Ryder set her large black bag in his lap. “They used an e-mail loaded with a virus to get into Iona’s mobile and laptop.”
Of course they did. Kinsey knew that was definitely an option, because she’d helped people do that before. It wasn’t a service her company announced, but the people with the right amount of money and clout always got whatever they wanted.
She turned back to the monitor as Ryder sorted through her bag. Yet she couldn’t concentrate. She kept running Con’s words over in her head.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have run. Maybe she should’ve stayed. And did what? Talked to Ryder? People were dying all around her, buildings were on fire, and Ryder was a dragon.
An effing big dragon at that!
She hadn’t meant to hurt him. Or maybe subconsciously she had after what he’d done to her. Regardless, her fear ruled her that night. Though that explained her reaction then, it didn’t explain it now.
Weeks had gone by where she’d been able to sort through all she had witnessed and experienced. Why then would she still be so fearful?
That’s what she believed Con wanted to know. He hadn’t come right out and asked, but there hadn’t been a need. She was sure that Tristan and/or Dmitri had told Con what transpired when she saw Ryder.
Kinsey was ashamed of herself. Yes, she was still completely freaked out at the idea that Ryder was a dragon—and that she was surrounded by dragons.
But she’d trusted Ryder implicitly at one time. He was the other half of her soul, the man she had always known would be who she spent her life with.
Should it matter that he was a dragon?
He certainly hadn’t cared that she was a vegetarian. In fact, he had gone out of his way to make sure whenever he cooked that she had all she needed for a filling meal, even if he was eating meat.
Now she knew why he always laughed when she attempted to get him to stop eating meat. He was a dragon. Dragons weren’t herbivores.
Kinsey snorted as she hid a laugh. How was she to know what a dragon was or wasn’t? They didn’t exactly teach dragon basics in school.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryder look up at her before he went back to her things. The smile faded from her lips. She knew one big reason she’d treated Ryder the way she had since she walked into the computer room.
When she hadn’t been able to get in touch with Ryder after he walked out on her three years ago, she had fallen apart. Weeks later, when she was finally able to pull herself together, she used her skills to look for him. But he had disappeared quite effectively.
She wanted to hurt him for leaving her. How silly for her to think that she was over him as she’d told herself for so long. It was obvious from the way she couldn’t stop looking at him, listening to his voice, and yearning for his touch that she’d been lying to herself.
But she wanted him to suffer as she’d suffered. The pain had been so unbearable at times that she honestly thought she might die from it.
At times she’d wanted to die, begged for it. But each day she woke to see the sun.
Kinsey tightened her ponytail, wincing as her head began to ache. She decided to forgo the pain and took her hair down. With a shake of her head, she sighed as her headache began to dissipate almost immediately.
She rubbed the spot where the band had held her hair against her head and closed her eyes. One of these days she was going to learn how to put her hair in a ponytail without it hurting.
After a minute or two, Kinsey opened her eyes and sat back. Only to find Ryder watching her with his hazel eyes darkened. She knew that look all too well.
He wanted her. The desire was tangible, physical.
Her heart skipped a beat and her stomach felt as if an entire flock of hummingbirds was trying to get out. The urge to get up and go to him, straddle his lap was strong.
Then she thought about the last three years where he hadn’t bothered to contact her. Saving her life or not, Ryder had been a dick in the way he’d left. She’d be an utter and complete fool to give in to her need for him only to have him push her away again.
She was stronger now. She was the one in charge of her life and her destiny. Even if he was the other half of her soul, that didn’t mean she should allow herself to be treated so harshly. She deserved better.
Kinsey pulled her gaze from Ryder and focused on the computer screen before her. She pretended as if she had something important to do.
And she did. If only she could remember what it was.
Oh. Right. Trying to determine who would want her at Dreagan and why.
Kinsey pulled up the list of employees at Kyvor, starting with the highest ranking. Of the thirty executives, she had met two of them. Her boss, Cecil Beltz, a sixty-year-old who had worked his way up through the company for forty years.
And Cecil’s supervisor, Harriet Smythe. She was pretty, and one of the youngest executives at just thirty-three. Though she seemingly came out of nowhere, no one could fault her work.
Two of the thirty in top management. That wasn’t much to go on.