Earth Dragon's Kiss (High House Draconis Book 4)

by Riley Storm

  “You’re on the clock!” Jared called, but she ignored him.

  That was a problem for later. Right now, she needed to get up to Jax’s office and confront him on just what the hell he thought he was doing.

  She took the stairs up to the ground floor, and then headed for the elevators, punching in C-Floor. It didn’t move.

  “Right. The keycard,” she said to herself.

  An idea came to her. She punched in D-Floor. The elevator doors closed, and she went upward. They deposited her out onto a mostly empty floor. Whatever services were going to move in there, they hadn’t done so yet. But it was complete.

  Sarah followed the signs she was looking for, then pushed open the door to the stairs. It led upward. Like she’d suspected, the doors in the stairs weren’t key-carded. It wasn’t a security measure as much as a deterrent to anyone randomly coming in.

  She pulled open the door to C-Floor and entered the hallway. It took her a few wrong turns, but she eventually spied Jax’s receptionist and got her bearings. She walked right by the blonde woman.

  “Wait, Miss, you can’t go in there. He’s busy with someone. You need to wait!”

  Sarah fixed her with a glare that sent the secretary scurrying back to her desk to pick up the phone, and then she walked into the office.

  Jax was there, talking to a blonde dressed in slacks and a white button-up blouse. Her smart attention to the outfit and the strict ponytail that held her hair back screamed at a position of authority.

  “My apologies, Detective Corningstone,” Jax said as he eyed Sarah calmly. “I didn’t expect us to have any visitors during this meeting.”

  The blonde turned to regard Sarah as well, though she didn’t say anything.

  “We need to talk,” Sarah said sharply, fixing her gaze on Jax.

  “I’m busy right now, Miss Mingott,” Jax said, gesturing toward the police detective. “Can this wait?”

  “No.” It was perhaps a bit arrogant of her to assume she had more valid reasons to be there than the detective, but right then, Sarah didn’t care. She was tired of not getting the treatment from Jax that she wanted, and that was going to change, starting now.

  “I see.” Jax regarded her for another long moment, then looked up at the Detective. “Will you excuse us for a moment please, Jessica?”

  The woman looked back and forth between the two, then she smiled. “Of course. I’ll wait out in reception.”

  “Thank you,” Jax said.

  Then the pair waited in silence as the detective departed the room, neither moving, neither taking their eyes off the other.

  14

  Jax sighed.

  What is it now? he wondered. Where had he screwed up this time to earn yet another round of wrath from Sarah? He’d not seen her all weekend, though she’d been in his thoughts often. Thinking about other things was difficult when all his mind wanted to do was think of her.

  “Come in, I guess,” he said, gesturing at the seat opposite him. As he did, he flipped closed the report from Detective Corningstone. There was no need for Sarah to see all the missing persons reports.

  The face of a bald man, a former cop himself, disappeared underneath the folder’s plain manila cover. Jax would come back to him. Peter, Chase, and all the others who had disappeared would get his full attention after he’d dealt with Sarah’s latest issue.

  “What can I do for you?” he said, opening the conversation when Sarah didn’t immediately start speaking.

  “Why?”

  Jax sighed, rubbing his temples. “Why what, Sarah? What is it this time?”

  Shouldn’t have said that. I should not have said that.

  “This time?” she asked acerbically. “Wow. Good one. ‘Cause I’m only ever here when there’s trouble.”

  “I mean, both times you’ve been here now, I’ve gotten yelled at,” he pointed out. “It seems to be a continuing trend.”

  “Maybe if you didn’t try so hard to insert yourself into my life, then we wouldn’t be having these issues,” she said, tossing her head, sending hair flying everywhere with the irritated action.

  “I haven’t seen you all weekend,” he protested, holding his hands up. “I didn’t call, I didn’t come visit you and your grandmother for lunch like she asked. Nothing. I stayed away.”

  “Yet I come in this morning, and you’re still giving me special treatment,” she ground out.

  “How?” he asked, genuinely confused.

  “All my equipment? Chair, computer, everything, it’s all ridiculously over the top for what I need to do my job!”

  Ah. Now he understood. Jared had told him it would take a bit to get set up. Jax had assumed it was done before the weekend, but now he knew that was not the case.

  “Do you not like the equipment?” he asked, spreading his hands out wide.

  “Of course, I like it,” she snapped. “It’s not a matter of like it’s a matter of need. I don’t need you to do this for me.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Jax said, wondering when she would begin to understand. “I never thought you needed anything, Sarah. It’s simply that I want to do this for you. Why do you have such a hard time accepting that? Why is it so impossible for you to believe that?”

  Sarah shook her head. “You’re giving me special treatment. You have ever since that day in the lobby. Unless you can look at me and tell me that you just pulled my resume out of the stack after I left and hired me without an interview or anything? Can you tell me that?”

  Jax hesitated. “Ummm,” he said. He wanted to say yes, that it was all random, but he couldn’t lie to her, nor did he expect her to believe that. Not now, not after it was clear they had some sort of connection. He could feel it, more now after several days of her absence. His dragon was going wild inside, urging him to do something.

  But Jax was no young dragon. Despite his burning desire to find his mate, he could control his dragon. For now.

  “Fine. No, I was intrigued by you in the hallway. Here you were, strong enough to come in and apply, but the instant I locked eyes with you, you changed your mind. Your entire emotional being changed. You locked yourself off, went cold, and that continued when I tried to talk to you.”

  Sarah had the good graces to look embarrassed at being called out for it, but Jax wasn’t done. Not yet at least.

  “So yes, I took your resume. I looked it over, and I got your address from it.”

  “I know it,” she hissed, standing up.

  “Sit down,” he commanded. There was no anger in his voice, but the strength of it filled the room.

  Sarah sat back down, eyeing him uncertainly. He understood. It was the first time he’d raised his voice, for any reason. She had to wonder why, and what the purpose was behind it.

  “What you don’t know,” he added. “Was that I took your resume to Jared. I had him look it over. I asked him his thoughts. He took one look at it and said he wanted you on his team. That we needed to hire you, no matter what.”

  Sarah licked her lips nervously, but Jax wasn’t done.

  “I almost let him just call you, give you an interview and hire you. Whatever it was he wanted to do. But I couldn’t, Sarah. Do you know why?”

  She shook her head but didn’t speak. Jax wondered if this meant that perhaps he was finally, finally getting through to her, that she would start to understand he wasn’t trying to impress her or get her to sleep with him because of the job offer like she seemed to think the last time they’d been in his office.

  “I didn’t, because I could tell you had some sort of hesitancy toward working here. That the idea of it didn’t make you happy. That’s why I offered to bring you on as my assistant. I thought perhaps if I gave you a better job, that you might not have a problem with it.” He shrugged. “I don’t want people working here just because they need the money, Sarah. I want people working here because they want to because they enjoy it.”

  “Oh,” she squeaked but didn’t say more.

  “I
had hoped that being my assistant would make you enjoy working here. I didn’t think it would create the exact sort of problem I was trying to avoid. That was not my intention at all.”

  He avoided talking about his other reasons, about how he found her gorgeous, irresistible, and his unceasing desire to get to know her better. Those things he felt weren’t what she needed to hear. Not then at least, though he hoped perhaps in the future they could be frank with one another.

  Regardless of his own personal desires, the one thing Jax found himself most wanting to do at that moment was make Sarah happy. He just needed her to tell him how, because his efforts so far had failed miserably, producing the opposite result.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling the need to keep speaking. “Please, let me know what you would like to do going forward. How can I make this better for you?”

  15

  Sarah was backpedaling mentally as fast as she could, but it was still too slow. There were too many presumptions, the vast majority having been made by her, and it would take time for her to undo them all.

  “I’m going to be honest,” she said quietly once her brain started to catch back up. “I did not expect you to have those sorts of answers.”

  “That’s because you have it in your head that I’m some kind of manipulative bastard,” Jax pointed out.

  Sarah didn’t reply. What could she say, other than admitting he was right, which she didn’t want to do. They both knew it.

  His answers had been rational, thought out. It bothered her to know that he’d thought everything through, while she’d just leapt to conclusions.

  Grandma was right, you did lump him in with Chadwick simply because of what he has. You didn’t give him a chance to show who he was, and now it’s making you look like an idiot. Remember this feeling, remember it so you don’t do it again.

  She wasn’t about to label Jax as a good person, but she would have to start from scratch with him, give him a fair shake. Perhaps that was the answer to his question then.

  “I want to start over,” she said. “With us. No more preferential treatment for me, no more buying me expensive stuff, trying to give me a cushy job. None of that. Stop doing stuff for me.”

  “Why?” Jax wanted to know, standing up. “Tell me then, do you not like it when I pay attention to you?”

  Sarah bit her lip, hating herself for the dead giveaway of an answer to his question. She liked being around him, even if she wasn’t a fan of his actions to her. It was confusing and completely at odds with her irritation at his actions. Sarah really didn’t know what to do, or how to answer. So, she just stayed silent, keeping her eyes on him.

  “Am I really that bad?” Jax wanted to know.

  “I just want you to stop spending money on me then,” she explained, finding her voice. “I…”

  She almost let slip, letting him into her world, to her past, and the memories buried there. Almost. Catching herself in time, she just gave her head a small shake, indicating she wasn’t going to finish the sentence.

  “I had stopped,” he said. “This morning was just a legacy of when you first came in. I had hoped it would make you want to stay, not drive you away. I see now that I was wrong.”

  “I’m just not the type of person who responds well to being bribed,” she said, coming as close as she dared to talking bluntly.

  “Well, I wasn’t trying to bribe you,” Jax said. “Not for any sort of bad reason at least, but I understand how it could come across like that.”

  She wanted to lash out at him. To get him fired up and arguing. Her blood had been up and pumping, and Sarah had prepared for a hard argument the instant she entered his office. Instead, Jax had decided to act mature and calm, and admit his own errors.

  And you’re upset because you’re having a hard time doing the same out loud to him. Face it, most of these arguments are your fault for judging him right away.

  “So, since it bothers you so much, consider it done,” Jax said, smiling at her as he walked around the desk.

  This time though, much to her relief, he didn’t come and sit right in front of her. Sarah wasn’t entirely sure how she would react to him being in such close quarters to her. Not now, not after showing her a side to him she hadn’t believed existed. It was…distracting, on many levels.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, trying to ignore the knots her stomach was tying itself into.

  “I do want to ask you something though,” Jax said.

  She noticed he was wringing his hands. Was he nervous? About what?

  “What’s that?” she asked, giving him the go-ahead.

  “I was wondering. Would you like to have lunch with me?” Jax smiled tightly at her, revealing his nerves. “We can split the bill if you want, if that makes you feel better.”

  Sarah covered her mouth to hide the smile threatening to break out on her lips. It was cute that he wanted to split the bill, if that was what it took to get her to come out. Perhaps he was finally getting it through his skull that all the wealth in the world wouldn’t do any good when it came to her. She’d had that before and realized that what she truly wanted was a good person instead.

  “Why?” she asked, curious what had brought about such forthrightness from Jax.

  It was no surprise that he was interested in her; she’d seen that from the very start, when he’d locked eyes with her in the lobby. He either hadn’t known he was broadcasting his interest, or he’d not bothered to hide it. Regardless, despite his attempts to couch it in wanting to hire her, this next move didn’t surprise her.

  What she wanted to know was what had prompted him to abandon his pretense and just get straight to the point—much to her relief, because now she could turn him down and move on from all this ridiculous parading about behind facades.

  “You intrigue me,” Jax said at last.

  It was yet another answer she hadn’t expected. Sarah had been prepared for any manner of comments about her appearance, his desire for her, or an attempt to straight-up call out some sort of ‘connection’ between them as the reason they should get together.

  “You’re smart, strong-willed, not afraid to voice your opinion when you believe in it. You’ve stood up to me multiple times, regardless of who I am. You don’t want what I have to offer, and yet you didn’t immediately say no when I asked you out. I want to figure you out, Sarah Mingott, and I suspect that if I do, I’m going to like what I find. The only thing that remains, is if you can do the same to me.”

  He’d called her out. Just not in the way she’d expected. Again. G-Nance’s words echoed through her head. Not all rich men are the same. Here was proof. Instead of trying to sweet-talk her, Jax had used the truth to reach out to her. Then he’d turned around and told her in as many words, that if she could look past his cover, she might like what she finds inside. It was a challenge, but not one Sarah had any intentions of partaking in.

  “So, lunch?” Jax pressed gently.

  Finally. A chance to turn him down and be done with this.

  “Lunch would be nice,” a voice said. “I’d like that.”

  Her voice.

  Oh no.

  16

  They went to a casual restaurant in the heart of old Plymouth Falls. Sarah had been to the Girard Family Restaurant many times before. In fact, it was a favorite spot for her and her grandmother to get brunch on Sundays when they felt like going out. Or at least, it had been until she lost her job and money grew tight.

  “How did you know I liked this place so well?” she asked after they had placed their orders.

  “I’d love to give a cute, non-creepy answer to that question that would make you think well of me,” Jax said. “But the truth is Sarah, I had absolutely no idea.”

  She laughed. “Fair enough. Though I still can’t believe I said yes.”

  Once the initial shock of her agreeing to do lunch with him had worn off, Jax had surprised her with the knowledge that they were doing it that day. She felt woefully unprepared and
wished she’d taken a bit more time doing her hair in the morning. It was in a ratty ponytail that hadn’t improved much after ten minutes brushing it in the washroom with her emergency hairbrush from the bottom of her purse.

  “I’ve only been twice since they renovated it last year,” she said, looking around. “I like what they’ve done with the place.”

  “Why did they renovate it?” Jax asked, also looking at the new décor, very bright and light blues and grays with a mixture of black furniture and charcoal tablecloths on the tables.

  “Well, it was a bit run down,” she said. “But I also heard that there was a fight or something that did a lot of damage, so they just decided to remodel.”

  “Interesting,” Jax said, his eyes wandering over the other patrons, and then to a staircase that led to the second story of the building. “Very interesting.”

  “If you say so,” she said, shrugging. “The food is just as good as ever though.”

  “Glad to hear I picked a good spot then,” he said, smiling at her. “So, you’re not native to Plymouth Falls?”

  “No,” she said. “None of my family is. My grandmother moved here, oh, twenty years ago? When my grandfather passed away. She always wanted that small-town living, and Boston just wasn’t cutting it for her.”

  “Boston is quite a hike,” Jax said. “Why did you come here?”

  Sarah hesitated. “To look after her, mostly,” she lied. It wasn’t a complete lie, that had been part of the reason she’d come. But there had been other, more extenuating circumstances that led to her arrival in the small town.

  Still, she didn’t regret it. Despite the lack of jobs for her industry, Sarah had found that the small-town life agreed with her a lot. There was no going back to the big city now, that was for sure.

  Jax’s eyes tightened at her response. He knew she was lying. She waited for him to push, to pry into her life and find out the real reason, but he relaxed, nodding once, to show he knew she wasn’t telling him everything, but that he was respecting her wishes to keep it private.