The Dragon Billionaire's Secret Mate(8)

Just tell me! she thought. Tell me what you want, damn you!

"You must be tired," Samuel said, obviously noticing her increasing distraction. "I'll show you to the bedroom."

So this was it, then.

She would have liked to know what he wanted before they got to the bedroom. But at least she was going to find out soon, now.

The bedroom was sparsely furnished, impersonal. Not his own room, then; a guest room. It had the same floor-to-ceiling windows, the same gorgeous view as the living room.

Samuel hesitated in the doorway. After a moment he reached out, brushing his fingers through Theresa's hair. She couldn't quite help her startled flinch.

"Sorry. You had some lint," he said, showing her a piece of fluff caught in his fingers.

"Oh," she said stupidly.

"Well. Good night then," Samuel said.

"...Good night," Theresa said. It came out shaky, unsure.

Samuel gave her a smile and started closing the door. Hesitated. "There's a bolt on the inside of the door. Feel free to keep it locked at night," he added. "Sleep well."

He closed the door behind himself with a quiet click.

Theresa stared at the closed door. That was it? That was all? Good night? Sleep well? Everything they'd done tonight he could have done for free with any of a million women in Chicago, many of whom would have been prettier, younger, richer or more famous than Theresa was.

She pulled up her online banking account on her phone again, but no, it hadn't been some hallucination: $25,000, in black and white in her account.

No. She couldn't go to sleep like that. She wanted to know what was going on, and she wanted to know now.



***



Samuel startled when the door that had just closed behind Theresa was wrenched open again. Theresa stood in the doorway, her eyes wild. "Why don't you tell me what you want?" Theresa said. The words seemed to break out of her. Her voice cracked.

Samuel looked at her, confused.

"You're not paying me fifty thousand dollars just so you can take me out to see a fireworks show," Theresa said. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you've given me some time to get to know you, and I've had a great time, but the suspense is really killing me at this point, okay? Whatever it is, it's fine, I knew what I signed on for. Just tell me!"

Samuel stared at her. Had she been worried about this the entire time? "I don't want anything from you," he said. "Just—just what it said in the ad. Just your company."

Theresa snorted. "Come on. You're rich, you're good-looking. If all you wanted was company, you could get it for free."

Looking at it like that, of course her worries made sense. He'd thought he'd been clear enough in the ad, but... God, I'm an idiot, Samuel thought. He should have thought about this. He should have said something, explicitly. Made it clear that he didn't expect anything like that from her.

"I'm not an idiot," Theresa said. She sounded very tired. "Just tell me. I know you're not giving me that much money without something in return."

"But I am getting something. Your company," Samuel said. She looked at him in disbelief.

He sighed. "It's complicated," he said. "There's things I can't tell you. There's a reason I can't just go out with a woman. I can't... I wish I could explain it better than this. All I want is to spend some time with you. I don't expect anything more than that."

Theresa watched him with narrowed eyes. "So what you're telling me is that there's some great secret conspiracy that's keeping you from spending time with women you're not paying."

"Yes," Samuel said, wincing. It sounded ridiculous when she said it like that. I was ridiculous, and he couldn't possible explain it any better than this without making it sound less believable. I'm a dragon shifter, and my brother's trying to stop me from finding my mate because then I could challenge his claim for alpha? No.

Suddenly Theresa laughed, a startled, incredulous sound. "Heck, I guess I do believe you. You've been too damn nice to me to secretly be a creep."

"Wait," Samuel said, as another thought occurred to him. He went over to his office and started pulling drawers open, scrambling for his checkbook. He made out a check for $25,000 and handed it to her.

"Here," he said. "The rest of your money. If I ever do anything you don't want, anything that scares you, you take that money and leave, all right? I don't ever want to make you uncomfortable."

"You really do mean it," Theresa said, wide-eyed. She held the check with both hands, clutching it to her chest as if it might fly away. "This is crazy, you know that, right?"

"Not as crazy as you think," Samuel said. Not as crazy as she'd think the real truth was: his true nature, the power struggle he didn't want her getting caught in.