Royal Shark (The Rourkes, Book 6)

by Kylie Gilmore

  There’s four rows of reclining seats up front, as well as a few four-chair seating areas farther back. I stay standing in the aisle, waiting for Chloe to board. The jet’s still sitting on the runway.

  Sergei shows up, surprising me. One of the guys must’ve invited him. “I hope you do not mind, Sunny Sara. I couldn’t resist a comped trip.” He palms my hand, giving me a folded check.

  I resist the urge to peek. “Of course, you’re always welcome. I’m glad to see you.”

  The moment he takes a seat in the back, I look at the check. It’s half what he owes me. I knew he had the money! He was just agitated by having so many people witness my collection visit that day. Not to mention the fact that I turned him down. Half is a good start. Now I have the January tuition bill for Chloe and next summer’s bill too. I won’t be covering his bets, though, until he pays in full.

  Chloe is the last to board, and the men go silent. She’s in her usual cardigan, tank, and jeans. White cardigan with matching white tank today. She looks cute. When she smiles, she lights up and is truly beautiful, but she rarely smiles, only when she’s excited about something she’s learning or a tight smile out of politeness.

  I rush over and hug her. I turn to the guys. “This is my little sister, Chloe.”

  Chloe lifts a hand. “Hello, Sara’s friends.”

  I point out everyone, naming them as I go.

  “Not so little, little sister Chloe,” Ivan says. “All woman.”

  I stiffen. They’d better not even think about trying to get with her. But before I can say anything, Adrian crosses to her, greeting her warmly and offering to stow her backpack for her. She declines, wanting it with her to study on the flight.

  I turn to Ivan. “She’s only eighteen. Don’t go there.”

  “That is old enough to marry.”

  “I—” Chloe starts.

  I finish for her. “Chloe is here for me.” I keep my voice upbeat. “And you’re too old for her anyway.”

  “Come sit with me, little Chloe,” Sergei croons from a seating area in the back.

  “No, thanks,” she says. “I’m sitting with Sara.”

  Sergei gestures to me. “Sunny Sara, join us. Let us all get to know each other better.”

  Adrian turns to Sergei. “Back off.”

  “You can’t have both women,” Sergei says. “Do not be selfish.”

  Adrian’s voice is a near growl. “There’s no shortage of women at the casinos on Villroy or Monte Carlo. This will all be so much more pleasant if you respect Sara’s wishes. I don’t want to have to kick anyone off the jet before takeoff.”

  Everyone shuts up.

  I take a seat in the first row next to Chloe. She does her seatbelt and unzips her backpack, removing a statistics textbook.

  I do my seatbelt too. “I’m not sure how much studying you’ll get done with these guys around.”

  “Sara,” she hisses, “you embarrassed me. You treat me like a child.”

  I’m taken aback. Me? Embarrassing? I’m totally chill. “These guys are too old for you.”

  “They look like twenties, thirties at the most.”

  “And you’re only eighteen.”

  Her eyes narrow. “You do know I’m an adult, right? I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”

  “I took care of you.”

  “When you weren’t working.”

  I suck in air. “I had to work. Someone had to bring in money.”

  The flight attendant does the safety rundown on exits and such, and we get quiet.

  “I know that,” she says gently once the safety speech ends. “I’m just saying that when you were working, I was on my own, and I did fine.”

  “You need to meet someone more like you. An academic. Sweet and gentle.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “What’s that about? Since when do you roll your eyes at me?”

  She lowers her voice. “Since you treat me like a know-nothing virgin. I can handle men fine.”

  My jaw gapes. She’s not a virgin anymore? When did this happen? Why didn’t she tell me? She tells me everything. Well, I thought she did. Then I focus on the most important thing. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. It was two summers ago.”

  “Two summers ago!”

  She gestures to keep it down.

  I lower my voice. “Why am I just hearing about it now?”

  She speaks through her teeth. “Because I’m allowed to have a private life.”

  I flop back in my seat. I can’t believe this. I’m the one who gave her the sex talk, and I was thorough too—how to protect herself, the importance of waiting for the right person, how not to get pregnant. I even gave her condoms. I told her to come to me with any questions or concerns. She never did. In fact, she seemed supremely uninterested and was so wrapped up in her studies I never even thought she had a boyfriend.

  “Who was it?” I ask. “Someone from the neighborhood? From school?” Oh God. What if it was someone inappropriate like a teacher?

  “Remember when I went to that three-week biomedical summer camp at Penn?”

  She’d earned a scholarship to do research over the summer at the University of Pennsylvania with other gifted high school students.

  “There were supposed to be chaperones,” I say through my teeth. What kind of place were they running down there? Letting virgin teenaged girls run amok?

  She waves a hand dismissively. “There’s always ways to work around them.”

  I wince. “Please tell me it wasn’t with a professor.”

  “It was Michael, another student.”

  Adrian takes the seat on my other side, startling me. “Nervous flyer?”

  “No, I’m just…I’m okay.”

  The jet starts barreling down the runway, my insides jumping right along with it. I cannot believe I’m having this conversation with Chloe two years after the fact. I thought we were so close. I tried so hard to keep the lines of communication open. What else hasn’t she told me? I want to interrogate her, but I can’t because Adrian is here. Anyway, I’m not sure if she’d admit anything else. Apparently, I’m no longer her confidante. I glance over once the flight smooths out, and she’s gone back to studying.

  “Was he nice?” I whisper.

  She smiles. “He was the hottest guy there.”

  My jaw drops.

  “Also brilliant.”

  “So he was your first boyfriend?”

  “Not quite. More like a fellow researcher and, what did he call it? Fuck buddy.”

  Adrian gives my hand a squeeze and whispers in my ear, “You’re much more than a fuck buddy.”

  I still. He overheard. I’m embarrassed on Chloe’s behalf. She has fuck buddies. I mean, so do I, but I’m the adult here. Two summers ago, she was only sixteen! That’s much too young. I waited until I was eighteen. Granted, that was mostly because I didn’t trust any guy enough until then to even try but still. Sixteen? Gah! How did I not know? I should’ve noticed something different about her when she got back from camp. Big-sister fail.

  Adrian kisses my cheek, temporarily halting my dark thoughts. “She’s fine,” he whispers. “You did your job.”

  My shoulders droop. I tried so hard and still she doesn’t feel like she can come to me with important things in her life. But I can’t tell Adrian any of that. Chloe is right here, and it’s not the appropriate time anyway.

  I nod in a jerky motion.

  The pilot announces the estimated arrival time, and my stomach drops. I’m heading back to where it all began. My happy place, where the sun always shines, my parents smile and hold hands, my sister is a joyful laughing terror, and I have a best friend, who happens to be a princess, and a sweet boy friend, who is my hero.

  I brace myself for the pain of a reality that can never match up.

  ~ ~ ~

  Adrian

  I take everyone straight to the casino the moment we arrive. It’s a little after ten p.m. local time, but for us it feels
more like late afternoon New York time. I’m eager to catch up on what I missed at work, and the guys are eager to play. They’re all drunk. They sang Russian folk songs on the way here. I had their luggage sent ahead and their rooms prepared at the palace. I cleared it with Gabriel and Anna ahead of time, and they had our security run a background check like usual for unknown guests. No criminal records on any of them. Sara’s instincts were good, and her informal network of information accurate. I’ll find a quiet guest room for Chloe, away from them. I don’t want her to feel harassed by their flirting. She plans to study when she’s not exploring Villroy. She has no interest in the casino or spa. Sara will be with me. I need to show her exactly how she can fit both at the casino and in my life.

  I set the guys up at a poker table with a comped buy-in and unlimited free drinks in a private gaming area on the second floor. Sara stays with them, determined to make herself part of the fun. I get it. She does her best to anticipate their needs and manage the experience to keep it going. If she joined me here as pit boss, she’d do the same thing on a larger scale, overseeing the customers and the staff. I’ll wait to broach the topic. Step one was getting her here. My invitation to the guys was a spontaneous idea I came up with when I realized they weren’t having their usual fun with their game. I went with it, knowing it would give Sara a reason to face her fear of Villroy. I did it for us. She still could’ve said no, and I would’ve known that was the end of us. I can’t abandon my casino, and if she couldn’t even take the risk to visit, that would’ve been the writing on the wall.

  But she’s here, and I’m all in with a long-term plan that goes much further. If it fails, and she goes back to Brooklyn and her game, my only concern is her safely handling the money. I’ll hire her a guard if it comes down to it, but I don’t want it to come to that. I want her here with me for good.

  I head to my office and find it locked. Strange. I knock. “Hello? Is someone in there? It’s Adrian.”

  The door swings open to my sister Emma. Her long dark brown hair is messy like she ran her hands through it and pulled a bunch of times; her hazel eyes are huge. “Oh, thank God you’re back! I literally could not take one more thing! I had to lock the door to keep any more problems from coming my way. Between the staff, the phone calls, emails, and texts, I nearly threw my phone out the window! The computer too!”

  I bite back a smile, secretly pleased she thinks the job is difficult. I was beginning to think I was the problem. “Where’s Jackson?”

  “He’s down at the restaurant dealing with a customer who insists on talking to the manager over what he claims is overcooked fish. I figure the shock and awe factor over meeting Jackson should go a long way to calming him down.”

  “Thanks for taking over for me.” She’s kept in touch with me, emailing and texting about various issues. There’s always something. I had no idea she was so stressed though.

  She goes to the desk and grabs her purse from a drawer. “I’m so glad I’m a silent investor. That was definitely the right choice. Managing all these people is a nightmare!”

  “Did they treat you strange because you were a princess?”

  “They treated Jackson with kid gloves because he’s a rock star. Me, they tell all their problems. And it’s not just work stuff either. I’m hearing about leaking roofs and evil mothers-in-law.” She flings a hand in the air. “Way too many people for me. I’m going back to my nice little music studio and my musician life.”

  “Huh. I wonder why they confide in you. No one has felt that comfortable with me.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you’re so reserved.”

  “You’re reserved too.” We take after our mother that way.

  She smiles. “Not so much anymore. Music set me free. It must be you. Your demeanor or something doesn’t inspire oversharing.” She gives my arm a squeeze. “Be glad.”

  “Actually, I’m kind of insulted. Were you extra sweet?”

  “I don’t know. I was myself. And now I’m done. You need to hire someone high level, maybe two people. This job is way too much for one person. I don’t even know how you managed this long alone.”

  “I do have someone in mind. Sara Travers is with me.”

  “Sara’s here? Oh wow. That’s great! I haven’t seen her in so long. I think she was ten last time. I was away a few summers with Mother in Italy as part of my language study. I’m going to grab Jackson and get out of here. Show me Sara on the way.”

  We head upstairs to the gaming room across from the restaurant. I gesture for Sara to step away from the table. She’s not playing. She’s background to the party.

  “Emma wanted to see you again,” I say when she reaches me. “Do you remember my older sister?”

  Sara smiles. “Of course I remember. I’ve seen you at all of your many charity events, and I heard you married Jackson Walker. Congratulations.”

  I stare at her. She kept up with Emma? They didn’t even spend much time together. Emma is two years older than us, which was a lot back then. Did she secretly keep up with me too? She did know I took honors at Cambridge, though she claimed it was something Silvia mentioned. No question in my mind now—Sara always wanted this connection. My chest expands with pride, a surge of affection making me want to grab her and hug her. I have to wait, but this is a fantastic sign.

  “Is your sister here too?” Emma asks. “She was—” she squints for a moment “—three, I think, last time I saw her.”

  “Chloe,” I supply.

  Sara smiles proudly. “She’s at the palace studying. She’s a college student now.”

  “Ack!” Emma exclaims. “I feel so old. I’m sure she doesn’t even remember me.”

  “She doesn’t remember much from Villroy,” Sara says. “That’s why she came along, hoping to jog some memories. She has little memory of our parents.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Emma says.

  Sara nods, her lips pressed tightly together. I’m sure she’s heard that a lot.

  “Jackson is here,” Emma says. “Would you like to meet him?”

  Sara brightens. “I’d love to.”

  The guys set their cards down and stand in a chorus of enthusiastic agreement.

  Emma takes them all in. “I’ll have him step in for a moment. Please continue your game. It may be a little while.”

  A short time later, Jackson swaggers in. He can’t help it. He’s a rock star.

  The guys lose their shit, jumping up from the table and surrounding him. Two guards close in and gesture for some space.

  “I’m a big fan!” Sergei exclaims.

  “You’re fantastic!”

  “Your latest music is even better than the old stuff!”

  “Do you still play with your band?”

  Jackson is gracious, politely answering, or maybe it’s just his British accent that makes him sound polite. His dirty blond hair is trimmed short, as is his beard. I introduce him to Sara, and he smiles warmly. “Nice to meet you, Sara.”

  She blushes pink. “If it’s not too geeky, can I get your autograph?”

  The guys chime in for their own autographs. A bunch of napkins are shoved in Jackson’s face. He takes a seat at the poker table and asks for a pen. Emma produces one from her purse. He dutifully signs his name a bunch of times.

  Finally he stands and stretches. “Right. Nice to meet you all. Emma and I need to go. Enjoy yourselves, eh?”

  They head out the door, and all the guys stare after him in awe. Starstruck. I hope that was worth the trip for them. Jackson is an internationally famous rock star. Obviously they’ve heard of him.

  I take Sara aside. “Meet me in my office when you get a chance. I want to give you the behind-the-scenes tour and show you how I’m doing the work of two people.” I grin. “That’s what Emma says anyway. She was so relieved to have me back.”

  “I’m sure,” she murmurs. “Okay. I’ll text you when I can get away.”

  I head back to the office and dig into some p
aperwork. Emma left the invoices to me, not wanting to muck around with money matters. That’s my first step in a long list.

  An hour later, my phone chimes with a text. It’s Sara. She says the guys are going to the restaurant for a snack. I give her directions to find me.

  When she steps inside my office a few minutes later, she looks around. “So this is where the magic happens.”

  “Not so much magic as a ton of work. I’m the brains, the money, and customer relations. You know what part I’m not good at?”

  “Brains.”

  “Ha-ha. Customer relations. Staff relations too. You know me, I’d rather deal with numbers.”

  “You’ve got a real nice place here. You should be proud.”

  “I am, but you’ve hardly seen any of it.”

  She gestures toward the door. “I saw the lobby, the main playing area, your office, the restaurant, and the private room we have the game going in.”

  I stand and walk out from behind my desk. “Okay, let me introduce you to the staff, and there’s still more to see. A few more rooms, the money-changing room, and a surprise upstairs.”

  “A sexy surprise?”

  I chuckle and take her hand, entwining our fingers together. “That’s for later.” I guide her out of the office.

  “Chloe says I kept you a secret from her.”

  “How’s that? We all knew each other as kids.”

  “She says you’re my boyfriend, and I never shared. She’s just trying to get me to see we don’t tell each other every private thing.”

  “Everyone has their secrets, I suppose, but we’re not really a secret. You could’ve told her we’re together.”

  She gets quiet, and I have the uneasy feeling that I’m all in, and she’s keeping her cards close to her chest. I can’t believe I’m actually the one who wants to have the relationship talk. I used to cut myself loose before the word relationship could even be uttered. Karma, man.