The Dragon Billionaire's Secret Mate(2)

She opened up her online banking account. $3,547.79 in savings. Well, that wouldn't get them very far. She could take money out of her 401k, max out her credit card, and probably get a small personal loan, but then that still left them with about 50,000 dollars they didn't have.

Theresa looked down at the paper lying forgotten on her breakfast table. 50,000 dollars for 10 days of your time…

No.

That was insane. She wasn't going to—No. Don't even think about it, she told herself. There's got to be another way to solve this. She picked up the phone to call her bank.

Three hours later she sat back down at the table. Her hands were shaking. Her bank had been apologetic but thoroughly unhelpful. The credit card company had agreed to a small increase in her credit limit that wasn't even going to come close to solving the problem, and the company that handled her student loan hadn't even pretended to care. She didn't know what else she could try.

Theresa pulled over her laptop and googled the Grigorieff brothers. A few minutes later she put the laptop back down, sickened. Of course none of the accusations had ever been proven; but she wasn't going to gamble her sister's life on that.

The ad was still open on the table in front of her. With shaking hands, Theresa opened her laptop again and pulled up the word processor.

'Dear Lonely Bachelor,' she started.

It took her an hour to write two paragraphs. Not that she figured she had much chance in the first place. $50,000 for 10 days? That guy would have his pick of women, and there was no earthly reason why a plain librarian with a couple pounds too much on her hips should ever make the first spot on his list. But she had to at least try.

She printed out two pictures, too. One from her last vacation with Carolyn, which showed her leaning against a railing besides the ocean, laughing; and then, reluctantly, a second one of her in her bathing suit, sitting on a rock by the seaside. The bathing suit mercilessly showed off all her problem areas—her too-soft hips, her thick thighs—but if this guy was willing to pay that much money, he'd certainly want to know what he was getting.

She folded the pictures and put them in the envelope with her letters. Nothing was ever going to come of this anyway, but at least she'd made the attempt. Which still left her with the problem of where to find $50,000 on short notice.





***





Samuel looked down in dismay at the enormous pile of letters on his desk. He'd brought this on himself. What had he been thinking with that stupid ad?

What had seemed like a clever idea in a moment of crushing loneliness at two am was now quickly revealing itself as the stupidest idea he'd had in years.

All he'd wanted was to spend some time with a nice woman, someone he could take out to dinner or to the opera without having to worry that his brother might get the wrong idea. After all, even Severin couldn't claim that a woman might be his soulmate when he had to pay her thousands of dollars so she'd spend time with him.

As the only mated dragon in the clan, Severin was the alpha by default—and he'd do anything to keep it that way. He wouldn't hesitate to drive away any woman he thought might be Samuel's mate. He'd done it before. He'd spread lies about Samuel to his girlfriends, to any woman who even looked at him twice. One or two he'd even paid off so they'd leave. He was subtle about it, and clever, but Samuel was perfectly aware of what his brother was doing.

But a hired companion wouldn't seem like a threat to Severin, and therefore he wouldn't get in the way. And if Samuel knew it was a temporary arrangement from the start, he wouldn't risk getting his heart broken when it had to end. It had seemed like a good idea, in the middle of the night.

But looking at the replies he'd gotten… well, he should have expected this, of course, for that amount of money. What seemed like every escort in the country had sent him an application, in addition to about a thousand other letters: models, actresses, aspiring pop stars in dire need of some cash to keep their failing careers alive…

There was a foot-high pile of letters on his desk, and two sacks of unopened mail in a corner of his office. Most of them had sent pictures, professionally taken and photoshopped to within an inch of their lives.

Samuel sighed, looking down at the stack of glossy photographs in his hand. Women with makeup sprayed on so thickly their faces looked like perfect porcelain masks, foreheads smoothed out with Botox, skin imperfections photoshopped away. Fake breasts so perfectly round and symmetrical, their sheer perfection made them seem unnatural.

This had been such a stupid idea.

Samuel pushed the pile of letters aside, trying to clear some space on his desk. He'd need a container to get rid of all of them.

A single photograph fluttered out of the pile. Samuel caught it on reflex, giving it a quick glance.