Dragon Billionaire: Dragon Shifter Romance (City of Dragons Book 5) by Kayla Wolf

Author:Kayla Wolf [Wolf, Kayla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9 – Lena

“Xavier didn’t mention what an absolute beauty you were,” Marigold was saying as she ushered Lena into the seat beside Xavier. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s mine,” Lena replied. “And I bring tidings of love and thanks from a collection of artists back home in Volentis whose work you’ve been inspiring for—” She glanced around the restaurant, crowded with humans, and thought better of saying ‘centuries’. “For a very long time.”

The woman in the seat next to Xavier looked to be in her late forties, maybe her early fifties—but for dragons, visual age was more of an aesthetic choice than a meaningful indicator of actual age. And from what she’d heard, Marigold had been around a very long time… long enough, she assumed, to have grown tired of being considered, by humans, to be a young woman. She could sympathize with that, in a way. She herself was older than any living human being, but during her day of sightseeing, she’d been treated like a child by just about every human she’d encountered. It had been a long time since she’d spent much time around humans—she’d forgotten how young they were, how appearance-focused.

“And how are you enjoying the city that never sleeps?”

“It’s wonderful,” she said, a grin spreading across her face. It really was. She’d been a little apprehensive about spending the day wandering the streets of the city all alone, but New York was absolutely full of sights to see. “I feel like I’ve barely scraped the surface.”

“I was telling your young man here what a ridiculous idea it was to spend just a couple of days here,” Marigold said, looking utterly scandalized. “Two days! Would you spend two seconds looking at a Monet?”

“I’ll come back,” Lena promised, amused by the woman’s intensity. “I’ll spend longer next time, I promise.”

It wasn’t long before the waiter had returned—they managed to get their orders in before Marigold was off on a tangent, telling them the (very long) story of a gallery she’d opened around the corner earlier that year. Lena didn’t mind listening—Marigold was an excellent storyteller, as dragons of her vintage generally were—but part of her couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret that she wasn’t going to get much of a chance to speak with Xavier. It felt like every time she’d seen him, he’d had Giselle buzzing around, dragging him away, getting in between them. What was going on with that woman, anyway?

The food was good, and the atmosphere was very pleasant—while Xavier filled Marigold in on how the conference had gone, Lena found herself examining the cartoons that adorned the wall, smiling a little as she recognized famous signatures here and there. Maybe one day she’d be famous enough to have her own caricature on the wall here.

They’d finished their meals and were considering dessert when Marigold folded her hands and pinned Lena with a meaningful look. “Now. You’ve been very shy. Show me this art that has so captured young Xavier’s imagination.

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