“Right. Well, it was great meeting you, sir,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

“Just one thing, Griffen…if I can call you that,” Langley said. “A friendly word of advice. Get used to hearing about dragons. They aren’t going to go away just because you don’t believe in them.”

It wasn’t until Griffen had almost reached the entrance of the hotel that it occurred to him that the senator had never asked where he was staying. He had already known.

Pausing, he glanced down the street in the direction the limo had gone.

It had stopped a half block away. The door opened and one of the “bodyguards” emerged to stand beside the vehicle. Though he carefully did not look at Griffen, his posture was unmistakable to one who knew how to read people. His pose was calculated, threatening, and quite possibly lethal. He held the pose for a moment, then stuck his head back into the limo, apparently conferring with someone inside. He straightened and stared directly at Griffen for a long moment, then reentered the vehicle, which then moved off.

Despite the day’s warmth, Griffen felt a sudden chill, as if he had just had a close call with an unseen, but no longer unknown danger.

Mai looked like a doll and ate like a cannibal.

Even though she was second-or third-generation American, her Asian ancestry apparently yielded strong enough genes that she could have walked into a role inThe Flower Drum Song or maybeThe World of Suzie Wong . She had that tiny, athletic physique one normally associates with gymnasts or dancers, and radiated enough energy to power an entire city block. Her dress and manner were pure American, though, and she exuded a rich, sophisticated aura that brought boutique clerks out of their comas and had any four-star restaurant head waiter snap to attention as if she were slumming royalty.

Griffen loved being with her, if for no other reason than her dominating presence meant that he could give his sincere naivety pose a rest. No one even looked at him when he was with her. More than that, he enjoyed her company. Even now, watching her demolish a whole lobster, he took pleasure in her boundless enthusiasm.

“What is it, lover?”

Her sudden question roused him from his reverie.

“Excuse me?” he said, caught off guard.

“You were looking at me with a funny expression,” she said. “Have I got something stuck on my nose again?”

“Not this time,” he said, smiling at the shared memory. “I was just trying to figure out how you can stuff so much food into such a small body and not gain any weight.”

“I’m a high-energy person and I burn off a lot of calories,” she replied, negligently waving a forkful of lobster. “You know, kinda like a hummingbird. If I don’t eat a couple times my weight every day, I shrivel up and die.”

“That must be it.” He smirked, watching the lobster disappear into the depths of her tiny mouth.

“You certainly aren’t eating much,” she said, prizing another morsel of lobster from its shell. “Anything bothering you?”

“Other than being unemployed with no immediate plans for the future, no,” he said with a grimace.

“I told you not to worry about that,” she scolded, swirling her prize in the cup of melted butter. “I’m sure Daddy can find something for you. He owns a bunch of companies and employs zillions of people. If he doesn’t have an opening for someone with your talents, he’s bound to know someone who does.”

“And what talents are those, pray tell?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he can set you up as a male prostitute for bored housewives,” she said, giving him a bawdy wink.

That got him to laugh out loud.

“All right. You win,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “It’s impossible to stay depressed around you. So tell me about your father. What’s he like, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s the typical Hong Kong businessman type,” she said, returning her attention to her meal. “Obsessed with finding new ways to make money. Still kinda old-fashioned in a stuffy sort of way, but he still knows how to have a good time. At least you don’t have to worry about him hassling you about being a dragon.”

Griffen froze, staring at her.

“Why did you say that?” he asked carefully.

“Well, isn’t that what you said was your problem with working for your crazy uncle?”

“No. What I said was that he had some weird notion that he was a half-human superbeing. I didn’t say anything about dragons.”

“Sure you did,” she insisted. “What’s more, he tried to convince you that you and your sister were dragons, too.”

“No,” Griffen insisted doggedly. “If anything, I’ve made a point of not using that word. It’s such a crazy notion I don’t even like to think about it.”

“So what?” Mai shrugged. “Maybe what you were describing sounded like a dragon and I just put a name to it. No big deal.”

“But why that particular word?” he pressed. “I mean, when I think of crazy people, I don’t automatically think of dragons. At least, I didn’t used to.”

“Look. We’re getting way off the subject,” Mai said firmly. “Let’s get this job thing settled right now.”

She tossed her napkin on the table and rose to her feet, fishing her cell phone from her shoulder bag.

“I’m going to duck outside, call Daddy, and explain the whole situation to him. He’ll come up with a job, and we’ll have something to celebrate instead of arguing about your loony uncle.”

Griffen started to stand politely, but she was already on her way, weaving her way majestically through the other tables. Settling into his seat once more, he stared morosely at his barely touched dinner.

What was wrong with him? He was letting this dragon thing bother him way too much. He had never really been that close to Uncle Malcolm. Why should his obsession with dragons matter one way or the other?

Still, he was sure that he hadn’t mentioned dragons to Mai when he told her about the meeting. The casual way she referenced it didn’t seem like a spur of the moment label she had just made up. How could she know about the whole dragon thing. Unless…

He shook his head as if trying to forget a bad dream.

He was doing it again. He didn’t really believe what his uncle had said for one minute. Did he? It was true that the senator’s apparent knowledge and belief had given him pause, but he didn’t believe it himself.

What was it Uncle Malcolm had said about the Eastern dragons? That they stayed apart from their European counterparts and their descendants, but were suspected to be secretly monitoring Western dragon activity?

Now that was really getting silly. The “Yellow Peril” thing went out with Fu Manchu. Besides, Mai was as American as he himself was.

He found himself staring at the half-finished lobster on her plate. Now that was really unusual. Once she started eating, Mai didn’t let anything interrupt her meal short of a nuclear attack…and even then she’d ask for a doggie bag. Yet when he started pressing her on the dragon thing…

Suddenly restless, Griffen stood up and went looking for his dining companion.

Before he could reach the door of the restaurant, however, he was intercepted by their waiter.

“May I help you, sir?”

Griffen was suddenly aware that it looked as if her were trying to duck out on the bill.

“No, everything is fine,” he said with a smile. “I was just checking to see how my date’s phone call was going is all.”

“Phone call?”

“Yes. She stepped outside to get better reception on her cell phone.”

The waiter frowned.

“Umm…I think there must be some mistaken communication here, sir,” he said hesitantly. “The young lady you were dining with has left. I was a bit surprised myself, since she didn’t seem ill or upset, but I saw her hail a cab just outside our door.”