Page 53 of Billionaire Dragon King’s Rejected Mate

She winked at him as she opened her door. “If there are bad guys, just burn em with your fire.”

“Oy, lady. I can’t just go around doing that. And didn’t you forbid me to make crispy critters like that?”

She eased the door shut. “No. I told you not to be eating people. If I tell you to roast them, that’s fine. Just don’t eat them.”

He almost threw his head back and laughed, but they were trying to be quiet. He followed her inside, no front door key necessary.

“Jesus, what were they looking for?”

He watched her move through the living room. The place was absolutely trashed. Photographs were smashed, the furniture was shredded, and not a drawer was in place.

“This was for show more than anything. Proof of what they could do. We need to hurry.” Chance hated that the lights were blazing against the outside darkness.

Randi loaded his arms with clothes. “Take these to the car. I can sort later.”

“Not happening. We came together, we leave together.”

“Yeah, we did, didn’t we?”

It took him until he saw the cheeky grin on her face to realize what she had implied. His own body responded almost instantly to the memories.

“And if we’re going to shack up together, there’s more where that came from,” he teased.

“There better be.” Randi grabbed a few more things including her Kindle and toiletries. She carefully picked up one of the photographs and shook off the broken frame. “Everything else will keep until this fiasco is over.”

“Let’s go. We’ll tell the detective tomorrow what you took.”

The next couple of days passed in a blur. Chance gave statements and waited while Randi did. They stayed holed up in the office with strict building security while they frantically caught up on company business.

Randi’s conversation with Josh hadn’t been easy. He had come into the office while she and Chance were in the conference room.

“Hey,” she said softly. “How are you?”

Josh looked up and his expression brightened when he saw her, though there was something else there too, that was thoughtful and expectant.

“I’m good,” he answered and offered a small, reassuring smile. “Just a faint bruise where I hit my head on the sidewalk and a lump on the back of my head where I was hit. Nothing big. Takes more than that to keep me down.”

She let out a breath but before she could say anything more, he gestured slightly.

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

Randi hesitated only briefly before she nodded and followed him a few steps away, though not so far that Chance was completely out of sight.

Josh ran a hand through his hair and exhaled slowly as if choosing his words carefully.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said finally, his tone gentle but direct. “I see the way you look at Chance and I know there’s something going on there. Honestly, I think I’ve known it all along, I just didn’t want to push it.”

Randi’s chest tightened. Guilt flickered briefly, though she didn’t interrupt.

“And after what happened,” he continued, “I’m pretty sure whatever’s going on between you two isn’t something I can compete with, and I don’t think I should try.”

“Josh…” she started, but he shook his head lightly.

“It’s okay,” he said, and surprisingly, it sounded like he meant it. “Really. I’d rather step back now than pretend this is something it’s not.”

The kindness in that, the understanding, hit harder than anger would have.

Randi stepped closer and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for being you about this.”