“That wasn’t why I waited.”
“Really?” Brian looked over sharply. “From where I’m standing, brother dragon, it kind of seems like you’re being totally lame. You like this girl, don’t you?”
Christopher did.
So much.
He more than liked her.
He was crazy about her. He spent every waking moment thinking about Allison and wanting Allison and craving Allison. When they weren’t together, he was wondering when they were going to be again. When he wasn’t close to her, he was thinking about when he’d get to be.
“She’s my mate,” he said.
“Finally,” Brian threw his hands up in the air, obviously exasperated. “Then go tell her, okay? Do us all a favor, and just tell her.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Yeah, after your little escape thing,” Brian wiggled his hands toward Christopher’s office, “she was upset. She changed into her sister’s clothes, and then she came by my office. I showed her my proof about McKenzie.”
“That was it? No big showdown?”
“No,” Brian shook his head. “You know I have no flair for the dramatic. I just called the police and had them come get McKenzie.”
“You didn’t talk to her first.”
“No.”
“Really?”
“I feel like this is really, really hard for you to understand,” Brian snapped. “I don’t want to talk to the girl who tried to hack my company for attention.”
“Well, it kind of sounds like she wasn’t really hacking you at all, she was just sort of, fiddling.”
“Yeah, I get it, and she wasn’t afraid to take poor James down in the process.”
“Poor James?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t suspect him,” Brian said. “We all did. I thought for sure the new guy was trying to cause trouble, and I was thinking about all sorts of stuff. I thought oh, maybe he wants to change the employment records, or oh, maybe he’s Kellen’s brother trying to come seek revenge on Zoa and Declan.”
Christopher swallowed and looked away. Brian had been worried, hadn’t he? Kellen was the man who had hurt Zoa. He’d captured her, locking her away, and Declan had saved her. There had been a big showdown, and Kellen had been killed. They didn’t talk about what happened very often because it was a horrific thing to happen, and none of them felt like dredging up those horrible memories.
“I suspected him,” Christopher admitted.
“We all did. Now go to
Allison. She’s waiting for you. I guarantee it.”
Brian turned and went back into his office, slamming the door. Oh, they were going to have so much to tell Declan when he and Zoa came back to work. As it was, they were still on their “lunch break,” which Christopher thought was kind of ridiculous. It didn’t really matter what he thought, though, did it? What mattered was finding Allison and talking to her. He just needed to make sure that she was okay, and he needed to make sure that she knew he cared.
Christopher didn’t pretend to be the smartest dragon on Sapphire Island, but he was the dragon who was going to love her better than anyone else possibly could. Christopher didn’t just walk to her office. He ran. He ran like a man on a mission, and he bumped into people and pushed past them and hurried until he got to her office.
In actuality, it wasn’t very far. She worked down the hall from him and around a corner, but there had been a crowd because of McKenzie’s arrest. When Christopher neared Allison’s office, he saw that she was standing outside of it talking to James.
“That’s a nice dress,” James looked at her curiously. “Is it new?”
“Sort-of,” Allison nodded.
If Christopher wasn’t mistaken – and he could have been – it looked like James actually sniffed the air discreetly.