A chill travels down my spine as he moves over to the front door and holds it open for me.
“After you, my Pint-Size Princess,” Royal purrs as we stare at each other for a long, hot second. I feel like my skin is going to burst from the flood of hormones. But what happens when this wears off? Because attraction, passion, like this, it can't last forever … can it?
God, we need to have a grown-up talk. Like stat.
“Thank you,” I say, scooting past him and groaning when he reaches down with one of those big, tattooed hands and cups my ass. “Royal,” I snap, but I can't deny that I like it, that I lean into him, that I wish he'd throw me into the wall and—
My sister appears on the staircase, just one thin sheet of glass away from us. I slap Royal's hand away and walk quickly, wrenching open the door that leads from the foyer into the rest of the office. Royal is right behind me; I can feel him. The heat from his body, the creak of leather from his vest, his smell.
“Oh, hello there,” Kailey says, ignoring me and zeroing right in on Royal as he stands behind me and pretends he wasn't just groping my ass. “Dad's … I mean, the mayor is expecting you.” Kailey gestures with one perfectly manicured hand. “Come on up.” A pause. “Lyric, you're late,” she says and then she's turning around and sliding her hand up the banister towards the second floor.
“She's a bloody bitch, isn't she?” he asks me as he slides by with a smile, pausing to press a kiss to the side of my throat before disappearing up the steps, his boots loud, zippers clinking as he takes them two at a time. I stand there for a while and try to get my head on straight.
Dating Royal is just a … a thing.
I have no idea how to compartmentalize it yet, but I will. I'll figure it out.
I follow after them and take a seat at my desk, thanking heaven above that it's facing away from my father's office and the wall of windows that look right in on it. I'm not there five minutes when Kailey's sitting on the edge of my laptop and giving me a sympathetic pat on the hand.
“I am so sorry about Brent. I had no idea he was that depressed. If I had, I would've taken him up on his offer of dinner out. Poor guy.” I pause, my hand halfway to slapping my sister's thigh to get her off my computer. Dinner? Brent asked her to dinner, too? What a creep.
“What do you mean 'depressed'?” I ask as I switch tactics and yank the laptop out from under her long, thin thigh. She raises both her blond brows at me, green eyes taking in the puffy bridge of my nose, the bruise that's partially visible on my throat. “Kailey, what?” I ask, reaching up to adjust my collar.
“Don't you watch the news? Or check your phone, like ever? Brent is dead, Lyric.” My eyes snap up to hers while the blood drains from my face. In fact, I haven't looked at my phone because it got thrown off a cliff by a crazy motorcycle club flunky. And I haven't turned on a TV because I was too busy watching Royal McBride ride me into his mattress. “I guess he killed himself or something. It was front page news today,” she adds in a conspiratorial whisper. “An FBI agent dying here, in Trinidad. Oh, and it turns out he was under some sort of internal investigation or something.”
I feel sick.
“Excuse me,” I say, standing up suddenly and glancing over my shoulder. There's Royal, looking all easy and carefree and friendly with his big smile and the loose way he holds his shoulders. He did this. My heart starts to pound as I stand there like an idiot. I whip my head back around and gather up my computer while Kailey watches me like a hawk. Great. More information for her to hold over my head. But in this moment, I don't care.
I head down the stairs and into the break room, locking the door behind me and flipping open my laptop. A quick internet search for Brent Gilman and it comes right up. There's a picture of his car surrounded by police, a shot of his perfect smile right next to it.
I scan the article quickly, find another. Another. This just happened. Like literally just happened. The articles are from Saturday, but the suicide happened on Friday, the same day Brent stopped by my house to ask me out.
My fingers slide along the screen of my laptop, flick it closed as I stare at the yellow-orange color of the oak tabletop beneath it.
Brent is dead.
Royal's VP is dead.
Maybe I set all of this in motion by making that phone call, but I certainly never pulled the trigger. That means that somebody else did because there's no way that arrogant self-serving a-hole would kill himself.
Either my new boyfriend had his club members commit Brent's murder … or he did it himself.
Royal's gone by the time I let myself out of the break room, just in time for my father to call me into his office and start the day off right.