Page 30 of Daddy Billionaire Dragon

“Uh, let’s see, it is 4 pm now, so we should get there by 4 or 5 am Paris time. Nic, you know I’m attracted to you,” I say, determined to make the awkwardness go away. I don’t know if I will succeed.

She nods and takes another sip of her champagne.

“And I know you’re attracted to me. I don’t think that it’s wrong to give in to that attraction, to want to explore it,” I say, searching her face.

“Neither do I,” she exhales. “But I have never done anything like this before. Perhaps because I have never felt this way about anybody ever before,” she says in a barely-audible whisper.

My stomach clenches uncomfortably at her admission, but my dragon is doing a happy dance inside me.

“But just to be clear, neither of us is looking for a relationship, right?” I say, avoiding her gaze, trying not to let panic seep into my voice. She doesn’t say anything for the longest time. Then she shrugs.

“I don’t want a relationship,” she says, peering at the bubbles rising up in her glass.

“Good,” I let out a breath. “Glad that we are on the same page,” I say, grinning. She looks at me with an inscrutable expression, then smiles. Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes and is tinged with the faintest hint of sadness.

“You’re not looking for anything serious, are you?” I ask again, knowing that whatever her reply is, I am going to be dissatisfied.

“I broke up with Manuel only a couple of months ago. So if I jump into a relationship now, it will most likely be a rebound. I don’t do rebounds,” she says, trying to be nonchalant. It’s hard to tell if she’s trying to convince me or herself.

I get the champagne and refill our glass and we move back to the couch.

“Why did you break up with him? If you don’t mind me asking, of course,” I say, sitting next to her.

“It didn’t work out,” she says, staring at her glass.

“Yeah, that’s sort of obvious,” I say with a tentative smile.

“Well, if you must know, I had a pregnancy scare. When I told Manuel that my period was late, he freaked out. Totally lost his shit. Said I’d tricked him into making me pregnant so that he would be forced to marry me. He said he had no intention of ever marrying me. That’s when I saw what a big fool I had been. I had turned down some pretty great out-of-state jobs so that we could be together. Whenever I discussed these great offers with him, he would always convince me that I didn’t really need to make more money, and he obviously couldn’t relocate as they were going to offer him partnership at the law firm. He’d even come close to convincing me a couple of times that I don’t need to work at all. We had been living together for the better part of our relationship, you see. I thought he loved me. What I didn’t see till it was almost too late was that he just needed me to keep his house, clean for him, cook for him. He wanted a glorified, unpaid handmaid. Oh, and there was also the nice side benefit of not having to pay to get laid either,” she says with fire blazing in her eyes.

She angrily pushes her hair out of her face and closes her eyes. I am overcome with fury upon hearing the story. I have this mad urge to take a flying leap out of the jet, shift, find this Manuel character, and pound him into a pulp.

“He didn’t deserve you,” I say fiercely. “You need someone who knows exactly how amazing you are, someone who is thankful to have you in his life every single day. Someone who loves you and cherishes you for who you are. Someone who doesn’t try to dampen your spirit or take away your shine.”

When she opens her eyes and looks at me, they’re filled with tears. I feel my heart twisting painfully in my chest.

“Don’t,” I say, moving forward, brushing the tears away with my thumb. She’s biting her lip to not let her sobs escape. I cup her face with both my hands and look her straight in the eye.

“Don’t waste even a single tear on that slime ball. I wish I could get my hands on the douchebag,” I say through clenched teeth.

She gives me a watery smile and sighs.

“Anyway, he’s firmly in my past. I’m just thankful that I saw his true colors before it was too late.”

“So you weren’t pregnant then?” I ask, placing the champagne on the glass table in front of the couch.

“No. And I couldn’t decide if I was more sad or relieved,” she says, tracing a finger on the moisture that has collected on the outer surface of the flute.

“You want children?” I cannot help asking, even when I realize that this is potentially dangerous territory.

“Oh God yes! So badly! I’m thirty-three now, and every birthday since I crossed the big three-o has been a reminder that I might never be able to fulfill my dream of being a mother; that I’ll never find my soul mate. I know that with the advances in science, I don’t really need a man to be a mother, but I don’t want to be a single mother, you know? I want my children to have both their parents in their lives.”

Her confession makes me feel uncomfortable, especially with my dragon screaming: you’re her soul mate, inside my head. She’s looking so forlorn that I wish I had never asked the question.

“Hey, who wouldn’t want a woman as awesome as you in their life?” I say, meaning every word, but I know my words fall short. She looks at me as if she wants to say something, but then shakes her head and smiles.

“I wish there were more men like you. Then I wouldn’t have any trouble,” she says with a sudden smile. I know she’s trying to lighten the mood, the wonderful woman that she is. If taking a mate was a possibility for me, I would want my mate to be exactly like Nic.

My dragon gives an almighty roar of fury inside me. I need to have a stern talk with him. It is getting more and more difficult to keep him under control.

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