Page 11

11

Elle

A z’s sister? “He didn’t mention that you’d be here.” I touched the necklace she couldn’t stop looking at. What must she think of me?

“We wanted to surprise him. We didn’t realize he had a surprise of his own.” Her gaze switched to my bracelet. “Do you have the rest of the set?”

I blinked at her. “The set?”

Udar grunted, like his sister’s meaning should have been obvious. “The diamond necklace. Do you have it?”

“Uh.” I drank the dregs of my champagne flute. “The necklace is at home.”

The edges of Tika’s thin lips curled up in obvious approval. “What about the rest of the amethyst set?”

“I didn’t realize it was part of a set.” I grabbed a new glass of champagne off a nearby server’s tray. This seemed worth breaking my one-drink rule for.

“He didn’t offer it to you?” Udar leaned forward. “Don’t tell me our expert little gold-sniffer is acting like a frumser . ”

The insult sounded familiar. Something about being cheap? “He just gave me the necklace tonight.” The champagne flute shook in my hands.

Tika pinched Udar’s arm, then sent me a reassuring look. “So he’ll give you the rest later.”

Unlikely . I took a large sip of champagne. “He’s very generous.” Sweat gathered on my palms and the back of my neck.

“I’ve heard humans are quite different from dragons,” Udar said, ignoring Tika’s glare. “Is it true that it can take you years to settle on a mate?” His attention refocused high on the side of my neck, right below my jawline.

“Uh, yes.” Why was he asking?

Udar’s golden eyes glowed. “How long have you been seeing Az? It can’t have been that long. He’s terrible at keeping secrets.”

“Three days?” I cringed and braced for another snide comment from Udar.

“That’s nothing, to you. Why, you’ve probably barely gotten your human mind around dragons in the first place. Why don’t you explore the field a little bit before you settle? That’s what humans call it, right? Settling?” He said this while smoothing one hand down his fitted suit, as if to draw my eye to the fine clothing and its close cut.

I narrowed my eyes at him. What the fuck ? Was Az’s brother hitting on me?

Tika elbowed Udar. “Stop it. No one thinks you’re funny.” She turned to me with a strained laugh. “He’s such a joker. Ignore him.”

“Um. Sure.” I slugged back another mouthful of champagne.

“I’m sure Az has showered you with gifts,” Tika said, shooting Udar another pointed look. “I hope you demanded a lot. ”

I blinked. “Excuse me?” Did they not get along? Was this Tika’s version of sibling rivalry? Obviously, Udar’s was to try and steal anything Az already had.

“Don’t be so tedious, Tika. Everyone knows humans are too prudish about money to negotiate properly. If you were mine, I wouldn’t even make you ask. I’d simply hand it to you.”

I gaped at him. He was blatantly trying to buy me in the middle of a gala while his brother’s back was turned. “That’s exactly what Az did.” Mostly.

Udar’s nostrils flared, releasing a small puff of smoke. He opened his mouth.

“Udar, you promised ,” she hissed at him. Udar’s mouth shut with a click.

“Forget I asked,” Tika said. “Tell me how you two met instead.”

Great, another tricky question. I took another large gulp of wine. “I wait tables at Norma’s Kitchen. One day, he and Niemrin came in, and I served them. Az’zael came back and asked me out for coffee.”

Udar snorted. “A public meeting? Sneaky frumser. ”

“Quit insulting him.”

Both dragons gaped at me, sharp teeth glinting in the low light. Fuck.

Then Tika laughed. “Don’t tell me, after all his complaining about timid humans, all it took was a little patience to find one with fire! Az is not a patient dragon.”

How on earth did they get “patience” from what I’d described? Patience wasn’t why I’d agreed to see him; I had bills to pay. Someone could have lit a match with the force of my blush. Still, I said, “Az has been very patient with me.” My voice hitched at the end.

“Good for him,” Udar muttered into his glass .

I went to take another sip, but my glass was empty again. I grabbed another full one from a passing server.

Tika leaned toward me, gleaming muscle and still half a foot taller than me in my sky-high heels. “I’ve heard quitting is a very cathartic thing for humans. Was it delicious, when you quit your job?”

I straightened my shoulders with pride. I wanted her to understand that I…what? Wasn’t with Az for his money? He was fucking paying me. Jesus. Of course I was with him for his money, and they seemed to understand that instantly. I wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground. What the hell was I doing?

Az’zael might have been a touch intense, but he was also kind and thoughtful, and he made me wonder if swearing off relationships altogether was possibly a rash decision. I didn’t want Tika to think that I took her brother for granted. “I haven’t quit.”

She drew back like I’d slapped her. “You’re still working some wretched job? What does Az say about that?”

“Az and I just started dating,” I said, taken aback.

“Did he not offer you enough? Are you holding out for someone richer?” Her nostrils flared as smoke curled from them.

Udar opened his mouth, probably to say something nasty. She shot him a look that screamed shut up .

“He might be early in his career, but he always got top marks in gold-sniffing, and he has wonderful plans to improve this dreary ‘city.’ You couldn’t find a better dragon.” Tika’s wings flared out wide as she spoke.

I backed up a step, afraid I was about to get a front-row view to a pissed-off dragon transformation.

“I won’t depend on a man like that.” Shit. The words came out too aggressive. I should have stuck to one drink.

“Az’zael isn’t a man. He’s a dragon. We’re much more dependable,” Udar said, examining his claws. A complete and suspicious change of demeanor from thirty seconds ago. What was his game now?

“Exactly! Az is a very dependable dragon, no matter what anyone says about his library!”

Udar smirked as he glanced between the spectacle Tika was making of herself, me, and the humans shrinking to the sides of the banquet hall.

Certain my whole body was bright red, I drew in a deep breath. I could feel eyes watching us from all over the room. “This is between me and Az’zael.” I enunciated each word carefully.

Heedless of the attention we drew, Tikalass drew up to her full height, towering over me. “You’re wearing his gifts; you’re accompanying him in public. I thought you liked him.”

“I do like him.” Better than I’d ever expected to.

“Then why are you still working ?” She said the last word like it had bitten her.

Out of the corner of my eye, Udar shifted forward. “Calm down, Tika.”

Calm down. The two worst words in the English language. I glared at Udar, and he gave me a small shrug. As if he didn’t understand why that hadn’t worked, and no, that wasn’t him provoking her five seconds ago.

“Enough, Tikalass,” Az’zael growled from behind me. “Leave Elle alone.”

Tika’s attention snapped to Az, her wingtips dropping.

Udar’s thin lips pinched together.

“I’m just looking out for you.” Tika crossed her arms.

“I can look out for myself.” Smoke puffed out of his snout, and I wanted to scuttle out from between these two massive, angry beasts .

“Put your wings away,” he said. “You know how skittish humans are.”

Now seemed like a bad time to tell him that billowing smoke like a chimney was also terrifying to most humans. The rest of the party pressed themselves against the walls, their attention still fixated on us.

“I warned you, Tika.” Udar tsked, his own wings tucked against his back.

Tikalass’s wings snapped closed. “Sorry.” She dipped her head.

“We’ve talked about this. You can’t come to human events until you’ve spent more time around them.” Az ran a hand over his flat face. “Tomorrow night, you’ll come to my apartment and apologize to Elle. Then you’ll go back to your lair.”

“It’s fine. Really,” I said. A surprise introduction to his family going to shit wasn’t exactly, well, surprising.

“It’s not fine.” He glared at Tikalass, who slunk backward.

“And you.” He rounded on Udar, who looked about as innocent as a seven-foot-tall dragon could. “What the hell were you thinking, bringing her here?”

Udar shrugged. “I thought she could handle the responsibility. She’s been an adult for a full year.”

Az scoffed. “I told you to stay out of my city uninvited.”

“Come on, I think it’s time for us to leave.” He pulled me forward, and I followed in silence. We hadn’t even had dinner yet, but I was eager to get out of here after that scene.

Once we were in the car, he turned to me and asked, “You’re still working?” Hurt poured off of him in waves.

I groped for an answer and said the first one that came to mind. “Quitting wasn’t in our agreement.”

“You don’t need a job. I assumed…”

My forehead wrinkled. “That I would depend on you completely? ”

“That I can take care of you.” His shoulders hunched.

I sifted through every conversation we’d had. How he’d responded to all of my demands in the coffee shop, how he’d showered me with extravagant gifts, how his sister had seemed bizarrely pleased about that, and how his brother had instantly tried to one-up him.

Shit. Was the gift-giving a dragon-culture thing rather than an Az-has-a-kink thing?

“I think you can provide for me very well.” I chose my words carefully. “But it’s difficult for me, as a human, to give up that kind of independence.” I’d need something to go back to when this was over.

“So this is a human thing?” He narrowed his eyes. “But that show, with the bosses. It sounds terrible.”

It could be terrible. I’d had my fair share of shitty jobs, but my current restaurant was one of the better ones. “It’s about knowing you can provide for yourself.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand. I can provide for you. If my mate works , people will think I don’t value you.”

“Your mate ?” I spluttered.

He shifted. “Fuck. What do humans call it? Husband? Spouse?”

“Wife.” I supplied the word while the rest of my brain tried to catch up.

“Right. Wife.”

“I’m not your wife,” I said stupidly.

“I know humans need more time to evaluate a mate. That’s why I put four months on the lease.” He shot me a concerned look. “Should I have made it five?”

My brain felt like it was melting out of my ears. “When did you decide you wanted to marry me?” Maybe that would shed some light on this insanity. Then, someday, this would be a hilarious story about how I took a walk on the wild side and a dragon mistook me for someone interesting.

“I was pretty sure after that first time you cleaned out my wallet. But I came back again to make certain.”

Nope, that didn’t clear up anything. “Two meetings and you wanted to marry me? For life ?”

“Dragons usually only take a week. Maybe two.” His forked tongue snaked out to wet his lips. “I know humans take longer, though. I didn’t want to rush you.”

Four months wasn’t rushing me? What the actual fuck kind of upside-down world was I in ?

“Wait, at coffee. You were asking me to be your girlfriend? For money? ” I should have found a nicer way to say that, but those three glasses of champagne were fuzzing the connection between my mouth and brain.

His forehead wrinkled. “That is the usual way, even with humans. Tika sent me your courting sites. They use a lot of euphemisms, but, um, you’re all kind of prudish about money.” He shrugged.

I tilted my head. “Which sites?”

“Arranged, Benefit, Companion.” He listed three sugar baby/sugar daddy sites.

“That’s not how humans usually date. Those are for, uh…” I squinted. How did I communicate to a dragon that what those sites offered was considered suspect at best and immoral at worst by most humans? “Those are for people who are looking for something temporary and are paying for the convenience of no emotions.”

Az’zael recoiled. “You didn’t—you weren’t—you don’t want to be my mate?”

Every inch of my skin felt like it was being pulled taut while my stomach squirmed. “Um. I don’t know? I like you. A lot more than I expected to, because, um, I thought you just wanted a convenient companion and you were really thoughtful and nice. I couldn’t figure out why you didn’t have a girlfriend already. But a few days is really soon to think about, um, marriage.”

Az’zael frowned. “You asked me for so much, though. I thought you understood I was serious.”

I squinted. What did my asking for more money have to do with how seriously I took him as a—what? Boyfriend? “I understood you were seriously rich.”

He relaxed. And he thought humans were weird about money.

“And that you were seriously interested in my attention. Temporarily. Which worked for me, because I kind of swore off relationships.”

Shit. I hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud.

“Swore off… why ?”

“Because I’m bad at them. I choose douchebags every time.” My stupid fucking mouth kept spilling my guts. “I thought our contract or whatever would protect me from that, but that apartment shit hurt, like, a lot.”

Az’s eyes widened. “It hurt ?”

“It made me feel cheap and stupid. I was kind of falling into the fantasy of being with you, and I didn’t even think twice about agreeing to go to this.” I gestured to my fancy dress. “But obviously you expected me to demand something in exchange, because I’ve done nothing but act like a gold-digger.”

He shook his head. “But a gold-digger is a good thing. You can ‘provide for yourself’ if you’re able to find gold.”

“No, it isn’t.” I rubbed my forehead. “Not among humans, anyway. Gold-diggers are people who care more about money than the person attached to it.” I wondered if I could fling myself out the car window to escape this conversation.

“Why would you waste any of your time with me if you weren’t evaluating me as a mate?”

“Right. Why would I turn down the most lucrative job I’d ever been offered when I’m up to my eyeballs in debt? You have no earthly idea what that’s like. You thought I owned an entire apartment building. Me. A server .” I told him how much I made last year. A laughably tiny sum, nowhere near enough to buy a building.

Az’s scales darkened. “None of you humans will talk about finances, and you all get offended when I assume wrong.”

I rubbed my temples. Most humans knew how to judge each other’s circumstances through context and subtle signs. Az was flying blind. “No one showed you a household budget when you decided to manage an entire city full of humans?”

Az glanced away and mumbled, “I assumed someone misplaced a decimal point. I didn’t want to call attention to what was obviously a mistake.”

He returned his attention to me, gaze searching, before jolting in his seat. “Wait, did you think I was your boss ? That I’d hired you? The apartment was meant to show you how much I wanted to be with you, to give you a comfortable place to stay while you evaluated me.”

“I…wow. Fuck. I wish I’d known that.” I stared at my hands.

“If gifts and spending time together aren’t how humans show interest, how do you show it?” He leaned toward me. The question could have been a dismissal, but he seemed genuinely interested in the answer.

“Both of those things but not, like, an exchange?” I couldn’t think of a better response .

He blinked. “I don’t understand. I value your time, and I know it’s limited, so I compensated you for sharing it with me. I value you , so I give you gifts. Humans do this, too. I’ve seen your commercials.”

Christ on a cracker. “Those are commercials .” Every jewelry, car, and vacation commercial was built on the idea that money equaled love, and based on everything I’d seen so far, dragons already equated money to affection. Of course he didn’t understand the difference.

Az’zael tilted his head, obviously still confused. I could recognize a losing battle when I saw one. “It’s just different. I can’t explain it.”

Az’s eyes lit up with realization, and he recoiled, his scales glinting in the streetlights. “Did you want to do any of that with me? The dates, the…” He looked like I’d kicked him in the stomach.

“Um. I did. Want to, that is. But it’s, uh, complicated.” I felt my entire body go red. “Because I liked everything we did, but you know.” He didn’t know. Of course he didn’t. I should have stuck to my one-drink minimum. “It wasn’t real.” My stomach clenched unpleasantly at the acknowledgement. Did I want it to be? I’d been attracted to a sugar baby arrangement because it seemed so straightforward, the give-and-take negotiated up front, and if the other person didn’t hold up their end of the deal, it was easy to hit the eject button.

But this wasn’t a sugar baby arrangement. Az wanted to marry me. And he’d started the relationship by wanting to give as much as he got. With money. I felt like my heart was pulling itself in a thousand different directions.

“Did you…but you…you did feel like you could say no, right? You turned some things down.” The car slowed to a stop in front of my apartment building.

I didn’t move from my seat.

“You didn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. But, Az, you literally tried to negotiate payment for my time. Of course I thought you wanted paid companionship. I don’t understand how what you actually want from me is different, except that you want it forever instead of for a few months.”

Maybe he couldn’t fathom how financially depending on someone could twist a relationship, but I’d seen it up close. When Adrian quit working, he’d expected me to pay all the bills and still do all the “women’s work.” By the end, we’d fought constantly.

Dwayne got Mama fired at least once a year, then spent the weeks until she found a new job treating her like a servant. Just last night I’d popped over for a short visit, and she’d been hard at work making chicken pot pie from scratch and deep-cleaning the apartment while it baked. Dwayne had been napping on the couch, with a half-empty beer in easy reach on the floor.

“I want to make you happy. I want us to make each other happy. And I’m just a job to you.” He slumped forward. “Obviously, you want someone different. Someone better suited to you. Okay. I’ll—fuck—I’ll leave you alone now.”

I rubbed my eyes. “It’s not that. I want—hell, I don’t know. I liked pretending this was real, but I also liked knowing that it wasn’t.” Realization hit me like a ton of bricks, the last of the champagne bubbles popping under the weight. “ I’m the problem here. I should just…yeah. I should just go.” I stumbled out of the car as swiftly as my fancy dress would allow.

I slept like shit that night. I couldn’t stop turning over every minute we’d spent together, every comment, every message, and reanalyzing it in the context of this new information. How had I missed it? He’d said a few things that seemed odd—why hadn’t I asked more questions ?

When I woke up the next morning, things felt a little clearer. I’d sworn off relationships because they felt uneven. With Az, I was the taker. It had me constantly feeling like I was on the back foot, like I needed to please Az even more. But if we could get that figured out…if we could both contribute…wasn’t that the dream? And wouldn’t I be the world’s biggest coward not to try?