Page 57 of The Romance Adventure

“It’s a king-size. Can’t I just sleep over on this side? I’ll stay on the edge, promise.” His voice is muffled.

Mine is not. “When have you ever kept a promise?”

He bolts upright and tosses the pillow aside. His eyes flare with fury as he gets to his feet. “Royal, I lost them, too.”

“Yeah, but you still think they’re alive.”

“At least I’m not devoid of hope.”

I shake my head. “It’s a fool’s hope.”

“You can keep trying to cut me down with insults and anger, but I won’t give up.”

“Nope. You’ll just keep coming back like a weed.”

“I will find them.”

“You won’t. Chip exhausted half his resources before he realized he wasn’t going to have anything left and gave up.”

“He didn’t give up and what else are resources for? Squandering them away like Scrooge McDuck?”

“It’s Ebenezer Scrooge and our last name is McGregor.”

“I’m trying to lighten the mood,” CJ says.

“My mood was fine until I found you in here. Why don’t you try to earn some resources,” I use air quotes, “and get a place of your own? Get a job. Make yourself useful.”

“For the record, I have a place of my own. I have a job and I can’t think of anything more useful than trying to find our parents.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I accept the challenge, Royal. And you can also put it on record that I’m not the only one who hasn’t lost hope.”

I scoff. “You think Emmie believes they’re still alive?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“That wasn’t an answer. You think Emmie is on your side?”

“This isn’t about sides. We’re a family, and even though you, Magnus, and Ryan had the most time with Mom and Dad, we haven’t forgotten them.”

I’ll have to talk some sense into our sister, but first, I need to get rid of my pesky brother. Before I can tell him to get lost, he storms out of the room.

After a shower, my thoughts slide between Isla and everything CJ said. Between the next months of potentially working on the resort, to how I’ll balance that with my career.

The house is quiet, but my thoughts aren’t. I try to find that place where Isla slowed time, helped me breathe, and silenced my mind.

Instead, I hear CJ’s voice, asking me questions. My thoughts float to Chip’s cryptic riddle and the ridiculous stories about pirates and treasure—I’m convinced none of it makes sense because there was often an abundance of rum involved when he’d go off on a tangent about pirates and weave old stories.

When another hour ticks by, Chip’s question repeats in my mind: When right is wrong, what do you do?

I don’t come up with an answer before I fall asleep.

The first thing the next morning, I call Roy, a contractor out of Miami that I know and trust. I ask for an estimate for repairs at the resort. After describing the scope of work, he says that he’ll be down here tomorrow. Must’ve been juicy for such a quick turnaround, meaning the bid will probably contain a lot of zeroes at the end of a very high number.

But ‘ole Chip reserved some funds for repairs. Not sure why he didn’t do them himself if he had the money, but not much he ever did made sense to me.

Before I get off the phone with Roy, my phone beeps with a text, immediately followed by a call from my assistant Angela.