I gaped at the dragon shifter.Gorgeous as sin?Hell yes.Mate?Hell no, despite what my panther told me.
I’d been trying to play it cool.Act uninterested.While my body was responding like he was teasing me with catnip.
But the pretend-girlfriend proposal threw me off.“Why?”I managed.
“To help with my image,” Darius said smoothly.
I blinked at him.“Do you have a problem with it?”
“There’s a shifter on board this week that I’m looking to impress.”
“With a fake girlfriend?”I deadpanned.
“A relationship helps,” Darius replied.“It also makes for a better story why I’m on board this week.”
“How so?”
“I’m here to spend the holidays with my girlfriend rather than sailing alone for a little R&R.He’s a family man.And I’d look better in his eyes if I appeared to be committed to one woman.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.“Which you don’t usually do?”Of course he was a playboy.Just look at him—sin in a suit.
“Not for decades.”
“Decades?”He’d said it so casually, like he’d lived through entire lifetimes while I was still figuring out this one.
“I was married once, long ago.She was human and she died.”He kept his voice neutral but I noticed the hardness in his jaw.He took a sip of his rum and it softened.
Something twisted in my chest—a flicker of sympathy I didn’t want to feel for the dragon my panther was purring was the one.“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
That admission was unexpected, and it struck strange pangs in my chest.Empathy.And a hint of jealousy.Because he was supposed to be mine.
No, no, no.
I inhaled.Whatever this strange rush was in my veins, the way my pulse sped when his golden eyes caught mine, it was just temporary.I’d get past it.I’d dealt with worse—heartbreaks, hurricanes, hungover vampires.One smoldering dragon with a tragic love story wouldn’t unravel me.
I just had to remember who I was.
A professional.A performer.Not a woman whose cat purred as he spoke.
“So let me see if I can get this straight, Darius.”I tapped my fingernails on the bar.“What’s the real reason you’re here?”
“A business opportunity.”
“During a holiday cruise?”
“Yes.”
Something didn’t add up.“Are you traveling alone?”
“I am.”
Stranger still.“Okay, let’s see if I follow.You fell in love once.Your heart was broken.So now you focus on business?”
“Something like that.”
“What am I missing?”
