Royal Shark (The Rourkes, Book 6) Read online

  My chest puffs with pride. I love being a hero. Being the youngest in the family, there was never a chance to be one. “You’re welcome.”

  She looks up at me under her lashes, and my heart kicks harder. “I want to marry you when I grow up.”

  My eyes widen. Married? I thought maybe she’d be my girlfriend for a day before she left. Married?

  She leans forward. “If we got married, we could play poker all night, every night.”

  That seals it for me. All poker all the time? Deal me in. She’s the ideal opponent, as into the game as I am.

  “Deal,” I say.

  “Great! Let’s make a pact.”

  “A pact.” That sounds more serious than a promise. “How should we seal the deal? A blood oath?”

  She shudders. “No.” She sets the dragon cards down on the smoothed-out sand playing area between us and fans them out. “When we’re twenty-five, we’ll get married. That’ll give us time to go to college and get good jobs.”

  That’s thirteen years away, double our lives now. “It sounds so far away. Are you sure you won’t forget me?” I’m teasing. We’ve known each other much too long to ever forget.

  She nods once, taking me seriously. “That’s why we’ll each take a pair, twos and fives, to remind us of the proper age, hearts and diamonds of course. Then when we reunite, we’ll have a matched set of two and five—two hearts, two diamonds just like a wedding.”

  “Guys don’t wear diamonds. I’ll get you a ring with two diamonds.”

  “Okay,” she says softly.

  She takes a two of hearts and a two of diamonds for herself and gives me a five of hearts and a five of diamonds. “You get the higher cards since you’re older.” My birthday is five months before hers. She holds up her cards. “Now we both have a pair, but together it unlocks the magic combination of twenty-five.”

  She’s so smart. And her green eyes sparkle. And she has a sprinkle of freckles across her nose that exactly matches my lucky number.

  “The two and five together make seven,” I tell her. “That’s my lucky number. Maybe you’re good luck too because you have seven freckles on your nose.”

  She covers her nose with her hand. “I hate my freckles.”

  “I don’t.” I pull her hand away from her face. She’s so pretty I find myself leaning closer and then I know what I really want. “I bet you’re too chicken to kiss me.”

  Her lips part in surprise before she quickly recovers. “I bet you’re too chicken to kiss me.”

  “I’m not.”

  She licks her lips. “Then prove it.”

  “You have to get closer.”

  She shifts the cards out of the way and kneels on our playing area. I kneel too, the pair of cards slipping from my hand in my excitement. My heart races.

  “I’ve never been kissed before,” she whispers.

  Neither have I, but I’m her hero and need to stay that way. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” I’ve spied on my oldest brother Gabriel. The trick is you have to hold the girl’s face so you don’t miss her lips. “Close your eyes.” That’s the other important part.

  She’s so close I can feel her breathy response warm over my lips. “Why?”

  “That’s how it works.”

  She gazes into my eyes, and the blood rushes through my veins. “I want to see you.”

  I hold her face with both hands, surprised at how soft her skin is. Our eyes meet up close. I can’t blink, the green of her eyes mesmerizing me. And then, finally, I close the distance, pressing my lips to hers, shocked at the jolt that runs through me at contact.

  I drop my hands and lean back. I want to know if she liked it as much as I did, but I can’t ask. Instead, I study her expression, which looks intensely thoughtful. Her cheeks are light pink. I’m not sure if she’s embarrassed or happy, like me.

  And then she smiles, and I can breathe again.

  She gathers up the dragon cards, minus my pair of fives, and tucks them into her backpack. Then she stands and hooks the backpack over her shoulder, her expression serious. “I’m definitely going to marry you, Adrian Rourke.”

  She takes off.

  I grin. I must be a fantastic kisser.

  Wait. Where did she go? I step out of the cabana. Her backpack is on the sand, and she’s splashing in the shallows. I strip off my T-shirt and join her, glad she’s not afraid of the water anymore.

  She splashes me, laughing, and I splash her back. She dives under a wave, and I join her, swimming out to calmer waters.

  She’s my girlfriend, my first girlfriend, my first kiss. I’ll always remember this day, and I’ll honor our pact because that’s what heroes do.

  Chapter Two

  Present day

  Adrian

  Opening and running a successful casino takes three things—brains, money, customer relations. I’m working all three. I would like to be just the brains, dealing with the numbers, and leave the rest to someone else. That’s my strength. I have two silent partners who are also the money—my sister Emma and her husband, rock star Jackson Walker. I invested one-third of the start-up costs myself; they contributed the other two-thirds. They’re both musicians living in nearby France, who perform here regularly, but they’re not interested in the day-to-day running of the casino and leave all the decision-making to me. It sounds ideal, I know, but one month out from the opening of our new casino, Villroy Palace Casino, and I’m already wishing I had someone to take some of the heavy load off my shoulders. I’m not opposed to hard work. I’m opposed to round-the-clock work, especially when it comes to customer relations and staff management. Being the youngest of seven, I’m used to a crowd. I’m just not used to that crowd always needing something from me.

  I step into the lobby of the casino at ten thirty in the morning, half an hour before opening, and smile to myself. I love the way the casino turned out. It was my idea to open a casino as a complement to our day spa, which opened a year ago. I’m a card shark. Monte Carlo was my second home for high-stakes poker, and now Villroy has its own version of Monte Carlo—a small but luxurious place meant to attract high rollers.

  The front lobby is reminiscent of the Island Bliss Spa just across the way, with a matching decorative wall featuring a trickling waterfall, white tile floor, and white walls. The air is scented with lavender just like the spa. The idea was to make spa visitors continue their relaxed feel when they stepped over here. Where the reception desk would be at the spa, we have a fanciful glass sculpture of a dragon on top of a circular deep red rug with a tree branch pattern that’s a reference to Yggdrasil, the world tree in Norse, a nod to the Rourkes’ Viking heritage. I’ve always liked dragons, part of Viking mythology. There’s also decorative Viking shields, swords, and tapestries with ancient battle symbols as wall decorations. We’re descended from a renegade Viking tribe known as the Wild Ones. Vikings were risk takers, so I like the subtle nudge to our customers to take a risk too with their gambling. What fun is gambling without the heart-pounding excitement of the risk involved? I never played for the money. It was always for the adrenaline rush.

  The gaming areas are visible just through twin archways on either side of the dragon sculpture. The casino itself is decorated in an elegant nineteenth-century style similar to Amalie Palace, where the royal family, including me, lives. I step through the archway into the main gambling hall with a ceiling painted to look like the sky, subtly backlit. The walls are done in sea green silk wallpaper with gold leaf, and the gaming tables are mahogany surrounded by red velvet chairs. There’s a back wall of windows offering a spectacular view of the sea. We don’t keep gamblers in the dark here. A slot machine room is tucked into a corner on the left, the money room in the middle, and my office is on the right. Upstairs are the high-roller private lounges, a small venue for performers that can double as a private gambling space, and an upscale seafood restaurant with a bar. In good weather, the roof terrace is used for performances and exclusive high-stakes games.


  I take in the activity as I work my way toward my office. Dealers are setting up at the tables. Someone on the custodial staff is making one last sweep of the room. Security is gathered in a clump by the windows. So far, so good.

  “Good morning, Denis,” I call to the middle-aged man setting up for blackjack closest to my office.

  He snaps to attention and bows his head. “Good morning, Your Highness.”

  That’s another issue. Most of the staff are deferential to my title—Prince Adrian Rourke at your service—and it makes it more difficult to get to the heart of problems. They don’t want to trouble me with the mundane. For example, the malfunctioning slot machine that kept eating tokens but stopped spinning. One dealer left his post to find a technician rather than call me. You cannot leave a gaming table full of chips in the middle of a game!

  “Just Adrian will suffice,” I say with what I hope is a disarming smile. “How’s the blackjack table?”

  “No trouble at all, sir.”

  “Good. We’ll be rotating you to a poker table next week just to keep things fresh.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  I continue to my office. I am CEO, CFO, the marketing guy, the HR guy, and the pit boss. My staff consists of dealers, money changers, technicians, janitors, waiters, bartenders, the chef and his assistant cooks, and security. A lot of security. What I need most at this point is a pit boss to oversee the staff, whom they’ll feel more comfortable going to for problems. A right-hand man or woman, someone sharp who knows gambling as well as I do, someone relatable. It’s not like I’m a snob, above it all. It’s having a prince as a boss that’s the problem. I may have been raised in the royal family but we’re a rather down-to-earth lot, if you ask me. Plus I always had my twin sister, Silvia, to keep me from getting a big head about anything. Nothing like a sister to cut you down to size.

  My assistant, Jean-Luc, who works in the small office connected to mine, pops his blond head in. He’s twenty, a native of Villroy from a long line of fishermen. He’s thrilled to have an office job. His father didn’t mind since he also left the fishing trade to work on the cosmetics manufacturing line we have now on Villroy, working with more profitable fish oil. Jean-Luc is organized and neat from his perfectly groomed hair in a short cut with spikes in front to his neatly pressed short-sleeved pink shirt with beige trousers. “Good morning, Adrian.”

  I told him on his first day that if he didn’t call me by my name instead of Your Highness, I’d fire him. I said it with a smile so he wouldn’t be worried. I need the person working with me most to relax around me. “Good morning, Jean-Luc. What’s the latest?”

  He recites the list. “You need to go over payroll and sign off on it, there’s an issue with a new employee who apparently forged their work visa, the weekend bartender quit, and security believes they found a cheating couple in last night’s poker game.”

  I clench my jaw. “Why didn’t security come to me last night about the cheaters?”

  He pulls at his collar and swallows visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “They feared rushing to an accusation, especially with new guests, so they thought they’d have you review the video this morning and give your opinion.”

  I lift my palms. “What does it matter now? They’ve probably already left the island.” We cater to day-trippers. There’s no hotel here.

  He backs up a step and then another, inching toward the door. Obviously, I need to temper my tone of voice. I may be six feet with a muscular build that gets a rigorous workout sparring with the palace guards, but I’m not going to throttle my assistant.

  I take a deep breath. I don’t mean to sound like a snarling boss. I’m normally a low-key, mellow person. I’ve even been called a gentleman for my excellent manners and consideration of women. My twin taught me a lot about the care and feeding of women. Ha! Never tangle with a hangry woman. In any case, I just don’t have patience for incompetence. Do your job and we’ll get along fine. Security should’ve notified me immediately of suspected cheaters.

  I gesture for Jean-Luc to come closer again and work to keep my voice even. “I need the names of the guards who noticed this.” The incompetent ones.

  He clears his throat and mumbles something unintelligible.

  “Speak up,” I order.

  “Laurence and Albert.” His voice cracks.

  “Thank you.” I swear I’m not a nightmare boss. I’m a perfectly reasonable man with a laid-back demeanor. No one can read my poker face. I must be cracking under the pressure of running this place single-handedly. That will be my next priority—hiring a pit boss to deal with the staff.

  He shifts uneasily back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I should let you get to work.”

  I’m good at reading people—one of the keys to winning at poker, the other being my near photographic memory—and he has something on his mind that he’s hesitant to say. More cheaters? I don’t feel like guessing.

  I keep my voice reasonable. “Jean-Luc, do you have anything else you need to tell me?”

  He stares at my desk. “Nothing important.”

  I set my teeth, reaching for patience. “Anything not important you need to tell me?”

  “I’d like the bartending job.”

  “You’re quitting on me already?”

  He wrings his hands together. “I’d still work for the casino. Just upstairs at the bar.”

  “Why?”

  “Um, because it’s fun. And there’s tips.”

  I suppose it’s not fun to work for me. This is my first time managing other people and I’m fucking it up. I’m tempted to say, here’s a tip, don’t quit on the boss of the place one month into the job. I get it, though. I’m twenty-five, not so much older than him. The bar scene is more appealing than cowering from your grumpy boss.

  “Have you ever tended bar before?” I ask.

  “Yes. Last summer in France.”

  “Find me a new assistant and the job is yours.”

  He claps, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I have the perfect person. My aunt. She’s a retired nursery school teacher. Very calm and patient.”

  Is that what he thinks I need? Someone who won’t become agitated by me? Another insult to my newfound managerial skills. I must do better.

  “Have her come in,” I say. “I still want to interview her first. And then you train her Monday through Friday and work bar on the weekend.”

  “Thank you, sir!”

  I don’t bother to reply, irritated with the change in staff. It’s been one month and already two people are leaving their posts—the bartender and my assistant. This is supposed to be a fun, rewarding place to work. Maybe I should organize some kind of morale booster like a poker tournament. Only that’s what I’d like to do for fun. What would my staff like? I have no idea. I employed local islanders for the most part, and I’m beginning to realize I’m out of touch with them.

  I sit at my desk with the pile of paperwork awaiting me, power on my laptop, and pull my phone from my trousers pocket and set it on the desk. The damn phone vibrated so much with calls and notifications on my short drive here that I turned it off. Where to start? I dash off an email to my brother Lucas, who’s the CEO of all of Villroy’s business ventures, and ask him to find me a pit boss. He’s the one who has the staffing contacts.

  Now what? Which task will make the most money? Marketing. That was supposed to be my brother Oscar’s role before he fell head over ass in love with a princess from another kingdom, Polly. Now they’re married and rule there as king and queen. Good for him, right? Except he’s the reason I run this gig solo and had to find other less helpful investors. He pulled out his part of the money, which was the majority, and donated it to Polly’s kingdom after a hurricane disaster. I’m happy for him. Really. No hard feelings. It’s just hard to understand how he could give up so much just to be with her—his legacy here at the casino, his home, his last asset from his football days.

  If you look big picture, rela
tionships are a bad bet. He got lucky. I only play when the odds are in my favor. No woman has ever held my interest for long, and I always thought it kinder to say goodbye before the woman got too attached.

  Okay, marketing. I can make this about numbers. Return on investment is the top priority. We opened in August when there was a full roster of guests for the spa and got off to a strong start from the spillover visitors. It’s now mid-September and the spa guests are winding down, which means so are we. I need to find a way to draw people here for the casino itself. The spa sells cosmetics online to counter these lulls. We depend on in-person visits.

  It’s been a year since the spa and cosmetics line launched, and our economy is slowly improving, but we’re not there yet. There’s a lot of pressure on me to make this casino successful to ensure a stable, solid future. It’s the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to contribute to Villroy in a significant way, and I can’t let my kingdom down.

  I turn to my laptop, looking over the guest counts expected at the spa for the next six months. There’s definitely going to be a lull. I dive in, considering various advertising revenues and possible returns on investment.

  By the time I finish, I’m surprised to see it’s noon. Crap. I didn’t turn my phone on yet. I grab it and power it on, finding several voicemails and texts—work and personal. Prioritize. Which voicemail is most critical? I tap through them quickly and stop when I see my twin left me a message. Silvia always gets priority. We have a tight bond even though she lives in the US with her husband, Cade, now. I check the time. It’s six a.m. in New York City. That’s where she’s working now as an editor at a children’s publisher. She called just a few minutes ago. I press play on the voicemail.

  “Hello, it’s your favorite sister calling. Give me a call when you get a minute. I got in touch with Sara Travers last night, we went out for drinks, and something she said has me worried. Poker related, so I thought you could help. Bye!”