly against the surface of the desk from an incoming call.
“Her phone’s ringing,” Priya shrieked, laughter lacing her words.
A renewed bout of squeals and chuckles torched the skin off my bones.
It was fucking embarrassing, but my fingers shook as I grabbed it and turned it screen-side up.
“My Dickhead” was printed in white at the top of the incoming call.
Without wasting another second, I swerved past my desk chair and towards the closest misted-glass meeting room, ignoring the bellows behind me.
“I’m going to tell your parents you didn’t open it in front of us when they get back,” Priya playfully taunted as I closed the glass door on my cackling colleagues.
The soundproof glass muffled their loud voices, making me ever more aware of the buzz of Shehryar’s call. I quickly swiped to answer it and brought the phone to my ear.
“Hello?” I said, heading for the white table and cushioned chairs that took up the central space.
“Happy birthday, little menace,” Shehryar said, his deep voice full of affection.
My skin prickled all over in delight, but I hadn’t forgotten my previous irritation with him, so I scrunched my lips to the side in distaste. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
“No, it’s not.” Light amusement enveloped his words, and I could picture him rubbing a hand over his beard to hide his grin. “But before I explain myself, can you tell me if the bouquet was in fact delivered like the email said it was?”
“Yeah, it was.” I set the roses down atop the table, then gripped the back of one chair and plonked myself in the seat.
“Do you like it? Have you opened the note?”
I arched a brow even though he couldn’t see me. “That depends on your explanation of why it took you so bloody long to say happy birthday and why you ignored my message.”
“I know you’re mad, baby,” he purred, and I could already feel my annoyance melting away like snow on warm sand. “But I hadn’t planned on not saying happy birthday or ignoring your message. In fact, the roses were meant to arrive the moment you got to work, and I was going to ring you and surprise you. But they emailed me saying there was going to be a delay, and I didn’t want to wish you happy birthday without having anything to show for it—”
“So, you thought ignoring me completely was better?”
He made a sound as if he was going to answer, then thought better of it and sighed. “No, menace, I didn’t. Now that I think about it, my plan to wait until the roses arrived was stupid—”
I grunted. “Ya think, Sheri?”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t ignoring you. I just wanted my surprise to work, but I should have wished you a happy birthday before you messaged. That was the least I could have done.”
I nodded slowly, toying with one corner of the cellophane wrapped around the roses. “Hmm. Exactly, dickhead.”
There was a pause on his end. “So have you opened it?”
“No,” I admitted, moving my hand down to trace the gold cursive lettering of my name on the small envelope tucked between two roses.
“Open the note, then tell me if you’re still mad at me.”
Tsking through my teeth, I put my phone down, then carefully pulled the envelope out and tore it open. Inside was a postcard printed on one side with a picture of me and Shehryar cuddling in my bed back at my apartment, his lips on my forehead. On the other side was a typed note.
My beautiful little menace,
Happy 24th birthday, baby.
I would have given you one for every moment I’ve missed you, but I doubt your parents would have been happy if I’d filled their office with a million roses.
I wish I was by your side right now, but as long as you’re mine, I’ll take us any way that I can.
From your Sheri x
P.S. This isn’t your only gift. There’s more to come.
My heart pumped out wave after wave of warm, gooey fuzz all through my body as I lowered the note and stared at my phone. Swallowing around the thickness in my throat, I picked it back up.
“I hate you,” I muttered, my lips bunching in a pouty smile.
He chuckled happily, but as his laughter settled, he whispered, “Happy birthday, Mariyah.”
I couldn’t fight my grin any longer. “Thank you. But if you ever ignore me like that again—”
“Never. I promise.”
“Good.”
“Good.” His voice dipped to a raspy note. “I miss you so much.”
An ache gripped my chest. “I miss you too,” I said and dragged my teeth across the curve of my bottom lip. “Any break in your schedule?”
I was expecting a frustrated “ no ,” so when he said, “Possibly,” my pulse bucked in hope.
“But I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep, so I won’t confirm a date yet,” he added.
But I’d take that. I’d take that over no possibility at all.