“I’m not saying a word about me until I’m no longer worried about you,” Cristie said. She looked around animatedly. “Mate?Dragon? Not me, don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’m good — on all fronts!”
Kaiser laughed again. “Fine. He said, and I quote for the most part, ‘you don’t understand the pull that finding your mate can have on you’.”
“That’s what set you off?”
Kaiser nodded slowly.
“But you’re not mated. So, why would that…” she stopped speaking and her eyes widened. “You found her!”
Kaiser looked at Cristie, weighing his options, and made a split second decision. “No, I haven’t. But I’m tired, Cristie. I don’t want to date. I don’t want to waste my time. I want my mate. I’m craving a safe place to be, and I don’t mean a house. I mean emotionally. I want to claim my mate. I want to walk up to her and tell her who I am, and that I’m hers. I want to have her look at me the same way I look at her. I don’t want to have to spend the next five or six years watching and waiting for the right time.”
“Why would you have to wait five or six years? Do you know who she is?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure it’s already hopeless and it would take me that long after I meet her to undo the damage my image has done. I’m plastered across media every week with somebody new. I don’t even have to have dinner with them, all I have to do is be seen eating at the same restaurant, and Lord forbid I enter the lobby of the some hotel the same day any famous female does. We’re sharing a room and married before the end of the week, even if we never actually see each other in the hotel. What kind of reputation is being shown to my mate? What’s she going to think about me? She’s going to despise me, think I’m a womanizer, an asshole that tosses women away without regard for who they are as individuals.”
“Until she spends five minutes with you and sees for herself how genuine you are. Sees just how huge your heart is, and how strong your loyalty is. Then none of that other stuff will matter.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I am.”
He gave her a hint of a smile. “I’m pretty sure she’s already completely unimpressed at this point.”
“Maybe. But maybe not. She may not even be aware that you’re alive.”
“That’s a complete possibility as well. And if she does know I’m alive, it doesn’t matter to her one way or the other. She’s not impressed.”
“If so, that’ll change the minute you two interact. Maybe she’ll be the type that thinks she can save you.”
Kaiser burst out laughing. “God, I hope not. Besides, I think she’s more the ‘I don’t need your sorry ass anyway and why are you taking up space near me?’ type.”
“That’s exactly the kind of female you need,” Cristie said.
Kaiser nodded, but still didn’t seem quite right. “And what kind of male do you need?”
“Someone who is content to let me be me. Someone who is honest at all times, even if the truth might hurt me.”
“That’s a tough one,” Kaiser said. “We all want to protect our mates from pain of any type.”
“True enough. But if he has ultimate faith in me and my character, my strength and my ability to overcome whatever the issue is, then he’ll know that though the truth might hurt me for a little while, I’ll overcome and I’ll be the stronger for it. That faith in me is what I need.”
“I like that. That’s not at all what I expected you to say.”
“What did you expect me to say?” Cristie asked.
“I expected you to say someone who is loyal to a fault, even if it doesn’t always make their lives easy. Someone who isreliable and stable, strong without wavering. Someone who is innately good. Someone who knows you and still can’t wait to wake up every day and experience the day with you as though it was an unknown adventure. Someone that you feel safe with. Someone you can be yourself with, and know there’s no judgment, just happiness that they get to see the you that no one else does.”
Cristie watched Kaiser as he spoke, her suspicions growing by the second. “Why are you describing Remi?”
“Am I?” Kaiser asked innocently.
“You know you are.”
“Maybe, but am I right?” he asked.
“How do you know those things about him?”
“You’ve described him to me over the years. How even as a child, he was protective over you. Which is part of why your father protected him and saw to it that he was given to people who would adore him and love him like he deserved to be loved.”
