Chapter Four
Cassandra stretched her arms over her head and blinked. Awake. Her mind replaying the previous night. Abruptly, she sat up. She was inside his hotel suite. She patted herself down. Still clothed, except for her shoes. She’d kicked those off on her own free will.
He’d ordered wine and steak and fruit, and after that adrenaline rush of escaping Drake and the parking garage, mixed with the wine, she hadn’t been able to stay awake. The last thing she remembered was him saying he was after Margaret.
Cassandra got to her feet, pushing off the blanket he must have tucked around her sometime after she’d fallen asleep. Her clothes were still all intact, which meant he had been true to his word. Both relief and regret filled her.
Where were her glasses? She squinted, found them on the end table by the couch and slid them on.
How did she ever end up in this kind of situation? Not that she had much of a choice. If Drake thought he had any hold on her, it was nothing compared to what Margaret dangled over her head.
From inside the other room, she heard the shower turn off. A minute later, the bathroom door pushed open, and there stood Edmund. All six -foot plus of him. With water glistening off his broad shoulders and six-pack set of abs that Michelangelo could have chiseled they were so taunt and perfect. His dark wet hair hung at his shoulders.
Her breath whooshed out of her. As if he could sense the warmth spreading through her, one side of his mouth turned up in a lopsided grin.
“Breakfast will arrive in fifteen minutes, unless you’d rather we find a cafe and finish our talk there.”
Cassandra couldn’t take her eyes from him. She absorbed his laid-back manner, the ease with which he smiled, and how he tried to charm her. It would have been working too, if not for the throb in her temple and rising anxiety. “What time is it?”
“After nine.”
For goodness sake, she should have been at the gallery by now. “Thank you for the offer, but I really don’t have the time right now.”
He stood in nothing more than a towel, with his arms crossed. A large purple bruise sleeved his shoulder and upper arm. She couldn’t have seen it before, in the dark shadows of her car or the blur of last evening. She walked up to him, tracing the deeply wounded flesh across the bulge of his bicep.
Edmund stood, his hands curled into to fist. She didn’t feel threatened. He wouldn’t touch her. Not unless she asked him.
His gaze locked on her, and he swallowed hard.
She traced the bruise up his shoulder dipping across his pectoral muscle. Warmth spread through her veins as if his heat transferred to her through touching him. Her nerves already stood on end with his constant stare. It startled her when a knock came at the door.
“I’ll just go and get that.” He stepped away, leaving her with a sudden chill in his absence.
She slipped in the bathroom, taking care of nature’s call. Splashing water on her face. “Wake up. He’s a dragon.”
Any twinge of disappointment she may have had become replaced with annoyance.
She shouldn’t have stayed here with him. She lifted her wrist up to the mirror. In the light of the bathroom, she could see the faint outline of his mark on her. A scribbled line, almost like a flame etched below her skin. Faint, but there just the same.
Oh, what was the use? She would never get way. Never repay her family’s debt. She was as much of a prisoner, trapped by her family’s actions, as her mother had become, struggling to recall places and times.
And how so like Drake, to try and manipulate her situation to get exactly what he wanted.
No way, would she allow him to get away with it. Not this time. Not when she had another dragon on her side, willing to stand up for her. That was the price she would pay for them both, hoping to free them all.
Cassandra opened the bathroom door and froze. She peered through the crack, spotting two of Seattle’s finest in uniform. Between them, Edmund’s back blocked everything else from view.
“That was right kind of you to return this. I hadn’t realized I’d lost it.”
“You weren’t there in the evening?” one of the officers asked.
Edmund tilted his head as if thinking it through. “As I said, I had an appointment earlier in the afternoon.”
“Well, then I’m glad we were able to return your phone and wallet.” The two officers started to step out of the suite.
“Before we go, I was wondering… Well…” the other officer held out his note pad. Cassandra opened the door a bit more, leaning forward to see Edmund take the pen and notepad from the officer. He scribbled on the pad and handed back the pen. “No problem.”
She held her breath, counted to ten. After the officers left, she stepped out of the bathroom. “Are you always required to give out autographs when you lose things?”
He shrugged. “Only when you’re famous.”
Really? That’s all he had to say before leaving her and going into the bedroom. Famous or not, she didn’t know why he’d think she’d stand around and wait on him. She slipped on her sandals and slammed the door as she left.
Twenty minutes later, she was back at the gallery. She found Alin sitting in the back, his boot clad feet resting on her desk, and his face in a Motor Cross Magazine. Not at all what one would expect coming into a sophisticated gallery as this.
She sighed heavily to let him know she had entered through the back of the gallery. His head swiveled around. Like Drake, if he’d had any sense, he’d have caught her scent long before she made it to her desk. That, or he couldn’t tear his eyes off the shiny metal cars in the pictures on the pages of his magazines. Every dragon had a weakness, something they collected. For Drake, it was warm fleshed females. For Alin, it was expensive cars.
Cars only he could obtain by appeasing his mistress, Margaret.
“I wouldn’t be showing up here if I were you.”
Cassandra took the two remaining steps to reach her desk. “Where were you yesterday? You said you would get me a latte and then never returned.”
Alin’s square forehead bunched. “Drake sent me on an errand. Said he would tell you.”
Of course. Because Alin did whatever Drake told him. Too bad Alin’s brain wasn’t as big as his build.
Last night’s conversation with Edmund teased her mind. “And of course, you won’t tell me where he sent you.”
Alin plopped one foot down off her desk then the other. “He said if you showed up here, I was to call him.”
Cassandra took a deep breath as she did every time Margaret sent her to make a deal. She had to play it cool with Alin. “Still got his tail stuck up his ass?”
Alin stood, towering a head taller than she. He rolled up the magazine and pointed it at her. “You’re a traitor. Margaret doesn’t like traitors.”
“Who says? Drake? Did he also tell you he almost blew my deal yesterday? Is Margaret going to like that?”
She had him there. His eyes shifted with concentration on what she said. She could almost hear the cogs turning in his wee brain. She liked Alin, almost felt sorry for him. If this wasn’t so serious she’d distract him, send him for another latte, but this time he would not be easy to manipulate. Even if she could smell the coffee and rum on his breath.
“Drake didn’t say nothing about no deal. Just you gone and hooked up with another dragon.”
A famous one at that, she mused, wondering what else Edmund St. George hadn’t told her. She’d Google him later, as she researched all her clients for Margaret before concluding a deal.
“Just because I won’t spread my legs for him, doesn’t mean I’ve gone and opened for business with anyone else.”
Alin’s eye contact faltered and he looked down at her and shrugged. “You’re still carrying his mark. You make Drake angry.”
“He’ll get over it. For once Drake is learning he can’t have everything he wants.” He obviously expected her to fawn over him and become one of his horde, but not this girl. Not even in his dreams.
Alin’s nostrils flared. “You need to leave. Let Drake cool off.”
She placed her hands on her hips, allowing the anger to rise and stamp out any fear threatening to expose her intentions. “I’m not about to let Drake blow this deal for me. It’s big Alin. Really big.”
“And the mark?”
“Insurance. To make sure I don’t welsh on the deal,” she lied, hoping it was more than that. Knowing it wasn’t.
She’d put him in a bad place. Alin twisted his magazine in his hands, the paper stressing about to tear. “You need to go. Not safe for you here.”
She placed her hand on his. “I’ll go, but you have to promise when Drake cools down, comes to his senses, you’ll arrange for Margaret to contact me.”
Alin nodded. She stretched up on her tip toes and kissed the dragon on the cheek.
As she turned to leave he said, “He’s waiting for you at your apartment.”