Kidnapped by a Dragon Billionaire - Chapter 31

The small dinner party with her friends turned out to be what she needed to crawl out of the deep dark thoughts in her head. They were loud, they were noisy and they were relentless in their questioning of what she had been doing for weeks and months. Their relentless questioning kept her on her toes and didn’t leave room for her to wallow in her depression and go back into that deep dark corner of her mind.

Thorin and Jessica had discreetly left after greeting her friends. They didn’t even notice them leaving. They were too busy catching up and hugging and laughing.

“Has your boss kept you locked up in a closet?” Jazzmine had asked the moment they sat down together in the dining room of her new house.

“Did you take advantage of you?” Sheena asked. “Although, I wouldn’t mind taking advantage of him in various ways,” she added suggestively.

The two women laughed. Jazzmine agreed.

“He is so handsome, I don’t know how you work with him every day and not fall in love with him,” Jazzmine said.

“Well, he is vain to a fault and tends to strike a pose as if he’s in a magazine shoot…that’s kinda annoying sometimes,” Zi Mei pointed out.

“Well, if I look like that with that body, I would be posing and showing off too,” Sheena responded.

Darren cleared his throat.

“He’s okay…not that good looking, I think his face is a bit too narrow, like a weasel,” he remarked.

The three woman looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“Are you jealous? You sounded jealous!” Sheena teased.

He blushed and tried to deny it but turned even redder as Sheena and Jazzmine continued to tease him. Zi Mei was quiet for a while, basking in the company of her friends. It took her mind off things and keep her grounded.

“You look tired, Mei, are you sure you are okay?” Darren quickly changed the topic, his voice filled with concern.

She nodded quietly.

Then her female friends started talking about an upcoming movie and how they were so excited to watch it.

“I’ve been waiting for The Last Romance for so long! The main actor is so handsome,” Sheena sighed longingly.

Jazzmine agreed.

“He is so tall and so good looking, I don’t even care what the movie is about, just lets go watch it and ogle at him,”

They turned to Zi Mei expectantly.

“I am sure you get time off…do you want to join us? Our treat!” Sheena said. Jazzmine nodded.

Her friends are forever conscious of her financial situation and they had treated her to movies so many times in the past that she had to turn them down many times, not wanting to take advantage of them. This time, the situation has changed and she could not tell them anything.

She wished she could have told them the truth but she knew she couldn’t. It was part of the contract. Also, there was this strong compulsion stopping her from even talking about shapeshifters and dragons. But, she would love to confide in Sheena and Jazzmine about her miscarriage. It would feel much better to have another woman to talk to.

When she fell into a deep grieving slump, Thorin had sent Jessica to talk to her but Jessica was brusque and not in the least reassuring. She had stood there like a lump of rock and told Zi Mei that it was fated anyway. She made things worse rather than helping her. Ended up, she had bawled even louder and told Jessica to leave her alone.

Zi Mei looked fondly at her friends as they continued to chat about the handsome actor while Darren joined them to point out that he is a horrible actor.

“The movie will be a snooze-party for sure,” he said.

“You’re just jealous!” Sheena said again.

“Am not! Why would I be jealous of some actor far away who can’t even act but rely on his looks to become famous?”

Sheena rolled her eyes.

“Talk about insecure! Darren, you don’t have to compete with an international star…we are your friends,”

And so they continued bantering among themselves and Zi Mei let it wash all over her. It gave her a nice warm glow. The bantering with her friends. The joshing between Sheena and Darren that sometimes, not often, leads to heated arguments.

Then her friends turned to her and became serious.

“What is it that you do? Can you tell us now?” they asked.

She and Thorin had come up with a reasonable story to tell her friends about her job. She is his personal assistant and she practically has to follow him around to schedule his appointments, to order coffee for him, to arrange meetings and to make sure he doesn’t miss his appointments.

Basically, she is pretending to be Jessica. Jessica is the one who is Thorin’s personal assistant, doing everything that he asked. While she is playing the role of his spouse, waiting at home for him and making babies. Except that she lost one. She bit her lips to stop her mind from going back there again.

She is only 21! Surely she doesn’t really want babies, she admonished herself. It is time that she get over it. Being among her college-going friends pressed home the point that she is still young with her whole life ahead of her. Why is she pining over a loss child that she does not even know about until it was gone?

“But why the secrecy earlier? It’s as if you were involve in espionage or something,” Sheena asked, breaking her train of thoughts.

They had also come up with a reasonable story about that. She told them that one of Thorin’s company was being listed and since she is helping him as his assistant, he didn’t want her to accidentally blurt it out. It could jeopardise the listing and they could get arrested for insider trading. Her friends seemed to believe her.

She also assured her friends that Thorin was not overworking her and then she lied to them that the Thorin had let her use this house they are in as her own. They were suitably impressed.

“Wow. This is a beautifully restored heritage house…so, he’s letting you live here for free?” Sheena asked.

Come to think of it, this is her new house. It is technically her home. She should be allowed to live in it.

“Yes, I am moving in soon and we can have more ‘makan’ and ‘lepak’ sessions here,” she said.

“Yay!! We are definitely gonna have sleepovers, I don’t mind staying here with you on weekends when things get lonely,” Jazzmine said.

“Hey! I want to join in too!” Sheena interjected.

They turned to look at Darren.

“We can include you too…you can sleep in the room downstairs,” they told him.

He shrugged.

“Hey, I don’t mind…I would rather not join you on your girls’ night…I don’t have hair for you to braid and I don’t want face mud masks or whatever goo you use on your faces,” he said.

They giggled. Zi Mei has an idea now. It would be so good to finally go back to the human world, the actual world where humans reside and live and laugh, instead of being stuck like a prisoner in Thorin’s ever-changing home.

“So, do you need help moving in?” Darren asked her.

She turned him down. It would not be easy to navigate her relationship with Darren now. Somehow there was this strange awkwardness there. She didn’t know how to act with him anymore. They used to have this camaraderie but it was gone. Did absence from each other’s company do that? Or was it due to the chance encounter when she went on that horrible date with Thorin?

Darren must have suspected something was going on between her and Thorin but he was discreetly not saying anything. Maybe he didn’t want to say anything unless she mentions it first. When they finished eating, they moved on to the living room, which was lushly furnished with comfortable stuffed sofas and lounge chairs for relaxation and a large flat screen TV. There was wine and snacks on the coffee table. Zi Mei has to put it to Thorin. He really thought of everything. The dinner was scrumptious and now, he even prepared wine and tidbits for them, knowing that they will be spending hours talking till late night.

He told her that he was not even expecting her to go back that night.

“Just enjoy yourself and spend time with your friends, take your mind off things for tonight,” he told her. Her heart softened at his thoughtfulness. The old dragon can be so vain and sometimes annoying but he can also be sweet.

She hoped that he will accept her proposal when she gets back tomorrow. She plans to tell him that she wants to move out and live among the humans like a normal human being. She wanted a life outside of being his mistress.

She wanted to go to college.