Chapter 4
Mariyah
I was on a private Jahandari state plane in the early hours of the next morning.
My parents were rich—multimillionaires to be exact. My dad had been an investment banker and my mum a corporate tax lawyer before they set up their own investment firm with a staff of a hundred, and they’d never spoilt us, but my older sister and I had grown up far more privileged than a lot of people. Still, never in my life had I dreamed I’d travel on a private fucking plane.
The lingering jetlag and tired grouchiness from having to wake up too early to catch our flight had vanished the moment the cabin crew led Esmeralda, Shehryar, and I onto the plane. I’d shamelessly gaped at the sleek, cream and brown interior that had a long seating area, two bedrooms, a bathroom big enough to swing a cat in, and a fucking dressing room.
I swore I found inner peace when I sat down on the spacious window seat I claimed. And the breakfast had practically been the same as what we’d had in Jahmal Palace.
In the two hours that had passed of our three-and-a-half-hour flight, Esmeralda and I watched a movie and chatted, while the dickhead plugged his headphones in for a bit before sticking his head in his laptop.
He’d been ignoring me since we butted heads in the gym, though I wasn’t complaining because I was ignoring him too. Plus, everything was so much more fun when he wasn’t getting in my way.
But in the last twenty minutes I’d been reading, the nervous energy zipping off Esmeralda was beginning to suck the fun out of the trip before it had even started.
“Are you sure it wasn’t wrong of me to tell him I wasn’t going to make his birthday?”
I paused mid-sentence on the page, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.
That was the tenth or so time she’d asked in the last hour. I’d been close to strangling her the fifth time I reassured her. Now she was just taking the piss.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if he knew you were coming, would it?” I said.
“But he was really upset on the phone.” The regret in her quiet voice struck a guilty chord in me. I couldn’t be mad at my beautiful girl, not when she herself was feeling guilty about lying to her boyfriend.
Esmeralda and Kai had been planning her trip to Touma for his birthday since practically the day she left after the Peace Celebrations in February nine months ago. Though it was only in May the trip became an official thing and the two of them extended an invite to me too.
But two weeks ago, Esmeralda rang me and told me that Prince Arsh, Kai’s uncle and younger brother to the King of Touma, had asked her to tell Kai she couldn’t come until after his birthday so they could surprise him on the morning of his birthday with her arrival. She’d done it, and then bawled her eyes out to me on the phone immediately after because Kai had apparently sounded “so upset it was heartbreaking,” and she hated herself for doing that to him.
With a sigh, I closed my book, keeping a pair of fingers between to mark my page, and twisted on the leather seat to face her. “You have nothing to worry about, my beautiful Ezzy. Because when Kai sees you there, he’ll be so happy that he’ll completely forget why he was upset in the first place.” I lifted a brow, smirking. “Plus, I’m sure there are other ways you could convince him not to be upset with you too. You know, like— ahem —suitcase. Ya get what I’m saying, Princess?” I winked.
Esmeralda’s face turned tomato red in understanding.
“I didn’t need to hear that.”
The deep grumble dragged both mine and Esmeralda’s attention across the aisle to the other side of the plane where Shehryar was sitting in the seat facing us, scrolling on his laptop. Honestly speaking, I had genuinely forgotten about his annoying presence for a moment. I preferred it that way. Because at least then there wasn’t a constant angry buzz in my blood.
“Sorry, Sher,” Esmeralda said with a grimace.
I rolled my eyes. “Go somewhere else if it bothers you that much.”
He didn’t look up, but his jaw tightened. One point to me. “We’re on a plane. There isn’t anywhere else for me to go.”
“You could jump out of the plane,” I snarked in a sickeningly sweet voice, and I was certain Esmeralda sighed in the background.
Shehryar finally looked up, his eyes piercing me with icicles, but I met the challenge with a tilt of my chin. “Ladies first.”
I grinned and gestured to the door next to him. “Then please, Sheri, by all means, step up first. Because the peanut-sized knob between your legs doesn’t count as a dick.”
“Oh—kay!” Esmeralda interrupted as a shadow cast over Shehryar’s expression, turning it thunderous. I nearly scoffed. The weak-egoed man was so pissed I’d called his dick small. But something about the way the ice melted from his gaze and was replaced by black flames lodged the scoff in my throat and kept it shoved down.
“That’s enough. Please ,” Esmeralda said, and I lost the hitch in my shoulders as I glanced at my scowling best friend. “You’ve been ignoring each other since yesterday, and now suddenly you’re at each other’s throat? What is wrong with you two?” She turned her glare on Shehryar. “Did something happen that I’m not aware of? You two are never normally this bad.”
I caught Shehryar’s eyes for the quickest second, but he looked away immediately, and so did I. Neither of us answered Esmeralda, but that enough was an answer.
“Whatever it was,” she continued, “can you forget about it for the next twelve days, please? I want to spend time with Kai and have fun with all of us there. That isn’t going to happen if you two are ignoring each other or constantly bickering.”
Guilt picked at my ribs, but in Shehryar’s silence, I stubbornly stayed quiet too.
“ Please . For me.”
Ah, fuck. Stupid Esmeralda and her sweet “don’t be mean to me” small ball of cuteness overload existence. She knew I was weak to her pleading, and if I was weak, Shehryar was a broken man with a backbone bent in the shape of her name.
“Okay, fine,” I grumbled, daring to lift my lashes towards her.
She gave me a small smile. “Thank you.” Then she looked at Shehryar. “Sher?”
He sighed. “Hmm. Yes, okay.” He levelled me with a glare as if it were my fault as he closed his laptop.
What the fuck? How was I to blame when he was being an even bigger dickhead than usual? Anger at his silent accusation lashed through me, but guilt stopped me from mouthing off as he picked his laptop up and made his way to the door on the left opposite us.
It wasn’t entirely guilt when he closed the door. It felt like he’d slammed it in my face, sparking something akin to frustration. Because how was it my fault that he couldn’t be nice to me? We would never have had a problem if he hadn’t decided I was only worth belittling and shaming.
Fuck him. Idiot. Dickhead. Ass. He wasn’t worth my time or energy. He proved that five years ago.
I gritted my teeth and swung my head away. Only to fall into the reproaching, almost amused trap set in Esmeralda’s eyes. A hot twinge attacked my face and neck.
“What?” I said, but I sounded way too defensive.
She sighed and shook her head. “Mariyah…”
“What? He started it.”
“Well then, you be the one to end it. Not forever, but just for these twelve days—”
“Ten days for me.” And thank Neves for that.
“That’s not the point, Mariyah, and you know it.” Esmeralda lifted her chin, and I stilled under the sternness of her expression. “Temporary or not, you need to work things out with Shehryar.” I opened my mouth, but she put her hand up. “And don’t ‘ tell him this too’ me, because you know I plan on telling him the exact same thing.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I’m warning you first. If I have to spend more time telling you two off than having fun with Kai—I am going to kill you both.”
I shuddered as I sunk back into my seat. “Okay, there’s no need for threats.”
“Mariyah, please.”
“Okay. Okay. I promise. I will try to be civil with Shehryar.”
Esmeralda eyed me for a beat, then lifted her fist up. I gasped when her little finger flew up. She smirked. I glared. “Pinkie promise me,” she said.
I shook my head. “No.”
“If you really mean to keep your word, then a pinkie promise is no big deal.”
That was a lie. It was the biggest deal in all of Neves that outranked a legally binding contract. Once I’d given my word, I really would have to try to be civil with Shehryar. But her challenge irked me, and despite my reservations, I found my little finger rising on its own.
Before I could pull it away, Esmeralda snagged her own around mine. “Pinkie promise.”
“Pinkie promise,” I croaked out, sealing myself to ten days of being “ civil ” with the dickhead.