A whole bunch of people just attained Killer Whale status and earned their blue checks.
Thank you for being the Merry People of Sherwood Forest stock forum.
And then they collapsed into bed.
By the time they woke up the following day, the celebrations had spilled over into real life, with people from the Sherwood Forest forum meeting each other in person for the first time in bars and restaurants to have a meal and a drink and to raise a glass to their incredibly good fortune that had changed their lives.
QueenMod’s direct messages were overflowing with thanks and sobbing voicemails about how they were going to be okay now.
59
Monaco
Colleen
The Mediterranean sun was a blast of white light streaming through the porthole in Tristan’s bedroom on his yacht, and Colleen blinked in the glare as she woke up.
His boat’s name, the Ark Nemesis, still cracked her up. If she’d seen that when she’d first met TwistyTrader, she would’ve taken it as a sign, turned tail, and fled.
When she cranked herself around and braced her body on her elbows to look at Tristan in the bed beside her, his hands were behind his head, and he was staring at the ceiling.
She said, “G’morning.”
He rolled toward her. “I was just thinking a few things over, and I think our plan has finished.”
“Nothing left to do but spend the money,” she said.
He chuckled. “But in the meantime, we should eat. Let me take you to one of my favorite lunch spots today, and then we’ll walk around Monaco. For all that you’ve been here, you’ve seen very little of it.”
Today would be her first day of seeing and doing instead of crouching in her pathetic apartment and never going anywhere. “Sounds like a plan.”
“I told the cabin staff to deliver some coffee and something light. It’s already ten-thirty, so lunch will be soon. This is one of my favorite places to visit in Monaco, and they take great care to present only the finest food as if it’s a labor of love. Make sure you’re hungry.”
Her sundress was hanging in the closet, washed and ironed.
Finding her clothes washed and ironed and hanging in a closet when she hadn’t done it was somewhere between amazingly awesome and creepy, like the fae had done it and now she owed them her firstborn.
She approached Tristan. “You should tell your people that they don’t have to do that.”
He looked at her through the bathroom mirror because she was standing in the closet behind him. He was grooming the edges of his short beard in the mirror. He was shirtless with a towel slung low on his hips, and the bricks of his abs contracted as he leaned over to inspect his work. “Do what?”
“Wash my clothes and stuff. I’m perfectly capable of doing my own laundry. If you’ll just point me toward your washing machine or a laundromat, I can do it.”
Tristan raised one eyebrow at her. “Put your laundry in the bin like a good little.”
An hour later, a black car was waiting for them on the quay at the end of the yacht club, and a chauffeur opened the door to the backseat for Colleen and Tristan.
“Where are we going?” she asked him.
“My favorite place for lunch. You’ll see.”
She knew that smug smile. Tristan was up to something.
No matter what he thought of the nickname, he was twisty.
The chauffeur drove around the streets of Monaco, taking hairpin turns with much more care than the driver had on their way from the heliport, and then he drove straight toward a buttery yellow stone wall.
And he kept driving straight at it.
The wall zoomed toward the car.
“Tristan,” she said. “Do we need to grab the driver?”
Tristan glanced up from where he was perusing his phone. “No, we’re fine.”
“But he’s heading straight for the—Tristan!”
Just before the car slammed into the high block wall, a garage-type door slid upward, and the vehicle careened through.
“Oh, there was a door. I didn’t know there was a door.” Her heart was racing.
Tristan said, “They run a tight ship. They have to.”
The door led to a tunnel, and the tunnel led to an underground parking area. Super sports cars and luxury sedans filled the small lot, which would have surprised Colleen anywhere except Monaco. “Is this like a shopping mall? Or an apartment building?”
“Like an apartment building,” Tristan agreed, and the chauffeur led them to an elevator.
Up they went, several floors, and the elevator doors opened to a long hallway inlaid with white marble. At one end, the hallway opened to a long balcony with doors on one side, and the other side overlooked a central courtyard in the interior of the building.
“Oh! It’s a hotel. Why didn’t you tell me it was a hotel?” she asked.
Tristan led the way, the chauffeur having dropped away at some point. “Because it’s not a hotel. We’re in the Prince’s Palace. We’re having lunch with Maxence and Dree.”
“What?” She backhanded him on the arm. “Dude! I was not prepared for this.”
Tristan kept smiling that smug little smile. “After lunch, we have a private tour of the palace with one of the historians who is in charge of restoration and preservation.”
“Oh, wow. That’s amazing.”
Sovereign Prince Maxence Grimaldi and Princess Dree were lovely human beings. Maxence, while still so unearthly handsome that Colleen had a hard time focusing sometimes, was much more relaxed than when they’d bumped into him at the casino. He and Tristan laughed and talked about people Colleen didn’t know, except when they mentioned Micah, so she primarily talked to Dree.
They talked about Phoenix and the best places to eat, and eventually, they ended up talking about family.
“My maiden name is Clark,” Princess Dree said. “My family owns a sheep farm in southern New Mexico, pretty close to the border of Arizona.”
No matter how vast the world was, it was small. “You don’t mean the Clark Sheep Ranch that’s about four hours south of Albuquerque, do you?”
Princess Dree turned toward Colleen, her eyebrows raised. “Yeah.”
“You don’t mean, like, Bartholomew Clark, do you?”
Princess Dree’s chin dropped. “That’s my dad.”
“Did you ever come with him to Frost Feed and Saddlery over near Winslow in Arizona?”
Dree clapped her hand over her mouth and pointed. “We went there all the time when we went to Winslow to sell sheep! Your hand-made organic sheep dip was the best thing ever. You’re one of those Frosts?”
“Well, I was,” Colleen admitted. “But I’m kind of estranged from my family. They wanted me to work the feed store instead of going off and having a life. They kind of insisted on it, so they don’t talk to me now.”
Dree gathered her in for a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
They chatted and had one of the loveliest lunches Colleen had ever had in her whole life, just enjoying each other’s company while eating the spectacular food. Tristan had not been kidding when he said that it seemed like this staff made the food out of a labor of love, because every dish was exquisitely presented with swirled sauces and perfectly minced herbs as well as tasting freaking delicious.