Chapter Thirteen
Margot
Richard drops a stack of folders onto my desk at five o’clock on Wednesday, thick enough that I know what they mean before he says anything.
“I need these by Friday, Margie. You’re a star.”
He’s already turning away when I look at the folders.
There was a time when that sentence would have worked on me.
You’re a star meant I know you’ll stay late.
It meant I didn’t plan properly, so now you’ll rearrange your life.
Richard had a hundred versions of it, and for nine years I’d accepted every one because being the person he relied on felt close enough to being valued that I never examined the difference.
I look at the folders, then at the clock, and something in me simply runs out.
“Richard.”
He turns back.
“It’s Margot.”
His brow creases. “What?”
“My name. You’ve been calling me Margie for nine years.”
He gives me the baffled little laugh of a man who has just discovered that furniture can speak. “All right. Margot. Can we deal with the name thing another time? I really need those numbers by—”
“No.”
That gets his attention.
I’ve imagined quitting this job before, usually while sitting in traffic or lying awake at two in the morning after another fourteen-hour day.
In every version, I had another position lined up, six months of expenses calculated to the dollar and a resignation letter proofread twice before I handed it over.
But none of those versions accounted for Richard.
“I’m resigning, effective immediately.”
His face empties. “You’re what?”
“I’m done.”
“Margie, if this is about the workload, we can discuss it tomorrow when you’ve had time to—”
“It’s not just today, Richard. I’ve been unhappy here for a long time. I think I’ve only just admitted how unhappy.”
For once, he has nothing to say.
There’s a stack of empty boxes beside the printer, left over from the last office move.
I take one and start packing before I can talk myself out of it.
My mug, the good pen, the photo of my grandmother, and the pothos that has somehow survived six years under fluorescent lights.
It takes less time than I expected to pack up nine years.
Richard follows me halfway across the office. “You can’t just walk out.”
“I’m fairly sure I can.”
“You haven’t even thought this through.”
That almost stops me, because he’s right.
“I know.”
I pick up the box and leave.
By the time I reach the parking garage, I’m waiting for panic to catch up with me.
I’ve just quit a job I’ve had for nine years without another one waiting.
I have savings and time to work out what comes next, but no plan beyond that, which should be horrifying to someone who once made backup plans for her backup plans.
Instead, I sit behind the wheel with my entire professional life reduced to one cardboard box on the passenger seat and feel something dangerously close to relief.
I don’t know what I’m going to do next.
The thought makes me smile.
Maybe I’ll hate the uncertainty tomorrow.
Maybe by next week I’ll have seventeen spreadsheets open and a five-year career plan because there’s only so long I can stare into the unknown before I start trying to organize it.
But right now, for the first time in years, the blank space ahead of me doesn’t look like something I need to fill before it can frighten me.
And because my brain has decided one life-changing realization isn’t enough for a Wednesday evening, I think of Soren.
I’ve thought about him constantly since he came to my apartment a week ago, although I’ve become very good at pretending otherwise.
Unfortunately, pretending becomes harder when the man in question has told you he loves you, told you that you are his mate and then left without asking for anything in return.
I drive home with Richard’s folders still sitting on my desk and Soren lodged firmly in my head.
My mother calls while I’m carrying my box upstairs. I let it ring, not because I’m making some grand statement but because I just quit my job and I’m not currently accepting additional problems. She can survive an evening without me.
Inside, I set the box on the kitchen table and look around my apartment.
For years I knew exactly what my life was going to look like because I kept choosing the safest version of it.
The job I was good at rather than one I wanted.
The people who needed me rather than the terrifying possibility of finding out who might simply want me around.
Even when I went to the mansion, I went because I wanted someone else to take control for a few hours.
I never expected that giving it up would be the thing that finally made me understand I could take it back.
I still don’t know who I am without all the jobs I assigned myself. But for once, I’d like to find out. And when I imagine doing that—finding another career, making mistakes, changing my mind, discovering things I want and probably several things I absolutely don’t—Soren is there.
Not because I need him to show me what to do next. I just want him there while I figure it out.
The realization is so simple that I almost laugh.
I love him.
Apparently I needed several days, one emotional crisis and an abrupt resignation to work that out, but there it is.
I love the ridiculous dragon who stole a robe because it smelled like me.
I love that he pressed the flowers he gave me, kept my hair tie and somehow failed to recognize his own mate while his dragon was practically setting off fireworks.
I love the man who told me exactly what he wanted and then walked away because he refused to make his wanting my responsibility.
I look at the time. It’s late enough that Soren could already be in his rooms, assuming dragons keep anything resembling normal hours.
There’s only one way to find out.
I grab my coat and keys, lock the apartment behind me and head downstairs. By the time I reach the car, I’m smiling.
The drive to the mansion takes fifteen minutes, and somewhere along the way the nerves arrive.
By the time I pull into the parking lot, my heart is beating hard enough that I sit behind the wheel for a moment and just look at the house.
The last time I was here, I spent twenty minutes in this exact spot convincing myself I understood something I didn’t, then went upstairs and blew both our lives apart.
Tonight, I get out of the car and head for the front door.
Gael opens it before I knock, a cup of tea already in hand. She looks mildly surprised to see me.
“Hi.”
“Margot.”
“I know I don’t have an appointment.”
“I should hope not.”
I blink.
Gael takes a sip of tea. “If you came here to book him, I’m sending you home.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “I came to see Soren.”
She steps aside. “He’s upstairs.”
The entrance hall is warm, voices carrying from somewhere deeper in the house. Someone laughs loudly enough to echo off the walls, followed by another voice telling them to shut up.
Gael starts up the stairs, and I follow her to the third floor, where she stops at the end of the landing.
“His rooms are at the end.”
I look down the long corridor. “You’re not coming?”
Gael lifts her cup toward the hallway. “Go.”
The air gets warmer as I make my way down the corridor, subtle at first, then noticeable enough that I know which door is his before I reach it.
I stop outside and knock.
There’s a pause, then footsteps approach from the other side. The door opens, and Soren stares at me.
For a second, neither of us says anything.
“I hope it’s okay that I’m here.”
The surprise on his face gives way to something warmer. “Of course it’s okay. Come in.”
He steps back and opens the door wider.
The look on his face makes the entire drive worth it.
I cross the threshold.
His rooms are nothing like the rest of the mansion.
I expected something darker, maybe, or grander.
Something that looked like it belonged to a six-hundred-year-old dragon.
Instead, his room is warm and ridiculously cozy, full of deep chairs, crowded bookshelves and more blankets than one man could reasonably need.
Everything looks used rather than arranged, softened by years of being lived with.
Then I notice the chair by the window, angled perfectly into a patch of late sunlight.
I look at him. “That’s where you sit, isn’t it?”
Soren follows my gaze. “Sometimes.”
“You sit there and bake yourself in the sun, don’t you?”
“I’m a dragon, Margot. I spend half my life trying to stay warm enough. I’m hardly going to waste good sunlight.”
I laugh, and his expression softens.
“You really haven’t brought anyone up here before?”
“No.”
I look around once more before turning back to him. “I love you.”
Soren goes completely still.
For someone who told me the same thing in my apartment with terrifying confidence, he looks unprepared to hear it back.
“I’ve been trying to work out why it scared me so much when you said it,” I continue, because if I stop now I might not have the courage to continue. “I think I’m still getting used to the idea that you can love me just because you do. I’m probably going to be bad at believing it for a while.”
“But I know I love you. And being your mate still scares the hell out of me, because forever means something very different when you’re six hundred years old and nowhere near done.”
The corner of his mouth moves.
Soren crosses the space between us and cups my face in his hands. His palms are warm against my cheeks, and for a moment he just looks at me.
“You’re enough,” he says quietly.
My eyes burn, which is super inconvenient because I have one more thing to tell him and I’d prefer to do it without crying.
“I quit my job.”
His expression changes instantly. “You what?”
“Today. Richard dumped another impossible deadline on my desk, called me Margie for the ten thousandth time, and that was the moment nine years of patience finally gave up.”
“Are you all right?”
“I think so.” A laugh slips out. “Ask me again when I remember I no longer receive a salary.”