Page 6 of Billionaire Dragon King’s Rejected Mate

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said calmly and stepped past them.

“Oh, excuse you,” Randi muttered under her breath.

He paused. Just long enough to glance back at her again. Those glacier-blue eyes held something different this time. Definitely amusement now.

Then he turned and walked away.

Randi watched him go before shaking her head.

“Well,” she said, “Chance-from-the-beach seems delightful.”

Marissa pressed her lips together, clearly fighting laughter again.

Randi squinted at her. “You okay?”

Marissa coughed into her hand. “Perfectly fine. I’m just going to let you dig your own holes.”

“Pfft. He’s not worth getting out the shovel.” Randi glanced back toward the man disappearing into the crowd. “It’s just kind of funny he has the same name as the CEO.”

Marissa made another suspicious choking sound. Randi frowned at her.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked.

But Marissa just shook her head, still laughing quietly to herself, while across the way the man called Chance paused for a brief moment before continuing toward the stage.

Randi headed toward her car. The time for work had ended, and now she had another adventure in mind that had nothing to do with a water slide.

Chapter 3

Chance

Chance hit the pool at the end of the water slide hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs.

For half a second, everything was bubbles and the sharp sting of chlorinated water up his nose as water gurgled in his ears and over his head. He broke the surface with a cough when his throat burned from the wrong-way water. He slicked his hair back as he laughed at himself.

“Okay,” he muttered, treading water. “Not my most dignified moment.”

He swam to the edge and hauled himself up. Water dripped off him and his T-shirt clung to his torso like a second skin. His swim trunks felt about ten pounds heavier than when he’d started his day of incognito.

He grinned while he tightened the string to keep his shorts around his waist and not down around his ankles. Today was totally worth it.

“Wow. That was graceful.”

Chance froze at the voice.

He turned, blinking water out of his eyes, and there she was. She leaned casually against the metal railing with her arms crossed and wearing an expression somewhere between impressed and deeply entertained.

Randi.

His newest hire. The one who, not thirty minutes ago, had absolutely roasted him at the entrance booth without a shred of hesitation. The one he had sworn to stay away from.

She arched her brow. “I had you pegged as a walk-on-water kind of guy, not a scream-down-the-slide kind of guy.”

Chance snorted and grabbed a towel off a nearby chair. “I’ll have you know, I maintained a respectable level of composure.”

“Oh, did you?” she said sweetly. “Because from where I was standing, it sounded like a full-on distress call.”

“That,” he said, pointing at her with the towel, “was a tactical yell.”