The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 159

Chapter 145: The Doubt

Bella POV

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I didn’t know what to say, so hugged her, which she’d complained about and then held on to for a long time.

So yes. Diana had slotted into Tom’s life in a way I hadn’t predicted. And Maya had been there from the very beginning in a way I couldn’t have survived without. Tom, for his part, seemed to feel no conflict whatsoever about being adored by multiple women simultaneously. He accepted it as entirely appropriate.

I watched him now, stealing a piece of Diana’s bread without asking, and felt the warm ordinary weight of

all of it.

When we’d told him Diana would be responsible for him if anything happened to us, he’d said “Like a special aunt?” and Diana had said “Something like that” and he’d said “Cool” and gone back to his pasta.

Diana had excused herself to the kitchen for five minutes after that.

I didn’t follow her. Some things don’t need an audience.

The doubt arrived at three in the morning, eleven days before the wedding.

Not a crisis. Just the quiet 3 AM voice: What if he changes. What if the effort stops when the crisis does. What if I’ve mistaken months of trying for who he actually is.

I lay there and thought about it, then looked at the evidence, months of consistent action but the doubt didn’t go anywhere after that.

I reached out and put my hand on Caleb’s chest. He didn’t wake, just shifted and covered my hand with his, steady and warm.

I called Maya the next morning, Tom still asleep, the apartment quiet.

“I’m having doubts,” I said, the moment she picked up. “About the wedding, about all of it. What if he”

“Bella.” Maya’s voice was firm. “Stop. Breathe.”

I breathed.

“Again.”

I breathed again.

“Good, now is Caleb near you?”

I glanced toward the bedroom. “No. He’s still asleep.”

r

“Good,” she said. “Because if he heard you right now he would be devastated and that man does not deserve that this close to his wedding day.” A pause. “Now talk to me, what’s the what if?”

“What if this is all – crisis behaviour. What if he’s only been this person because everything was on fire and

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Chapter 145-The Doubl

new that it’s not”

“Bella.”

“I’m serious, Maya.

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“I know you’re serious, I’m also serious.” Her voice softened slightly. “Look at his actions, not his words – his actions, the house he put in your name, every single condition you gave him that he agreed to without negotiating once, the way he looks at Tom. She paused. “That man would lie down in traffic for you, you know that.”

I didn’t say anything.

“That’s not a crisis response,” Maya said. “That’s not a man performing, that is consistent, boring, unglamorous effort because you are worth it to him. You don’t sustain that through a crisis. You sustain that because it’s who you are.”

“I know,” I said quietly.

“Then why are we here at” a pause, presumably checking her phone “six forty-seven in the morning?”

“Because it’s a few days before my wedding and my brain does this.”

“Your brain has been doing this since Crestwood,” Maya said, not unkindly. “It kept you safe for a long time, it is now being overprotective and unhelpful and you need to tell it to stand down. You know what can I say something?” she asked.

“You’re going to anyway.”

“Boo, I love you,” she said, simply and without preamble. “I need you to hear that first before the rest of it, not as your friend who gives advice or your son’s godmother or the person who held your hand in a free clinic when you were twenty-three and terrified. Just I love you, you are one of my favourite people on this earth and I want you to be happy. Actually happy, not surviving, not managing, not holding it all together from behind glass. Happy. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Maya”

“I’m not finished, I watched you build everything you have from nothing, I watched you be a mother alone when you should never have had to do it alone. I watched you come back to this city with your head up and your son on your hip and I have never in my life been more proud of anyone.” A pause. “And I also watched you keep people at arm’s length for years because you decided love was a threat, I understood it. I never blamed you for it. But I’m standing here days before your wedding telling you that what you’ve built with Caleb is real, and you are allowed to have it, and I am not going to let you talk yourself out of it without calling me.”

I didn’t say anything because my throat had done the thing.

“Bella.”

“I’m here.”

“Are you crying?”

“No.”

Chapter 145 The Doubt

“You’re crying.”

“I’m not – it’s early, my eyes are just”

“It’s fine to cry, boo. I’m your best friend. You can be a person in front of me.”

I pressed the back of my hand against my eyes. “I hate you.”

“I know, I love you too.” She was quiet for a while. “Can I tell you something else?”

“Do I have a choice?”

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“Not really, I’ve always known this was where you were going. Even in Crestwood, when you were sleeping in a shelter bunk and studying investment theory on a borrowed laptop – I looked at you and thought, she’s going to be fine. Not because life was going to be fair to you, because it clearly wasn’t. But because you were the kind of person who finds the way through.” Her voice softened. “You found your way through. And Caleb is not a compromise or a settling or a going-back, he is the person who showed up and did the work and earned you. That matters.”

“When did you get so wise?” I asked, and my voice came out slightly unsteady.

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