Page 67 of The Dragon’s Good Girl

I leave before I can turn one conversation into a request for more.

The drive home feels different from the one that brought me here. Nothing is fixed. Margot hasn't promised to come back, and she hasn't told me she loves me. She gave me a conversation, let me hold her hand and told me not yet instead of never.

That is more than enough for one night.

When I reach my rooms, the drawer is still open beside the bed.

I leave it that way.

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.”