Chapter 297 - She was never going to be you

"She was a model," Voren explained, his eyes back on the ceiling. "That’s actually how I crossed paths with Stanley in the first place.

He was the one I paid to keep tabs on her and make sure she stayed safe whenever she wasn’t around me. He ran in those same circles, so it just made sense to handle it through him."

Seraphine took all that in without saying much. Stanley. Another link she hadn’t known about before, another part of the picture she didn’t realize she was right in the middle of. No wonder Voren had dodged her question earlier when she asked how they knew each other. It all tied back to another woman in his past, and a human one at that.

She kept turning the photo over in her mind. Coco James. A woman who had her face, her eyes, her hair dyed to match, living a life that basically revolved around Voren’s hurt and everything he’d lost.

"Where is she now?"

Seraphine kept staring up at the chandelier, letting the full weight of it sink deep into her chest. It felt like this slow, quiet crumbling of a hope she hadn’t even fully admitted to herself until right now.

She had really wanted Marigold to be hers. That was the quiet faith she’d been holding onto. She had hoped that just this once, the moon goddess might finally answer the deepest wish in her heart.

The feeling had been there from the very first second that little girl looked up at her with those gorgeous blue eyes and called her mom.

It had flipped something huge inside her. Even though the age didn’t quite add up, she had brushed it off as some mix-up with whoever had found her or whoever Corvine had handed her daughter over to.

Now, hearing Voren lay out the whole story, she could feel that secret hope getting smaller and smaller, folding in on itself like something left out in the cold for way too long.

She kept her face calm and steady. She had always been pretty good at that.

"Where is she now? Coco," she asked again.

"She’s still around," Voren said simply. "Somewhere in the city. But we’re not together anymore. Haven’t been for a long time. And I don’t bring Marigold around her at all."

Seraphine frowned up at the ceiling. "If she’s Marigold’s mother, she should have some right to be in her life. Whatever went wrong between you two, that’s a whole separate issue."

She said it straight and clear, no shake in her voice, even though the words pressed on a fresh bruise she was just discovering.

She truly meant it. But in the back of her mind, she made a quiet note to herself that she would still want a DNA test done, no matter how close the resemblance looked.

Faces could fool you without any real blood connection. And if there was even the tiniest chance, she needed to know for sure. She’d make time to look for little things like birthmarks too, anything that couldn’t be copied or faked.

"Coco is human," Voren said. The way he spoke made it sound like something he’d thought about so many times that the sharp edges had worn smooth.

"And I take full responsibility for how things fell apart between us. Because the real problem was never her. It was me."

He let out a slow breath. "I wanted her to actually be you. Not just look like you, but think like you and feel like you. I’d try to push her toward medicine or starting some kind of business or having real drive for anything."

"But that just wasn’t who she was. She loved being on the runway. She took life easy and relaxed in a way I couldn’t understand and couldn’t stop holding against her."

He paused for a second. "And she refused to be seen with me in public. In private, she was totally there for me, warm and attentive and everything. But the second cameras or other people showed up, I turned into just some guy she knew. Maybe a friend at most. She’d look right past me like I wasn’t even there."

Seraphine stayed quiet, surprised that any woman in her right mind would treat Voren like that. She knew she had done the same thing once, judging from the videos she saw on Voren’s phone, but since she didn’t have those memories, she couldn’t really blame herself too much for it.

"I stayed in it longer than I should have because she was the only thing I had that reminded me of you," Voren admitted. "That’s the honest truth, and it’s not a good look."

A bitter little smile crossed his face and vanished just as quick. "Stanley was the one who finally sat me down and told me I needed to let it go, move on, and stop hurting myself like that. I almost kicked him out of the room for saying it."

The smile came back for a moment, even darker this time. "And then he showed me the pictures."

Seraphine turned her head a little toward him.

"Coco was living a totally different life behind my back. Clubs every weekend, sometimes even on weeknights when she’d tell me she was working. Drinking so much she didn’t know where she was half the time. Going home with whoever happened to be around when the lights came up."

Voren’s voice stayed cool, like he’d already felt every bit of anger about it and had come out the other side. "Stanley put everything right in front of me—photos, dates, locations, all of it."

He shook his head once, still looking up.

"That was the moment it finally hit me. No matter how much she looked like you on the outside, she was never going to be you. And I’d been punishing both of us by trying to force it." He breathed out. "So, I ended things."

Seraphine was quiet for a moment. "And Marigold?"

"I’m getting to that part," Voren responded honestly.