Page 50 of Royal Shark
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 andstillshe 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.
