Page 58 of Royal Shark
She shrugs and her sheet slips, exposing her boob. There’s a bite mark. I jerk my gaze away.
“Oops,” she says. “Be back in a few.”
I stand there, arms crossed, silently seething. Who is this woman?
And that’s when it hits me. Chloe is a full-grown woman. She has to make her own decisions now, her own mistakes. I have to stop mothering her.
“Would you like some tea, Sara?” Michael asks, leaning casually in the archway that separates the kitchen from the living room.
“No, thank you,” I say through my teeth.
He straightens. “In answer to your earlier question, I’m twenty-six. I was given this cottage to live in by the royal family because I’m captain of the guards. I run their training regimen.”
The royal family owns this cottage now? Was it done out of respect for my parents? Did the elderly couple die or move away? It’s strange that the royal family would buy this particular cottage.
“Do they own other cottages and let staff use them?” I ask.
“This is the only one that I know of.”
So strange.I should ask Adrian.
Chloe returns dressed in a tank top and jeans with her usual white Keds. “Ready for the tour?” she asks brightly. Someone’s in a good mood after getting laid.Don’t think about it.
“Sure,” I mumble, still reeling from the shock of my sister hooking up with some rando. I take a deep breath. I need to let her live her life on her terms.
She crosses to me, her eyes sympathetic. “Sorry. I don’t have the memories you do. I don’t mean to make light of it. Are you really okay looking around? I could just share what I remember later, or not. Whatever works for you.”
My eyes tear up because she’s a truly caring person, and I know I had something to do with that. I give her arm a squeeze. “Thanks, but I think I’ll be okay. I came here because after I went to the north beach, I realized Mom and Dad wanted us to have these wonderful summers here away from the city. Villroy was a gift they gave us.”
She nods once. “We were lucky to come here. It’s beautiful, and how lucky were we to be friends with a prince and a princess? I didn’t understand who they were when I was little. I thought they were just local kids with lots of babysitters.”
I smile. “Yeah, their guards and nanny were always with us. Adrian and Silvia were a gift to us too. They were really nice to both of us, and you were not easy when you were little. You were a devilish whirlwind, always up to something.”
Her eyes light up. “Like what?”
“Skinny-dipping in the ocean and running all over the beach naked.”
She laughs. “I have no memory of that.”
“Pretending you were Godzilla and destroying the sandcastles that Silvia helped you make, throwing our lunch to the seabirds, pulling the legs off crabs. Oh my God, one time you put a tiny fish in your mouth and accidentally swallowed it!”
She crinkles her nose. “Eww. Why would I do that?”
I giggle. “You thought you could keep it alive in the spit in your mouth and take it home as a pet. You were really upset when we told you it was gone forever.”
She smiles. “I’m glad you’re okay to talk about this stuff now. It worried me that you shut yourself off from what I remembered as a blur of sunny happy days.”
I let out a breath. “I remember them that way too. I think reconnecting with Adrian and Silvia made it easier to get back to this place. I cried over Mom and Dad when I first decided to come here, and I think that actually helped. I feel at peace.”
She hugs me. “I’m so glad.” She pulls away and gestures to the room. “You’ve seen the living room, and this over here is the kitchen.”
Michael appears again in the kitchen archway and purposely doesn’t move out of the way as Chloe tries to get by. She smiles up at him, her hands on his massive biceps as she slides across his front to pass. He grins down at her and then steps out of the kitchen, gesturing for me to pass.
I join Chloe in the small kitchen. “Oh! I remember this! It’s exactly the same.” The white and black checkered floor, the glossy wood table and chairs with cushions on them. I turn. The sink and faucet are the same. “They updated the appliances and took down the seashell wallpaper and white lace curtains.”
I stand in front of the sink and look out the window. There’s a view of the next cottage, mostly, but if I crane my neck a bit, there’s a view of the sea.
I turn back to Chloe. “What do you remember about the kitchen?”
