Fired by my Grumpy Dragon (Grumpy Monster Bosses #3)

FORTY FIVE

Loren

Days go on. Weeks. Peter and his team manage to sell Jenny’s collection for me for a staggering sum. More than I hoped for given the circumstances.

In the end, I couldn’t bear to run the auctions myself. There was too much emotion wrapped up in it. Which is stupid. I was just ridding myself of something I never asked for and never thought I wanted. Only I find that there were memories attached that I never intended to form.

I still think about Jenny most days. About that wracking cough. About how she was still so fiercely independent even at the end. About the sadness on her face when she spoke about the rift with her family.

It hasn’t quite sunk in that I’m a millionaire now. I’m still living in my crappy inner-city apartment, eating cup noodles and breakfast cereal because I’m too lazy to cook and too depressed to leave the house.

I haven’t answered Toni or Erik’s messages for days.

Somehow, once the auctions were finished, I lost all my energy, like a balloon when all the air is let out. I’m just lying wrinkled and sad on the living room floor, wondering what the hell happened. The only difference between me and that balloon is the large, mostly empty tub of caramel swirl ice cream in my hand .

There have been no more messages or threats. I’m not dead yet, so I guess whatever Kiv did to dissuade Jenny’s children from bothering me again worked. That, or they don’t care anymore since I sold everything anyway.

Everything except the necklace.

Of course I couldn’t sell that.

Only I can’t bring myself to send it to him and lose the last excuse I have to see him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. But the heart isn’t clever. The heart is emotional and stubbornly illogical.

I keep thinking every day that it will get easier. Yet every day that same dull ache is there whenever thoughts of him drift into my head.

One lonely midnight when I’m still awake and can’t find sleep, I take the heavy velvet box with the diamond necklace from my dresser drawer. I’m thinking about Kiv—of course I am. I hardly ever stop.

Right now I’m wondering why he never tried to contact me. I mean, I know I told him not to, and I literally ran away from him, but god. You’d think a dragon would be more determined than that.

I open the box just to look at the necklace, out of some misguided sense that looking at it—touching it—might just let him know I’m thinking about him. I mean it worked before, right?

Only this technically isn’t part of his hoard, so I don’t know what I’m thinking really.

It’s beautiful. Set in white gold, droplets of increasing size flash with sparkling diamonds all the way to the center of the necklace where the largest droplet hangs. It’s almost like a collar in shape—designed to sit high on the neckline so the diamond droplets fall over the collarbone of the wearer.

I can’t help myself. Lifting it from its case, I drift to the mirror and fasten it gently around my neck. Then I stare. It would look so perfect with an off-the-shoulder black dress.

I unfasten it quickly and go to set it back in the box so I don’t get lost in daydreams of the expression on his face if he ever saw me wearing it.

Then I spot the note.

I lift it out with shaking fingers. It’s written in scrawled, handwritten black pen.

Loren,

I know I didn’t know you for long, but I have a sense about you. We’re two of a kind, just like your obnoxious dragon said. So I want to offer you some advice as a friend, if you’ll have it.

If not, I’m dead, so you don’t get to argue with me.

I laugh, brushing a tear from my cheek. I always loved Jenny’s sense of humor.

Make sure he’s worth it. If I know you, you’re about to give this priceless jewelry to him just like you gave your heart. Just make sure he’s worth it. Because it doesn’t matter if he’s family or a fated mate, he still has to be worth it.

I fold it up again, holding it against my chest. She’s right. Some people aren’t worth it, no matter what their relationship with you. My parents. Her children. But Kiv...

He might have acted like a jerk, but his motives were good. I know they were. And my heart tells me he’s worth it.

Besides, I can’t keep the necklace.

I need to go there and face him like a big girl instead of cowering here. I need to take one more look at him and convince myself that this couldn’t work. Because wallowing here in my misery isn’t doing anyone any good.

But first I need to clean myself up and have a shower because right now, I look and smell like I’ve been lying around in my own filth for the last week.

I put on a killer dress—a tight little navy-blue number with a fitted skirt and a slit up the back that reaches almost to my butt. Then I book a car, grab the necklace in its case, and hitch up my big girl panties and head off for Oak Haven.

I haven’t called ahead to warn him that I’m coming. I’d prefer to be the one to ambush him. It’s petty, I know, but if I have the advantage of surprise, at least that’s something. I still don’t know how I’m going to feel seeing him.

The drive is way too long for me to stay cool and collected the entire way. By halfway there, I’m a nervous mess, and by the time we’re making our way down the long driveway, I’ve harnessed just enough feminine rage to be dying to have the chance to tell him exactly how I feel about being made his prisoner.

All of it evaporates when I step out of the car and walk up to the front door. I don’t know why, but I’m expecting Kiv to answer the door himself. Instead, a young woman dressed in a neat black-and-gold uniform answers. “Hello, may I help you?”

“Yes I—” I’m taken aback. I clear my throat. “I’m here to see Kivrayn. I have a delivery.”

The young woman shifts nervously. “I’m sorry, ma’am, he’s not available right now. May I take care of that for you?” She holds out her hands as if I’m just going to hand over the priceless necklace to her.

I clutch it to my chest. “No. Look, would you let him know I’m here? I’m sure if he knows—”

She shakes her head. “He isn’t seeing anyone.” She leans a little closer, looking over her shoulder. “We haven’t even seen a trace of him for days, ma’am. And when he first got back from overseas, he fired five staff. I’d like to keep this job.”

I sigh. It’s not her fault he’s being a grumpy dick as usual. “Look,” I tell her as gently as I can. “I’m really sorry. But I promise I’ll put in a good word for you.”

She frowns as she tries to work out what I’m talking about. But in that moment, she’s not concentrating completely on what I’m doing.

Taking my chance, I duck past her and into the house, rushing down the hall.

The young woman calls out, but I ignore her, charging further into the mansion, hoping I can find my way.

I don’t know what’s possessed me, I only know he doesn’t get out of it this easy. I’m finally ready to confront him about what he did, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait around on his doorstep.

This is probably a mistake.

I hurry around a corner and through a door into a closet, shutting it behind me before the woman who answered the door comes past. I hold my breath as I hear her run by me.

Moments later, I sneak out and take another turn into a living room the size of my whole apartment. Running between plush white sofas and almost colliding with a glass coffee table, I cross the room and exit via a second door. I find myself in another hall. Only I recognize this one. There’s a little table with a twisted statue that looks like a charred tree. I turn left. This takes me past an office and up three stairs onto the elevated wing of the house.

Almost there.

“Stop! You can’t be in here!” The voice of the young woman from before coming from behind me makes me jump. I run faster, but she’s catching me.

“Stop!”

I can see the door to Kivrayn’s suite in front of me.

A man dashes out of a service room to my left and almost catches me.

Shit.

I make it to his door three steps ahead of his staff.

It’s locked.

Of course it’s locked.

I twist the handle viciously, cursing to myself. I might have known.

I expect to be grabbed any moment, but I’m not.

Kivrayn’s staff have stopped just beyond reach. They’re frozen in place, the same look of horror plastered across their features.

Welp. Might as well do what I came here for. I raise my fist.

“No! Don’t do that,” the woman hisses from behind me.

I glance back at her. She’s making an exaggerated ‘no’ gesture, shaking her head and waving her hands at me.

If they think that’s going to stop me when I’ve gotten this far, they’re wrong.

I pound on the door. “Come out here, you coward, and talk to me.”

There’s a growl from within.

Kiv’s staff take a quiet step back.

I wrestle with the door handle again. Then, all of a sudden, the door is yanked open so fast I almost fall into the room.

I look up and into the burning-hot rage of a very angry dragon. “You left!”

I glare at him. “You locked me up.”

“For your own protection!”

“Don’t be stupid.”

At my insult, I hear a sharp intake of breath behind me from Kiv’s staff. What has he been doing to them all since I left?

“Who let her in here?” Kivrayn barks.

There’s a terrified squeak from the young woman. The man says nothing.

“Oh, don’t pick on them. If you’re angry, you only have yourself to blame. What the hell are you doing?”

Smoke billows from his nostrils. “I’m doing what you asked. You told me never to contact you again.”

I scoff. “I didn’t actually mean it. I just don’t want to be your prisoner. I thought you’d chase a little harder.”

He looks incredulous. “You told me you’d contact every human and supernatural authority and file a complaint.”

“Yeah, well, we all say things we regret when we’re angry. ”

“Regret?” His face is turning a deep shade of green.

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“Sir, should we call security?” The man chooses now to speak up.

A flame bursts from Kivrayn, singing the wall. “You should get out of my sight before I give you something to call them for!”

“Then you don’t care that there’s an intruder in your house?”

Kivrayn’s bark of laughter makes them jump. “You have five seconds.”

I’ve never seen two humans move so quickly.

He steps forward, invading my space, still glaring at me. “Are you telling me, Loren, that this was all part of some game to you?”

I keep my chin high, not backing down an inch. “Not a game. A message. I need you to know you can’t pull that shit with me.”

There’s a pause.

A low, rumbling growl comes from deep within Kiv’s chest. Then he sighs. “Noted.”

He takes another step forward. This time his body comes flush against mine. He pushes me back against the wall. Very slowly, he raises a hand and places it around my throat.

When I still don’t move or protest, he tightens it a little. “And I need you to know that, the next time you run from me, brat, I will chase.”

I grin up at him. My heart is pounding so fast in my chest I’ve almost forgotten why I came here. But, of course, he always knows just how to shut me up. “I should hope so.”

He leans closer.

I remember just how weak in the knees that charcoal-and-spice scent makes me as his hot breath fans my cheek. “And, brat? If I chase you, I’ll catch you, and you know what happens then.”

I shiver. “No. What happens?”

He laughs darkly. Then his grip on my neck relaxes. “Fuck around and find out.”