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“What do you want to happen next?”

I look at her. This extraordinary woman who discovered she was mated to an ancient dragon and processed it in the time it takes most people to read a menu. She deserves directness. She always will.

“I want you,” I say. “Here. In this house. In my life. I want to provide for you in ways you will find excessive and I will find insufficient. I want to wake up and smell honey on my sheets. I want to know exactly how you take your coffee every morning I have left.” I pause. “I understand that what I want and what is reasonable may not be the same thing.”

“See, that’s the part I need to talk about.” She shifts on my desk. “I can accept the mate bond. I felt it before you told me. I’m not fighting it and I don’t plan to. But Silas.” She holds my gaze. “Fated does not mean you get to make every decision about my life.”

“I would not—”

“And you have four rooms I’m not allowed to enter.”

I open my mouth. Close it.

“I chose to be here,” she says. “But biology picked us. Biology does not get to run my calendar.”

She says it calmly. Without anger. She is not attacking me. She is establishing terms, the way she would establish terms in any financial negotiation, and I realize two things at once.

First: she is correct.

Second: I find her insistence on her own autonomy both deeply irritating and so attractive I want to put my mouth on her again immediately.

“Agreed,” I say.

“And the job?” she asks. “I need to know that when I tell you a number you dislike, I can still tell you the truth. If I stay on as your financial manager, you don’t get to overrule an audit because we share a bed.”

“You will have full authority to review the accounts and report your findings independently,” I say. “If there is a conflict between your work and my preferences, you will put it in writing. I will not use our bond as leverage.”

She studies me for a long second. “That was fast.”

“You are right. There is no reason to deliberate about a correct position.”

She tilts her head. Studies me. “You mean that.”

“I have lived long enough to know the difference between possession and partnership. I want the latter. My dragon has expressed a different preference. We are working through it.”

Disagree, my dragon says. I ignore him.

“Okay,” she says. And then, quieter: “Mara is going to lose her mind.”

“I am prepared for that eventuality.”

Something extraordinary happens. She laughs. It starts small and builds and her whole face changes when she laughs, goes bright and warm, and I feel it around my knot, the vibration, the movement, and my dragon makes a sound like a purr and says again, make her do that again and I understand in this moment that I will spend the rest of my very long life trying to make Nina laugh.

My knot begins to ease. I feel her register it, the slight relaxation, the shift. She watches my face while I withdraw from her, and I watch hers, and neither of us looks away. I smooth her skirt down. Button her blouse. Refasten my belt. Retrieve my cufflinks from the floor, where they fell at some point I cannot identify, which bothers me because I can usually identify the precise moment anything happens.

She has disorganized me. Thoroughly.

I collect the trust documents from the floor and stack them on the desk. My hands are steady. My dragon is still purring. Nina is sitting on the edge of my desk, her legs dangling, watching me restore order with an expression I cannot fully classify. Amusement. Warmth.

“So,” she says. “Ancient gold dragon. Billionaire. My fated mate. And apparently I’m still on the payroll?”

“You are welcome to resign. I would prefer you didn’t.”

“Because you need a financial manager?”

“Because I need you in this house. The financial management is a convenient justification.”

“At least you’re honest about it.” She hops off the desk. Straightens her blouse. Tucks her hair behind her ear. “I do still want to talk about those trust documents, for the record. The 1847 one has a disbursement clause that doesn’t match the ledger totals, and it’s been bothering me.”