“Please don’t escalate this,” I say. “He didn’t hurt me. He isn’t what you think.”
Laurent studies me. “You’re defending him.”
“I’m explaining him,” I say. “There’s a difference.”
“You spent days with him,” he replies. “Don’t confuse survival with attachment.”
I don’t answer, because the truth is worse than that.
“It’s over now,” I say. “He brought me home.”
Laurent’s jaw tightens. “You’ll stay here until this blows over.”
“I don’t want to be locked up again,” I say quietly.
“What I say goes,” he replies.
I nod. I don’t agree.
My childhood bedroom hasn’t changed. Same walls. Same bed. Same soft lavender sheets. I sit on the edge, staring at the floor, waiting for comfort that doesn’t arrive.
Ridge’s presence pushes in anyway. Not the danger. The restraint. The way he chose distance when staying would have been easier. The way he let me go.
My body reacts before I give it permission.
Not pleasure. Not comfort. Something tighter than that. A low, restless tension that settles under my skin and refuses to leave.
Awareness.
The kind that doesn’t ask what I want, only what I remember. The weight of his presence. The way he chose distance instead of keeping me. The restraint he held onto when it would have been easier to take more.
That realization doesn’t soothe anything. It unsettles me.
He’s not a monster. That’s the part that won’t let go. Ishould be terrified of him, I should hate him, by any reasonable measure. He took me. He locked me away. He decided when I slept and where I stood.
But still, my pulse doesn’t spike with fear when I think of him. It tightens with something sharper. More complicated.
A pull I don’t want. A recognition I didn’t ask for.
I press my palm flat against my sternum, grounding myself, feeling my heartbeat thud solid and real beneath my hand. I breathe until the room comes back into focus. The familiar walls. The bed I grew up in. The quiet authority of this house.
This is safety, I tell myself.
But my body doesn’t listen.
“This is freedom,” I say out loud. No matter how many times I repeat it, the thought doesn’t stick.
I lie back and stare at the ceiling, listening to the unfamiliar quiet of a house that has always belonged to me. Somewhere between those walls and the bunker I left behind, something shifted.
And I know, with unsettling clarity, that whatever Ridge Stone did to free me didn’t end anything at all.
It only moved the line.
SIXTEEN
Ridge
Jackson Square:Named after Andrew Jackson for his role in the Battle of New Orleans, this historic square is the heart of the French Quarter, with live music, artists, and the stunning St. Louis Cathedral as its backdrop
