by Amelia Jade
“No. I came from out of the country somewhat unexpectedly,” he said, playing whatever wild card he could. If, and it was a huge if, Aaron was aware of dragons and what was going on, perhaps he would be able to put two and two together and maybe help him out.
“I see. I could call my supervisor, Miss Mara, and see what she has to say?”
“No,” he said hurriedly. Too hurriedly, judging by the way Aaron went completely still. “That will be unnecessary. We’ll go somewhere else.”
“Else?” Megyn asked as she came near. “Nothing available here?”
“It’s not a hotel,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Oh.” She looked sad, and he grew frustrated at having to disappoint her.
I should have thought this through better. Tried to contact someone here before we arrived.
The only problem with that, and the reason he hadn’t done such a thing, was that he didn’t want there being any record of his arriving if at all possible. The Enclave would find out, and then they’d know where to come. It was back outside it seemed, to find an actual hotel.
A chime sounded through the lobby as he thanked Aaron for his time. Glancing over in the direction of the noise, he saw the elevator doors open. Hel hissed in surprise.
“Palin?” he asked, stunned as he realized he recognized the person.
The emerald dragon shifter turned to look at him.
“Hel. What are you doing here?” he asked in a neutral voice.
Hel strode over to him. They weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies either. Their paths had crossed a few times before, but not recently.
“I could ask you the same thing. I didn’t know you’d come over here.”
“You know this guy?” Megyn asked, coming up to stand next to them.
Palin shot him a questioning glance, which received a tiny head-shake in return. No, she doesn’t know about us yet.
“We do. Palin is the one I heard about this place through the grapevine from. Though they made it sound more like a hotel than a condo. Imagine my surprise when I was told you had no rooms.” He forced a laugh.
“You need somewhere to stay?” Palin asked, green eyes flashing.
“Just for a bit. Things back home are…in turmoil.”
“Hel broke up my wedding while I was at the altar. Then he fought the groom and all his friends,” Megyn supplied. “He won.”
Palin coughed, his eyes going wide. “You did what?”
“She was engaged to Ian Farmier. Can you blame me?”
The other dragon shifter rolled his eyes. “Not in the least. You probably did her a favor in the long run.”
“Yeah, I saw the truth of that during their fight,” Megyn admitted, looking around.
There was an awkward silence.
“Is there any way we could stay here for a bit? I can pay; that’s not an issue.”
Palin pondered the question. Hel’s troubles with the Enclave were well known. Palin had been gone for some time, but he’d likely heard about them. Which meant he knew that interfering with another shifter’s business—like oh, say, his wedding—would result in more trouble. He could infer from there why Hel was now in Barton City.
“That’s the only problem?” he asked, looking directly at Hel.
Translation: Are they after you because they think you’ve gone insane? And are they right?
“Yes.” He glanced knowingly at Megyn out of the corner of his eye.
Palin caught the look and narrowed his eyes a bit. Then he nodded in understanding. The message had been received, and the other dragon knew she was his mate, that she would keep him out of serious trouble.
“There might be a way,” he admitted. “I don’t actually live here, though they’ve given me a place. My mate has a farm nearby where I live when I’m not busy.”
Which meant when he wasn’t out at the military base guarding against an attack by Outsiders. It was frustrating to use all this double-speak, but the absolute last thing Hel was going to do right now was explain the realities of the world to Megyn. She was not in the right frame of mind for that.
“So why don’t you two stay in my place? It’s furnished, renovated, but I don’t need it.”
“You would let us do that?” Megyn asked, stunned.
“But you have to do two things.”
“Name them,” he said.
“The funding for the building renovations has been put on hold for a bit. We have materials and plans and all that, but no money to hire contractors. You two put in some sweat equity, and you can stay in my place for free.”
Hel nodded. That wasn’t a problem. Like every dragon, he was used to working with his hands, learning a variety of trades when he was young. It would also hopefully give Megyn a chance to use her skills.
“The second thing?” he asked, holding his breath, though he had a strong suspicion as to what it might be.
“When you’ve got everything sorted, I’d like you to come by my work. Consider maybe giving us a hand. We could use someone like you.”
There it was. The knife in his side. Come fight the Outsiders if you want to stay here long-term.
“I’ll consider it,” he said tightly. “That’s the most I’m willing to say.”
“Why do I get the feeling that I’m only hearing half the conversation?” Megyn asked, looking up at both of them. “And why do all your damn friends have to be so big, Hel? Can’t you ever have any regular-sized friends?”
Both he and Palin laughed. “The smaller guys are intimidated by me?”
“Yeah right. You act all badass, but really you’re a softy, you know that right?”
“Stop giving away my secrets,” he said, putting a hand over her mouth with a smile.
“Do we have a deal?” Palin interrupted. “Sorry, I have other places I need to be.”
“Deal.” They shook, exchanged keys and the passcode to the building, and then Palin was gone.
“That was incredibly easy,” Megyn remarked.
Not if you knew the true price.
Chapter Twelve
Megyn
“Please tell me that we get to make our room look this gorgeous,” she breathed, stepping into the massive foyer.
“It certainly seems that way. This floor, if you noticed, only has four rooms on it. For the entire floor. I think that’s the plan.” Hel followed her inside.
“Unbelievable. This is some high-quality finishes, Hel. Serious money was spent on these.” She remembered him talking about often renting a private jet. “Are all the people here as wealthy as you?”
He shrugged. “Some of them, yes. Some more. Some less.”
“But all are rich?”
“I guess.”
He seemed uncomfortable talking about it so she dropped the topic. This was a dream. Designing a place for a rich person! That would be fun to work on while she was here, even if she might not see the final result. That would be weeks, if not months away, and surely they weren’t going to be here that long. She only had two weeks of vacation booked from her boring desk job back home.
Maybe there’s a way I could get them to pay me for this.
It would certainly be better than working reception at the health and wellness spa that she was currently at. Probably better pay too, if the clients were so high-end. Megyn made a mental note about that while exploring the rest of the apartment. A huge kitchen and common area occupied much of the space. Off to her left a hallway ran along the interior wall, opening to two…no three, rooms.
Eager to just flop down onto a bed, she kicked off her shoes and headed that way. The first room proved to be a spacious washroom. The second led to a computer room. Last but not least, the bedroom.
“Hel,” she said, calling his name dully.
“Yes?”
“You really need to stop booking one-bedroom apartments.”
“This was cheaper,” he fired back immediately, both of them well aware he hadn’t known this going in.
“For a
rich guy you sure are tight-fisted,” she joked, enjoying the banter between them.
Things had gotten awkward post-sex, and she had been waiting for it to ease out again. She’d yet to figure out exactly why it had gotten like that, not sure what had changed. The sex itself was the best she’d ever had, and the next morning she’d been craving more. But the connection had been gone. Somewhere post-orgasm the mood had changed.
Now the ice was thawing again, but she didn’t want to risk messing it up. Hel was one of her best friends, and despite his masculine sex appeal, she wasn’t sure she wanted to lose that. If she went down this path, explored things with him, that’s exactly what might happen if he wasn’t the one.
And we all know I’m a shitty judge of character about who “the one” is for me. I thought Ian was for me. What an idiot I am.
“I’ll take the floor tonight,” he rumbled suddenly from right behind her.
Megyn jerked, unaware that he’d come up behind her. “I told you to stop sneaking up on me.”
“I didn’t. I walked up to you normally while you were staring through the door. I even cleared my throat when you didn’t move.”
She looked up at him, admiring the once-again clean jawline, well defined with its strong square-ish end, and the smoke-like gray of his eyes. Lips that she knew from recent experience were perfectly kissable twisted up in a smile. “You’re still not moving,” he added.
“My bedroom,” she shot back, stepping inside and closing the door in his face, making sure he saw her stick out her tongue. “I’m going to take a shower and a nap.”
“I like your thinking. After we wake up shall we go and peruse our job for the next bit?”
“Okay,” she said through a yawn, her eyes already fluttering shut. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
Light as a feather she coasted over to the massive bed, pausing just long enough to toss most of her clothes aside before spinning around and flopping back into the covers and pillows.
She was asleep in seconds.
***
The sound of someone knocking at the door woke her five minutes later.
“I thought we were going to nap,” she complained, rolling over and closing her eyes.
“We did nap,” Hel said. “For two and a half hours.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” She glanced at her phone. He was right. “Sonofabitch. I didn’t even get to shower.”
Hel laughed through the door. “I guess it’s a good thing I like the way you smell then.”
Shuddering unseen, she shook her head at him. “That’s just gross. You know that, right?”
“Relax. You don’t stink. Much.”
Tossing him the finger through the door and a few choice words on top, she quickly hosed off and put on some fresh clothes. Then, and only then, did she open the door.
“You know, I’m fairly positive that when we first showed up here, you told me that this would be a vacation to help clear my mind. To relax and forget about things. You didn’t mention anything about having to work.”
Anything else she was going to say faded away as she focused on Hel for the first time. He’d forgone his usual T-shirt and shorts, and this time was dressed in a plaid shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, beige workpants, and workboots.
Holy. Fuck.
Things started churning. Her heart raced, blood circulating through her system. Chemicals became unbalanced, and the desire she’d had for him that morning became full-blown arousal. Hel could wear the shit out of that outfit, and make it look good. Not like some man-candy from a picture, but he seemed comfortable and confident, like he was used to wearing clothes that fit him that way.
“I take it you’re ready to go.”
He grinned, but didn’t say anything. She knew he’d just watched her drool over him, and his ego was currently through the roof. Not fair at all.
“I know you didn’t have that packed in your bag,” she said, following him down the hallway, trying not to stare obsessively at the way his butt filled out the jeans. She failed. Miserably.
Or happily, depending on the definition. One cheek went up. The other down. Repeat. It was glorious.
“I went out and bought it while you were sleeping,” he admitted. “I feel more comfortable doing work like this.”
“I believe that.”
Hel glanced back over his shoulder, but didn’t say anything more. His face said more than enough for her to be comfortable with. Megyn didn’t need him getting any ideas. Dripping sex appeal or not, that didn’t change things between them. They needed to sort out what was going on before they rumpled the sheets again.
The elevator ride was down a floor. It opened and…
“What a fucking disaster.”
Stepping out onto the ground, she looked around. Everything was ripped down to the studs, or less. Walls were gone, floors were gone, everything was just gone. Bits and pieces of it lay everywhere.
“So they already started demo.”
She didn’t comment, just followed Hel, stepping where he stepped. The only thing that had already been replaced by the look of it was windows.
“This isn’t going to be pretty,” she said, looking around. “I thought we were just doing one room.”
“We are. It’s just that the rest of the floor needs to be done too.” Hel grinned. “We can do this, trust me. I’ve got more than a little experience in construction.”
“When the hell did you do that?”
He shrugged. “I had a life before I met you, believe it or not.”
“Not.”
They both laughed.
“Over here,” he said, moving into a room that seemed devoid of clutter and chaos. In the middle was a big folding table. Spread out upon it were plans. “The company that was working on it originally already designed the plans I guess. So all we need to do is follow them, and choose all the stuff to put in it.”
“That’s…easier,” she said, relieved but also disappointed her full skills wouldn’t be put to the test.
“We can change anything we want,” he added. “I talked to Palin a bit more about that over the phone. He said as long as it’s held to the high standard that the room we’re in now is, then it’ll be fine.”
Megyn grinned. “Excellent. Let me see what we’ve got here.” She looked over the plans drawn up, noting that they were almost identical to Palin’s. Too identical for her tastes. There was plenty of things, big and small, that she would change. Almost immediately she picked up a pencil and went to cross out something on the blueprint. Her hand hesitated before making the first mark however.
“What is it?”
Tossing down the pencil she stood up straight, resting her hands on her hips. “Doesn’t this strike you as a little weird?”
“Does what strike me as weird?”
“This!” she waved her hands around the place. “Giving us a room free of rent if we, a pair of unknowns, design and renovate a floor of an apartment building for them? From a guy who doesn’t even own the place.”
She wasn’t completely positive about that last point, but it seemed unlikely, and if he did own it, Hel would correct her now.
“It’s fine.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Hel. I still trust you, but see this from my point of view. This is crazy. Palin can’t know anything about us. Yet here we are, trusted with something that’s going to cost hundreds of thousands, probably millions of dollars to complete. How is that not strange?”
Hel’s poker face had always been good, but after ten years she’d learned to read it better than he wanted. A stranger wouldn’t have noticed a thing, but he was practically squirming to her.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she pushed.
“Nothing bad. I promise you that. It’s just…I can’t tell you everything yet.”
She sighed. “Let me guess: ‘The Secret.’”
“The what?” He seemed genuinely confused.
Right, she’d never actuall
y used that term to him out loud, had she? “Hel, I’m not an idiot. Nor am I blind. We’ve been close for a decade now. There are…things about you that you hide, but that sometimes slip. Things that don’t quite add up. I have no idea what they all mean, but I know you’re hiding something. Some secret that you won’t tell even me. I stopped trying to figure it out ages ago, because I never got the impression you were lying to me or going to cause me harm.”
“I would never do anything like that to you,” he stated, exactly as she’d expected.
“Which is why I trust you. But just know that I’m not an idiot.”
To her surprise he grinned toothily, showing uncharacteristic happiness and emotion for him. “I certainly hope not. Just know that I will tell you, when the time is right.”
“When will that be?”
He shrugged. “You’ll know it when I do,” he said enigmatically.
“Fine. Have your secrets. You’re lucky this job is something I’m excited about, or you’d be getting grilled much harder.”
But in the back of her head, Megyn began to wonder if she’d made the right choice by following Hel. She still believed him when he told her that he meant no harm. But what about Ian? Nobody had been chasing after her before she left with Hel, or trying to run her car into a ditch.
Had she made a mistake?
Chapter Thirteen
Hel
“What combination do you like for cabinets and countertops?” she asked as they walked the aisles of products at a specialty kitchen store.
He shrugged. “I don’t care, truthfully.” Leaning over toward her, he swung an arm out and rested it around her shoulder. “As long as it’s not completely hideous, I’m happy about the choice you make.”
“Good man,” she teased. “I’ve always been partial to dark cabinets with light countertops. I think it makes them pop. Add in some lighter backsplash and we’re good to go. Does that strike you as hideous?” She didn’t move away from his arm.
“Not at all. I could quite easily live with that. Were you thinking marble?”
“Quartz.”
He nodded. “Good idea. Stains less.”
“Among other things. Oh!” She stepped toward a sample of quartz, holding onto his arm with one hand so he was forced to accompany her. “What about this? Isn’t that a beautiful gray?”
