The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 139

Chapter 126: Going Public

Caleb POV

Claim

The press conference was Bella’s idea. I’d argued for a controlled media statement – quiet, professional, no questions instead she had looked at me across the kitchen table with her coffee and said, Caleb, they already have photos of Tom at the window They have months of speculation. A statement looks like damage control. A press conference looks like confidence. Then she’d gone back to her laptop and that had, apparently, been the end of the discussion.

She wasn’t wrong, she was rarely wrong about anything that involved other people watching.

I stood beside her on the small raised platform in the Black Tower media room with Tom between us, his small hand locked around two of my fingers with the grip of a child who had recently decided that this was simply where his hand lived, and I watched Bella face a room full of cameras and reporters with a calm expression that I had come to understand meant she was completely in control and enjoying it slightly more than she would ever admit.

“We’re not releasing a statement today,” she said, before anyone asked a question. “We’re just here.”

“I’m Bella Hart-Black,” she said. “This is Caleb. This is our son Tom, and we’re happy to take a few questions.”

The chaos that followed was exactly what she’d predicted and exactly what she’d prepared for. From scandal to fairytale- I heard that phrase from three different reporters in the first two minutes, each of them trying slightly different angles on the same story, and Bella answered each iteration with the same measured ease, redirecting, clarifying, giving them enough without giving them anything she didn’t want them to have.

Tom, meanwhile, had his own strategy. It started when a reporter near the front – trying to be charming, angling for a memorable quote crouched down to Tom’s level and said, “What’s it like having a famous dad?”

Tom considered this with a smile.”He makes good pancakes,” he said.

The room laughed, and Tom looked briefly uncertain about whether he’d said something wrong, so I crouched down too. “That was a good answer,” I said quietly.

“Better than yours?” he asked.

“Significantly better than mine.”

He beamed.

After that, he answered two more questions with the complete confidence of someone who had no understanding of why what he was saying was delightful, and I watched Bella’s careful composure develop a very small crack not enough for the cameras to catch, but enough for me.

She was trying not to smile and losing, slowly, and the sight of it did something to my chest that I was not going to examine in front of a room full of journalists.

Her hand found mine at some point. I wasn’t sure which of us reached first.

13

Chapter 126 froing Publis

He was already picking up his own phone.

Claim

tena – Caleb’s head of security – arrived within the hour, and by that evening Tom’s pick-up and drop-off procedures at schoot had been overhauled: two-person escort, route variations, parent notification protocols for any deviation from routine. Lena briefed us in the kitchen while Tom watched his show in the

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