Chapter 6
The Aldridge was the kind of hotel that made you stand up straighter just walking through the lobby.
Marble floors, vaulted ceilings, chandeliers that caught the afternoon light and threw it across everything in pieces.
I’d worked this ballroom three times before, and I still felt it every time the double doors opened.
“Girl, this is giving everything,” Iesha said, turning in a slow circle in the center of the room. She filled the whole room with it. “Kim, you see this ceiling?’
Kim was already on her phone, camera up. “Coco Con deserves nothing less. This is it. This is the one.”
I smiled, clicking my pen against my iPad to take notes as they rattled off the number of guests they were expecting at Southern Hearts and Signed Kisses Book Event.
This year, the vibe was Coco, melanin, black romance.
All the things. So the brown room of the Aldridge rightfully made sense. I smiled, I was so good at what I do.
My phone buzzed against the tablet with a text from Lesley, who was in Memphis right now on business.
Mr. Grim: I like your hair down.
I smiled as I caught my reflection in the window.
I had on my black-and-white polka-dot top, tied in a neat bow at my neck, wide-leg trousers, and my red bottoms. My hair was down, big and full, the way I wore it when I wanted to feel like myself.
I’d been looking forward to this walkthrough all week.
Me: Thanks for noticing.
“This event grows every year. How many guests can it hold?”
“So the ballroom holds five hundred seated comfortably,” I said, walking them through the space.
“But I want to reconfigure it, panels here, signing tables along this wall, a lounge section in the back corner for the VIP meet and greet.
We'd have the stage centered here with a step and repeat on both sides.”
“And the brunch situation?” Kim asked, lowering her phone.
“Separate dining room off the east corridor. I'm thinking a full Southern spread — grits station, biscuit bar, the works. We want people fed and comfortable before they spend money on books.”
Iesha laughed. “That's why we came to you.”
I was mid-sentence about the lighting package when I noticed the couple on the far side of the ballroom.
They’d been there when we arrived, speaking quietly to one of the venue coordinators, a man and a woman in business casual, the kind of neutral that tried too hard to disappear.
The coordinator pointed toward the stage end of the room, and they nodded, moving in that direction.
I didn't think twice about it. Venues ran multiple tours. It happened.
We finished the walkthrough forty minutes later. Kim had a client call, and Iesha was out of time on the meter; both of them were rushing out with promises to review the proposal by Friday. I stood at the ballroom entrance watching them go, already mentally drafting the vendor list.
“Ms. Outlaw.”
I turned. The couple from earlier was crossing the room toward me, and the coordinator was gone. The woman had her hand at her hip in a way that wasn’t casual. The man was already reaching into his jacket.
I went still.
They stopped a few feet from me, and the badges came out together, smooth and practiced.
“Agent Troy, FBI,” the man said. “This is Agent Walker. We apologize for the setup, but we needed to speak with you privately.”
I looked at the badges, then at their faces, then back at the ballroom doors where Kim and Iesha had just walked out.
I kept my face still. “It’s Mrs. Grimson. How can I help you?”
“We'll get straight to it,” Walker said.
She had a rehearsed warmth that didn't reach her eyes.
“We know what you saw in the basement at the Grimson estate. We know you were present during the incident with Cyrus Delmont. And we know your marriage to Lesley Grimson began as a protective arrangement, not a genuine union.”
I let the silence sit for a moment. Outside the ballroom windows, the city moved — cars, people, the ordinary afternoon going about its business.
“I'm not sure what basement you're referring to,” I said. “Or who Cyrus Delmont is.”
Troy stepped forward. “Mrs. Grimson, we know for a fact Icy Co Events hosted an event at the estate on the night of May 5th.”
“Okay, as you can see, I run a very successful business. Is that against the law?”
He blinked. Walker recovered faster. “We're not here to threaten you. We're here to offer you a way out. Your husband's operation is under active federal investigation. When this comes down, it’s going to come down hard and fast, and anyone standing next to Lesley Grimson when it does…”
“Is his wife,” I said. “Legally, faithfully, and by her own choice.” I tilted my head. “Do you have a warrant, Agent Troy? Walker?”
“No, but…”
“Then this conversation is voluntary.” I clicked my pen closed and slid it into my tote.
“And I'm choosing to end it. My husband is a legitimate businessman who employs over two hundred people across two states. If you have evidence of criminal activity, arrest him. If you don’t, I’d encourage you to redirect your resources.
Maybe on the fat fuck in office.” I picked up my iPad.
“I have a vendor call in ten minutes. Is that all?”
Walker pulled a card from her jacket and held it out. “If you change your mind…”
“I won't.” I didn't take the card. “But I will be informing our attorneys about this interaction. Just so there are no surprises on your end.”
I turned and walked toward the ballroom doors, heels steady, the chandelier light catching my earrings as I moved. Behind me, I heard them exchange a word or two in low voices.
I didn't look back.
Malice was in the lobby when I came through the doors, stationed near the entrance the way he always was, giving me space but never giving me distance. He read my face in one second flat.
“You good?” he asked quietly.
“Feds just paid me a visit,” I said, not breaking stride. “And don't tell Lesley yet. I'll tell him myself when he gets home.”
I leaned my head back as we made it to the car. He was going to be livid.
I’d changed into my silk pajama set the second I got home, tied my hair up, and told myself I was fine. I was fine. I’d handled it. I’d said exactly what needed to be said and walked out of there with my heels on and my head straight.
“Is it the way that I walk? Is it the way that I talk?”
I was on my second layer, fruit down, buttercream next, rapping along to Saweetie without a care in the world when his hands landed on my waist, and I screamed. The offset spatula hit the counter, and buttercream went with it.
“Lesley.” I pressed my hand to my chest, heart slamming. “Don't do that.”
“My house.” He pressed his lips to the side of my neck, unbothered. Then he pulled back and looked at the counter. Two cake layers, the fruit, the buttercream bowl, flour still on the edge of my sleeve. “Coco.”
“I was stress baking.”
“I can see that.” He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, reading me the way he always did when he was deciding whether to push or wait. He waited. “You not gon tell me what has you stressed, Co?”
“Don’t blow up.”
“Co, Malice already told me something happened at your meeting. Talk to me.”
I set the spatula down and turned to face him. I told him about the Aldridge. The fake couple, the timing, Kim and Iesha leaving. He listened without interrupting, which was its own kind of intensity.
“They asked specifically about the basement,” I said. “By name. Cyrus.”
That name started everything. And somewhere between the lilies and the gun range and him canceling his whole day just to drive me around, I'd let myself believe we were past the hard part.
He went still.
“I shut it down and told them that we are successful business owners.” I held his eyes. “The timing was too clean, though. They knew exactly when I'd be alone in there.”
He crossed the kitchen, took my face in both hands, and looked at me for a long moment. His thumbs moved across my cheekbones slow and steady.
“You did everything right,” he said. “I'm sorry they got that close to you.”
That last part was the one that got me.
“Finish your cake,” he said softly. He kissed my forehead and stepped out of the kitchen. That went a lot better than I thought it would.
I picked the spatula back up and pressed play on my playlist. If Grim said he would handle it, I would let him.
About twenty minutes later, his voice carried from down the hall, absolutely lethal.
“Nah, fuck that. They want to play games with my wife, we can play. Set that bitch on fire,” he ordered before coming back to me on the couch. He was showered and smelling like Shea butter.
“You straight?”
“Yeah, my cake turned out good, want some?” I offered my fork and watched him wrap his lips around it slowly, eyes on me the whole time. He knew exactly what he was doing.
“That’s good,” he said, handing the fork back.
“Mm.” I took it and looked back at the TV like I hadn't just forgotten how to breathe. Like my whole nervous system hadn't just rearranged itself over a man eating cake off a fork in his living room.
I told myself I could do this without feeling it.
Keep it clean, keep it practical, be smart about the whole thing.
Lesley Grimson was supposed to be a situation I managed, not a man I was catching feelings for in my silk pajamas over a layered cake at midnight.
But here I was, watching his mouth and forgetting how to breathe, and the scary part was, I didn't even want to look away.
He laughed low, just once, like he could hear every thought in my head.
“Stop,” I said.
“I ain't said nothing, or did anything.”
“Exactly.”
He reached over and stole another bite off my fork, unbothered, and I was about to say something slick when the news cut in.
“Breaking news from Bryson Richey with WXZY.”
“Thank you, Jamie. Just fifteen minutes ago we got word that two vehicles registered to federal agents were found engulfed in flames this evening. As you can see behind me, fire department crews are still on scene working to get this under control. Authorities are calling this a targeted incident. No injuries have been reported. An investigation is currently underway.”
I froze as his hand softly rested on the side of my neck.
The anchor kept talking. I stopped hearing words.
I turned slowly. He was watching the screen with the same expression he used when he was reading a menu. Completely unbothered. Like the TV had just reported the weather.
He clicked it off, set the remote down, and stood up. He held his hand out to me.
“Come on,” he said quietly. “It's late.”
I looked at his hand. I looked at his face and put my hand in his.
I was blushing as he led me down the hall without another word, his thumb moving slowly across my knuckles. I decided right then and there that the clouds were actually a pretty nice place to live.