The Dragon From Paris: A Sexy Dragon Romance Read online

  THE DRAGON

  FROM PARIS

  A SEXY DRAGON ROMANCE

  JJ JONES

  Copyright ©2018 by JJ Jones

  All rights reserved.

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  About This Book

  When Clarissa Newman visited Paris to interview local billionaire Abel Galloway she expected it to be all business.

  However, when the billionaire invited her for an intimate dinner she knew she could not say no.

  A night of steamy passion followed but it was ended prematurely when Abel's secret weredragon side was exposed.

  With Clarissa now aware of his scaly secret the two would have to work together to ensure that nobody else discovered the truth about Abel.

  And when all was said and done, maybe the attractive couple would finally get to enjoy a night of passion with no further interruptions...

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Clarissa Newman had never actually expected to see Paris in person. The magazine she worked for paid well, sure, but it didn’t pay that well, and she had never been the sort to save up for years for a vacation. Her self-control had always had a shorter time limit than that. So, as gorgeous as she thought the city to be, she had always expected to simply see it in pictures and on screen, or perhaps passing by overhead while flying to somewhere slightly more affordable on her budget.

  Never, in all of her twenty-seven years, did she think her job would actually pay to send her to Paris. Especially not for nearly a month. Then again, she had her position because she was good at it, and her bosses were well aware of that fact. True enough, her job wasn’t the most glamorous, but she was good enough at relating to people and forming a rapport with them that she handled nearly every big interview that the magazine published.

  And if an interview was all that was needed, it was likely she wouldn’t be going to Paris—interviews could be done online or on the phone, after all—but the article was about vacation destinations and things to do in the city, and they needed on-site research for the article. It only made sense to kill two birds with one stone and let Clarissa handle the entire article.

  It all seemed to pass in a bit of a blur, from the time her immediate boss told her she was going to Paris to when her plane touched down in Paris just a few days later. She spent the entire night after she got the news convinced she was dreaming and that it couldn’t possibly be real, and she spent the entire day after that boning up on her admittedly shaky French and pounding her schedule into her head, so she could decide how much time she could carve out to do what she wanted. After all, travel and lodging were being covered, so she suddenly found herself with enough money to do nearly anything she wanted.

  In fact, lodging was better than she ever would have hoped. Truth be told, her boss could have told her that she would be sleeping in a cardboard box on the side of the road with just her suitcase as a pillow, and Clarissa still would have been happy. But as it turned out, her interview was with the owner of a luxury hotel chain in Paris, and her boss had decided it only made sense if Clarissa stayed in one of those luxury hotels for the duration of her stay.

  (Granted, she was pretty sure that she was being allowed to stay at the hotel at something of a steep discount, since the interview was almost guaranteed to make the owner look good, so Clarissa supposed that none of her bosses were going that far out on a limb for her, but the end result was the same for her either way.)

  Her taxi ride from the airport to her hotel was a harrowing experience. All of the cars in Paris seemed so small, and none of the people driving them seemed to have any idea what traffic laws were for, what the lights and signage meant, or what the lines on the road were supposed to

  convey. Whenever the taxi stopped at a light, Clarissa swore it looked like it was jockeying for position with eight other cars in a lineup, and if the driver had any idea what the speed limit was or why one might want to adhere to it, he offered no indication of it. Clarissa held onto the

  handle above the door with a grip so tight that she couldn’t feel her knuckles anymore by the time the car finally pulled to a halt in front of the hotel.

  If nothing else, at least she still had plenty of time to check in, get her room key, and change her clothes before she had to meet the subject of her interview. It wouldn’t take her too long, but even so, she didn’t want to look like she had just gotten off of an airplane even if she had, and she rushed through the check-in process and up to her room.

  And what a room it was. She hadn’t booked one of the larger suites—she had seen no need to reach for decadence that she wouldn’t even use—but the one bed was still enormous, the silk sheets probably cost more than her entire bed frame back home, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that she had been given a room with a good view of the city and a color scheme in creams and golds.

  Despite her desire to move briskly, she couldn’t quite restrain the desire to flop onto the bed and roll around like a cat in a blanket before getting back to business.

  At least all of her extra time and preparedness meant that, by the time she had dropped everything off in her room and changed, she had plenty of time to make her way back down to the lobby, and she admired the decor as she walked. It so easily could have been gaudy in an effort to display wealth, but everything was tasteful in shades of red and bronze and burgundy, and the entire hotel had an air of elegance about it that was strangely refreshing.

  Clarissa paused just before she got to the lobby to check her reflection in a decorative mirror on the wall, one of dozens. Her bronze skin looked as if she had never had a blemish once in her entire life, but she didn’t look as if she was wearing an entire cosmetics shop’s worth of makeup, and it helped her dark grey eyes stand out just that little bit more. Her dark, auburn hair was pinned up neatly in place, a pin like a blue rose adding that extra touch of elegance. She looked smart in a dark blue and black dress that fell off of her shoulders and just barely came to her knees, with black pumps to match and a purse that was classy but discrete.

  After a moment, she nodded once in satisfaction, certain that she looked like she was ready to take on the world, and she stepped into the lobby where her target was waiting for her.

  Abel Galloway was a tall man, but slender and lean, clearly built more for speed than for strength. He had pale skin and golden red hair, slightly wavy and falling around his face in a way that looked artfully accidental. He had a sharp jawline and cheekbones that Clarissa pr
obably could have cut glass on, and on the whole, he looked like he had been carved with love by a slightly obsessive angel.

  On top of that, he was dressed in a light grey suit with dark blue accents, and she was pretty sure he had spent more on the suit than her bosses had spent on the ticket to get her to Paris to begin with, and it had not been a cheap ticket. (Granted, there was no such thing as a cheap ticket anymore, so maybe that distinction was needless.)

  He grinned as she approached and offered a hand to shake, his fingers long and the tendons in them prominent. His hand almost entirely engulfed Clarissa’s, and there was something strangely exhilarating about that, though she kept her expression calm. She was on the job, after all. She was a professional, and she wasn’t going to give him the wrong impression of her.

  At last, their eyes truly met, and Clarissa realized with a start that his eyes were the most unusual shade of gold, so pale that they nearly seemed transparent. For a moment, Clarissa swore she could simply fall straight into them and go floating away, but she snapped back to the present as he finally spoke.

  “Abel Galloway,” he offered in a voice that reminded Clarissa of thunderstorms. Not because it was deep—he sounded more like a tenor—but because it was intense, commanding every ounce of her attention. “You must be the reporter from…Chance, was it?” He spoke like an Englishman that had spent enough time in France to pick up just a hint of a French accent.

  “Trance,” Clarissa corrected pleasantly as he let go of her hand. “Clarissa Newman,” she added, offering him a beaming smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Abel motioned with one hand for Clarissa to follow him as he started walking, talking as he went. “Trance. Right. These things get a bit muddled sometimes.”

  She nodded understandingly as she followed him, reaching for her purse to pull out her questionnaire and her recorder as she walked. She was sure some people preferred to try and type out an interviewee’s responses as they spoke, but she would much rather just transcribe it all later, so she could correct errors and decide what needed to be paraphrased without having to worry about losing track of the conversational thread. Besides, as far as she was concerned,

  interviews always seemed to go more smoothly if the interviewee didn’t feel like she was distracted or like there was something between them.

  When they came to a halt, they were in some sort of conference room, presumably for businesses to rent out as they needed them. There was a long table in the middle of the room, surrounded by chairs, and they both took a seat across from each other. With only two of the chairs occupied, it felt as if the table was still a mile long, and the room was simple and unadorned enough that Clarissa was almost convinced the walls would echo if she decided to shout.

  But she supposed that would have to remain a mystery. After all, she was a professional, and she wasn’t going to start shrieking like a toddler just to quell her own immature curiosity.

  She set her recorder down on the table, turned it on, and held her questionnaire close to herself. After all, it wasn’t any fun if the interviewee was reading ahead whenever she wasn’t looking. It felt like cheating, somehow.

  She glanced at Abel, just to make sure he looked like he was settled in, and then glanced back down at her questionnaire, before she cleared her throat to start getting the pleasantries over with.

  “I’m glad you could meet with me so quickly,” she offered, a winning smile in place. “It feels like I’ve hardly been off the airplane for ten minutes, and here we are already. If this keeps up, I might feel like the universe is trying to spoil me.”

  Abel’s voice was pitched to something that was very clearly trying to sound innocent, and just as deliberately failing at hitting the mark as he offered, “I’m just glad I’m being interviewed by someone so attractive. It’s like an extra reward.”

  Clarissa’s face heated slightly, and her eyebrows rose. Tone wry, she pointed out, “You know, Mr. Galloway, you don’t actually need to sweet talk me for this to go in your favor. I would be pretty hard pressed to spin this in any sort of negative light.”

  He managed something like a placidly innocent expression. “I’m just saying what’s on my mind,” he returned. “I’m a very honest man.”

  She couldn’t quite help the quiet scoff of laughter that she uttered after that. “I guess I’m a very honored young woman, then,” she returned good-naturedly before she cleared her throat. “Let’s get back to the topic at hand, shall we?”

  Abel shifted in his seat, presumably settling in for the long-haul. “Ask away.”

  “Pardon me for saying this, but you don’t sound like you’re from France, and your English is perfect,” Clarissa pointed out, folding her arms on the table. “So, where are you from, and what brought you to Paris?”

  “I’m from England,” he offered readily. “Canterbury, actually. But my family would spend

  summers in Paris with my grandparents. They’ve since moved on, but I loved the city, so I came back a bit more permanently once I graduated from university.”

  “And how exactly does one go from loving the city to owning the most popular hotels there?” she asked, lifting one hand from the table to lean her chin on the back of her knuckles. “I’m

  assuming you didn’t just show up and instantly acquire a hotel.”

  He laughed lightly in reply. “Not quite,” he agreed. “My family has always been wealthy, though,” he carried on, “so after I got a taste for it by renting out rooms and managing a bed and breakfast, it was mostly just a matter of paperwork before I bought a small hotel. It escalated from there, getting bigger and bigger, until it turned into the building you see here. I started expanding a few years in.”

  “So, is this a family business, then?” Clarissa asked. “Or has the rest of your family stayed pretty hands off?”

  “I have two younger brothers and a younger sister,” he stated. “All of them have worked in at least one of my hotels at one point or another, though they generally move on pretty quickly. It’s mostly just so they can get some work experience in a reasonably forgiving environment where they’re guaranteed to get a good reference.”

  “Something of a softy, I take it?” she wondered wryly.

  Abel schooled his expression into something innocent and dismissive. “I can neither confirm nor deny that accusation.”

  She snorted, but she carried on quickly. “And what do you think of the way business has gone?” she asked. “While many would say that it’s understandable that you primarily want to cater to the upper echelons of society, do you ever wish that people of more modest means had a feasible chance to stay at any of your hotels?”

  Technically speaking, it wasn’t impossible. Clarissa herself was by no means rich, and if she had been paying for her own lodging, she definitely would not have been staying in that hotel. So, it wasn’t impossible for someone who wasn’t wealthy to stay there. But even acknowledging that, Clarissa had a very specific set of circumstances that most people were unlikely to acquire.

  Abel was quiet for a moment, thinking the question over. “I’m happy with the way things have turned out,” he decided eventually, sounding as if he was picking his words carefully. “It would be nice if the doors could be open to anyone, but there is a lot that I want my hotels to be and a lot that I want people to be able to do while staying in my hotels, and those things don’t pay for themselves. The price had to rise accordingly.” He offered her a smile that was almost sly. “Besides, a beauty like you is still staying here, so that has to count for something.”

  Clarissa laughed, partially muffling it behind one hand. “Determined, aren’t you?” she asked dryly. “You know, I don’t think that’s supposed to be part of the interview.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed pleasantly. “I could promise to behave myself for the rest of the interview, but before I do that, I need to ask you a question.”

  “Turnabout is fair play, I suppose,” she granted him, her expression turnin
g slightly expectant.

  “Will you go to dinner with me?” he asked, so simply and so easily, as if it wasn’t a big deal. But maybe it wasn’t; maybe he just asked everyone to dinner whenever he felt like it.

  She could feel her face heating slightly, and she cleared her throat as she gathered her wits and her composure. She was supposed to be a professional. (And her professional opinion was that she was definitely going to have to cut this part of their conversation from the interview.) “I’ll give it some thought,” she replied, laying her hands on the table, one on top of the other.

  Abel sighed slowly, but he didn’t protest. “Fair enough,” he agreed without a fight. “Shall we carry on, then?” he wondered, sounding slightly amused as he asked.

  Clarissa nodded once in agreement and took another peek at her questionnaire, just to get one last moment to finish composing herself.

  Thankfully, the rest of the interview proceeded about as well as she had expected, without any bumps in the road. Clarissa could spin just about anything into a positive take if she worked hard enough, but it would be simple for Abel, and she was always happy when her job was easier.