Page 12 of Billionaire Dragon King’s Rejected Mate

“Okay,” she said, pointing at him with a wet finger, “your turn. What do you do at TimeOff?”

There was a beat, just long enough to confirm what she already suspected, and then he leaned his head back again, staring up at the sky like the answer might be written there.

“I work there,” he said.

Randi blinked. “Wow. Incredible. So specific. Truly illuminating.”

He huffed out a laugh. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” she shot back. “That is not an answer. That is the outline of an answer.”

He turned toward her again, and there was something almost apologetic in his eyes now, mixed with that same frustrating wall she kept running into.

“It’s… complicated,” he said.

“Oh, I love complicated,” she replied immediately. “Complicated is my favorite. Complicated means there’s a story.”

“Or it means there are things I can’t really get into,” he said, his tone still gentle but firmer now.

She held his gaze and searched for cracks or hints, anything that might explain why a simple question felt like it had weight behind it, and she found herself oddly aware of how much she wanted him to just… trust her with it.

But she also felt the hesitation in him, the way he seemed to brace for pressure that she hadn’t actually applied yet, and the last thing she wanted was to be the reason he pulled away completely.

So she exhaled, letting the moment loosen instead of tighten.

“Okay,” she said and lifted her hands in surrender, but with enough flair that she splashed water over both of them. “Mystery job. I’ll allow it. For now.”

“For now?” he echoed.

“For now,” she repeated and a small smile tugged at her lips. “But just so you know, I am very good at figuring people out.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It’s a promise,” she said lightly.

They drifted into a shaded tunnel then and the temperature dropped just enough to raise goosebumps along her arms. The sounds of the outside world dimmed as the water carried them forward in a slow, echoing hush, and for a moment it felt like they were suspended somewhere separate, somewhere quieter, where the space between questions and answers stretched a little wider.

“You’re not what I expected,” Chance said suddenly.

Randi blinked at him in the dim light. “Wow, bold of you to assume I care what you expected.”

He smiled at that, softer this time. “You don’t seem like someone who just… lets things go.”

She considered that and tilted her head back against the tube as they emerged from the tunnel into sunlight again.

“I don’t,” she admitted. “Usually.”

“But you’re letting this go,” he said.

“For now,” she echoed again and glanced at him. She stared longer than what was probably appropriate, because there it was again. That pull, that curiosity, that spark she hadn’t planned on feeling today, especially not with someone who clearly had layers he wasn’t ready to peel back.

And maybe she should’ve been more cautious, maybe she should’ve recognized the warning signs in his evasiveness, in the way his answers curved instead of landed, but instead she found herself smiling.

“Don’t get used to it,” she added, her voice teasing but softer now. “I’m patient, not disinterested.”

“I didn’t think you were,” he said, and there was something in the way he said it, something warm and almost relieved, that made her stomach flip in a way she definitely wasn’t prepared to unpack.

So she didn’t.