Page 68 of The Dragon’s Good Girl

“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.”