The Dragon Billionaire's Secret Mate(10)

It took him a moment to realize she was there, he was so focused on his coffee. When he did, his face lit up with a smile. "Good morning!"

"Morning." Theresa suppressed a yawn. "Is there any more of that coffee?"

There was, in fact, some sort of enormous space age artifact of a coffee machine looming in a corner of the kitchen. Theresa eyed it, daunted.

Samuel laughed. "Yeah, it took me a while to get used to that thing, too. Especially first thing in the morning. The coffee's worth it, though. What would you like?"

He made the machine produce the cappuccino she'd requested. Theresa closed her eyes in pleasure at the first sip. "Oh my God. You've ruined me for all other coffee."

"Feel free to drink as much of it as you want while you're here," Samuel said with a smile.

"So what are we doing today?"

"Well, first of all, breakfast. Which is hopefully going to get here in a minute. After that... Do you have a dress you'd want to wear to a gala at the opera?"

"Um. Not really," Theresa said. The black dress she'd worn the evening before was the nicest dress she owned, and even if it wasn't hopelessly crumpled by now, it wasn't made for a black tie event.

"No problem," Samuel said easily. "I'll call my tailor, we can meet her after breakfast."

"All right," Theresa said hesitantly. She'd never had anything tailored in her life.

Breakfast consisted of caterers rolling in a whole cart laden down with waffles, oatmeal, bacon, hash browns and other breakfast foods. Theresa watched the bounty, wide-eyed. She was pretty sure they could never eat all of this. But Samuel immediately piled a huge portion onto his plate.

"Sorry. I have kind of a crazy metabolism. I get really hungry in the morning," he said sheepishly.

The good thing was, with him eating like that, she didn't have to feel embarrassed about tucking into her own food with relish, and maybe even taking a second waffle and some more bacon for herself.

She had to admit it was great to get to enjoy her meal without having to cook, set the table, or even clean up afterwards.

"Oh, leave it. The housekeeper will take care of it," Samuel said easily, when she picked up her plate to carry it to the sink. "I usually do my own dishes, but not when I have a guest."

The housekeeper came in just as they were leaving. She was a middle-aged lady with thick, curly grey hair, who greeted them with a smile.

"Sally, sorry, we left kind of a mess. I left you a tip," Samuel said.

She swatted his elbow, laughing. "Oh hush, you. You pay me four times what I'd make cleaning a hotel, and then you clean up after yourself half the time. Go have fun and leave the dishes to the professionals."

Theresa had already noticed that he seemed to know his entire staff by name, from the valet to the caterers, and was friendly with all of them, always taking a moment to say hello and asking about people's day, or how their family was doing.

Everyone seemed to like him, too. They joked around with him, even seemed comfortable teasing him a little.

Samuel's tailor had a tiny hole-in-the-wall shop somewhere in a back alley downtown. All the walls were lined with suits and dresses on hangers, piles of fabric everywhere.

The tailor was a tiny, wizened old lady who gave Samuel a hug in greeting and shook Theresa's hand so firmly, her fingers tingled afterwards.

"I'm Sue," she said.

Sue had the brisk, no-nonsense manner of a general commanding her army. Within minutes, Theresa found herself up on a carpeted block getting swarmed by two young assistants, who were taking measurements from every angle while she tried to stand very still.

Sue took the sheet full of numbers from the assistants and nodded approvingly. "About what I expected. Mikhail, Sonja, bring out the dress!" She turned to Theresa. "Now, your young man had me prepare a dress that he thought you might like. I'll have you try it on, but you're going to speak up if you don't feel good in it, all right? We've got other options. If a woman leaves my shop without feeling like a princess, I haven't done my job. So no false politeness if you don't like it. Understood?"

"Yes, Sue," Theresa said with a smile, feeling as if she should be saluting.

They put up a screen she could undress behind. Theresa didn't get much more than a glimpse of dark blue fabric while the assistants were helping her into the dress, between Mikhail pinning up folds of fabric, and Sonja tugging things every which way, adjusting the neckline and the hem. Her arms, legs and head constantly seemed to be in the way of whatever anyone was trying to do.

But finally the flurry of activity subsided. Sue made some final adjustments herself, and gently turned Theresa to face the mirror.

Her breath caught.