Chapter 23 Coco #2
Her fingers tap against her mug thoughtfully. “Coco, I need to ask you something. Are you sure about him? And I mean really sure.”
“Yes.” The answer comes fast. “I’m sure. That doesn’t mean this is a done deal. There are so many variable and roadblocks that the odds are against us working.”
She studies me for a beat. “You know who he is and what he does, right?”
“I do,” I say, frowning. “And it’s not that different from my father’s world.”
Delphine leans in, voice dropping. “You’ve always said you didn’t want to end up with someone like your father.”
“He’s not like my father.”
“Do you know he killed Alton and Colin Duvall?”
“I know the Duvalls killed his father. And I know he wasn’t going to let that go unanswered. That much I do know, and I don’t blame him.”
Her gaze doesn’t waver. “I heard something this morning. People are saying Ridge didn’t just order the hit on the Duvalls. They’re saying he did it himself. Last night. And that it wasn’t clean.”
The café noise fades to a dull roar. “That’s not possible,” I say automatically. “He was with me last night.”
Then the timing clicks into place, sharp and unwelcome. He didn’t get to my house until almost morning.
She watches me closely. “I’m telling you what I heard. You know how rumors move. There could be some exaggeration, some half-truths in there. But you can bet that if it reached me, it’s already reached your father.”
My phone vibrates against the table, the sound jarring. I look down, and my chest tightens.
“It’s my father,” I mutter. “Of course it is. He’s like a ghost. Always right there.”
“What do you think he wants?”
“I’m supposed to meet him at his house at three.” I swallow. “Del, I can’t deal with him right now. I’m not ready.”
“Then don’t deal with everything,” she says calmly. “Go see him, listen, and answer what he asks. Don’t volunteer anything. Not today.”
I stare into my untouched coffee, my stomach twisting hard enough to make me nauseous. My father. Ridge. The weight of both pulls at me in opposite directions.
“Do you think Ridge is a bad man?” The question slips out before I can stop it, and regret follows immediately.
Delphine considers me carefully. “Bad is subjective. What matters is where you’re willing to stand on the continuum. I told you I’d always be straight with you.”
She takes a sip, eyes still locked on mine over the turquoise rim. She never judges. It’s one of the reasons I trust her.
I always knew Ridge was capable of violence. That wasn’t new. But hearing it framed like this, picturing blood and aftermath and consequences, makes it impossible to keep abstract.
“I don’t know how to reconcile it,” I admit quietly. “The man I’m with is careful with me. He’s protective and gentle and measured. That’s who I love. I don’t know what to do with the rest of him.”
Delphine reaches across the table and covers my hand. “You need to decide what you want. With Ridge. With your father. With your life. Because once you choose, you have to live with that.”
The bass thuds through my chest like a second heartbeat. The Palomino’s lights sweep the floor in slow arcs of blue and white, breaking apart the haze in flashes of red and gold.
Delphine spins in front of me, her braid whipping over her shoulder as she laughs. The ease of it catches in my chest before I can stop it.
The crowd moves as one mass, bodies pressed close, sweat and sound and motion blurring together. I should be enjoying this. That was the point. Delphine dragged me here to remind me that I am still allowed to exist outside of decisions and consequences.
But the knot in my stomach refuses to loosen.
Her words from earlier won’t let go. Once you choose, there’s no going back.
She never pushes. She says what needs saying and then lets me sit with it. Right now, I am grateful for that silence more than conversation.
But the diversion isn’t working like it usually does.
I force myself to move with the music, to let my body remember how this used to be, when my life was as close to normal as it ever got, being Laurent Boudreaux’s daughter.
Before Ridge Stone.
And then the air shifts. It’s subtle, but my body catches it before my mind does. A chill runs up my spine, quick enough that I stop dancing and turn before I’m even sure of what I’m thinking is behind me.
Ridge stands at the edge of the dance floor, his height and presence cutting clean through the smoke and light. His gaze is locked on me, focused in a way that makes my pulse stutter.
Heat coils low in my gut. It is not relief or desire alone, but something tighter and more dangerous.
Delphine follows my stare. Her smile fades. “Guess the party’s over.”
“Stay here,” I say, steadier than I feel. What the fuck is he doing here?
She nods, though her eyes track him as he starts toward us.
Ridge crosses the room without hesitation. The bodies between us shift, opening a narrow path straight to me.
When he stops in front of me, the music dulls, swallowed by the rush of blood in my ears. His jaw is set, and his eyes are sharp, scanning past me once, then back again.
“What are you doing here?” he asks. His voice is low, controlled, pitched just above the music.
The question irritates me. I guess he thinks that once he says he loves me, suddenly I need his permission before I do anything.
I lift my chin. “I’m out with a friend. What do you think I’m doing here, Ridge?”
His gaze flicks past me again, quick and assessing. “You shouldn’t be.”
“According to who?”
“According to me,” he says. “And according to the call I got an hour ago from Wells.”
That lands.
“From who?” I ask.
“Wells. My brother.” His eyes stay on mine. “Never mind. Trust me.”
“I can hardly hear you, Ridge. Trust what? What about Wells, your brother?”
“He’s a hacker, and he picked up someone asking about you by name,” he screams louder in my ear.
My irritation flares hotter than my fear. “So now I’m supposed to panic and go home because someone mentioned my name somewhere in the ether?”
“This isn’t about panic,” he says. “It’s about not standing in the open when you don’t have to.”
I laugh, sharp and humorless. “The Duvalls are dead, Ridge. You made sure of that. So what exactly am I supposed to be afraid of now?”
He steps closer, close enough that I feel the heat of him through the thin fabric of my dress. “The part where their deaths don’t erase every loose end.”
“Or is this just easier,” I snap, “than admitting you don’t like that I’m not where you can see me?”
His jaw tightens. “Stop it, Coco. That’s not what this is.”
“What?”
The music surges, swallowing the rest of whatever he was about to say. His eyes flick to the speakers, then back to me, frustration threading through his restraint.
He reaches for my wrist.
I pull back on instinct. “Don’t.”
“I need you to hear me,” he says, voice firm now. “And that’s not happening out here.”
His grip closes on me, and he pulls me with him.
“This is not you dragging me out,” I say sharply.
“No,” he agrees. “It’s me moving you somewhere quiet.”
I hesitate just long enough for him to see it. Then I let him pull me.
The crowd resists, bodies bumping and shifting as he steers us through. I dig in my heels once, just to make the point, but it doesn’t slow him.
“Ridge,” I demand as the music fades behind us. “You do not get to—”
He shoves open a door near the back of the club and pulls me inside.
The bass cuts off abruptly, replaced by thick, muffled quiet and a dull thumping I feel more than hear. Shelves line the walls, stacked with cables and equipment. We must be in an AV closet.
The door shuts, and then I hear the lock turn. I spin on him. “You can’t just haul me back here.”
“I can,” he says evenly. “And I just did.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No,” he agrees. “But you couldn’t hear me out there. I want you to understand what I’m telling you.”
He steps closer, not touching me, but close enough that my back brushes metal. The space disappears, my pulse skids.
“Someone asked about you tonight,” he says. “Not casually. Not in passing. And not someone who should know your name.”
My chest tightens despite myself. “Ridge, you’re overreacting.”
“I’m not.”
Silence stretches between us, dense and humming.
“And what,” I ask, “you expect me to do exactly what you say?”
“I want you to lie low for a while, until I tell you it’s safe.”
“I’m not living like that,” I shoot back. “I’m not doing is disappearing every time you decide the world is dangerous.”
His gaze drops to my mouth for a brief, loaded second before lifting again. “You think I don’t know what that costs you?”
“Then stop acting like I’m reckless.”
“I’m acting like someone who just learned how easy it would be to hurt you.”
The words hit harder than his grip ever could.
The air between us tightens, charged and restless. His breath brushes my cheek. Mine catches, traitorous.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Then, his hand lifts and stops just short of my waist.
“If you walk back out there,” he says quietly, “I won’t stop you.”
My pulse pounds. My body leans in even as my spine stays straight.
“Then unlock the door,” I say.
He holds my gaze for a long beat. Then he reaches past me and turns the lock. The click echoes loudly in the small space.