Page 25 of Billionaire Dragon King’s Rejected Mate

Josh shrugged, easy as ever. “Anytime. It’s a pleasure to be able to worry about you, Ms. Matsen.”

She laughed. “That’s the worst pick up line ever.”

“It got you to laugh. I can come up with others if you promise to keep laughing.”

The subtle flirting kept the smile on her face. And as they turned the corner, Randi lifted her chin just a little higher.

“How do you feel about tacos?”

His eyes widened slightly at her innuendo. “I love tacos.”

“What do you say we go after work and eat until we can’t move?” Her heart gave her a little pang as she basically asked him out.

“Can we drink margaritas with them?”

She gave him a face. “We do have to work tomorrow. And if we drink as much tequila as we do eating tacos, we’ll have to pour ourselves into our offices.”

He chuckled. “Maybe just one or two.”

They agreed on a restaurant and where they would meet before he kissed her cheek. “Keep your head up. You’re doing great, even if Mr. CEO is too stupid to see that.”

She watched Josh walk down the hallway. Chance knew, but for some reason, he was afraid to admit it. She gave herself a kick. It wasn’t her problem anymore.

She turned to head to her own office with a smile on her face. It felt a little strange that she had been the one to ask him out, but there was life outside of work, and maybe it was time to explore that, one step at a time.

Even if a small, stubborn part of her still remembered the sound of Chance’s laughter and hated that it mattered at all.

Chapter 11

Chance

Chance had made a career out of control and yet as he stood alone in his own boardroom with the echo of his own voice from the meeting still circling back with an edge, he could not dull, he found himself confronted with the distinctly unwelcome reality that once control was lost, it did not always return easily.

He had seen her face despite his best attempts, and that was the problem.

Not the proposal, not the room, not even the choice he had made to dismantle her work with a thoroughness that had crossed the line from professional to personal without anyone else quite realizing where it happened.

It was the moment after with the flicker of hurt she hadn’t been able to hide fast enough. It lingered in his mind.

And despite every logical argument he could come up with, like it had been necessary, that distance was safer, that whatever had nearly happened in the splash zone was exactly the kind of complication he could not afford, it refused to resolve into something justifiable.

Which was precisely why he hurried out of the room. Movement, he had learned, helped. Action restored order, at least, it usually did.

The hallway was quiet when he neared the corner and he had already forced his mind to shift toward the next task or the next thing that required his attention, and then he heard her laugh.

He knew the difference before he could pretend otherwise. It wasn’t the laugh that was unguarded the way it had been at the park, but it was there and real enough.

He didn’t mean to listen, at least that’s what he tried to tell himself. He absolutely did intend to hear every word.

“It’ll be great to go to dinner and unwind a little,” Josh was saying, his tone carrying that careful, hopeful note that made the rest of the sentence predictable before it even landed. “Nothing complicated.”

“Okay then,” Randi said. “I’ll meet you there.”

Just that simple and she had a date.

The words hit harder than they should have, sharp and immediate. They cut clean through the thin layer of control he had managed to rebuild, and for a split second, one brief, dangerous second, he felt a shift beneath his skin, that familiar, volatile presence stirring with sudden, heated interest.

Mine.