The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 162

Chapter 148: Bachelorette Night 2

Bella POV

The evening was loud and warm and genuinely fun. My staff, freed from the architecture of a normal working relationship for one evening, turned out to have opinions and stories and a collective energy I hadn’t fully seen before, and I sat in the middle of it and felt the warmth of having built something that people actually wanted to be part of.

Claim

Someone pressed a drink into my hand at some point. I held it, let the conversation move around me, and when no one was looking I set it down.

My stomach had been like this for days. I had been noting it. The nausea that arrived in the morning and occasionally without warning, the appetite that had gone somewhere and not come back.

The glass of wine at dinner three nights ago that had smelled fine and tasted wrong, which I had managed by setting it down and talking to Caleb about something else until he didn’t notice.

My period had been irregular for the better part of a year, which I had attributed to stress and age. That was what I’d told myself.

I was not, tonight, in the twenty-four hours before my wedding, not going to examine that thought any further.

I picked up a glass of water and kept it in my hand for the rest of the evening. At some point I picked up my phone then immediately remembered Maya’s exact words from earlier: “No phones tonight. I want you fully present.”

I typed fast.

How’s the no-party party?

Caleb replied almost immediately. Civilized. Ethan made a good speech. You’d have hated it.

I would have cried and pretended I wasn’t, you mean.

Yes.

I typed quickly, aware of Maya circling. She’s about to confiscate my phone. I just wanted to say – tomorrow already feels different from the first time. I don’t know how to explain it except that.

I know exactly what you mean.

Good. Go back to your dinner.

You too.

Caleb.

Yeah.

I can’t wait to marry you.

Maya’s hand appeared from nowhere and lifted the phone clean out of my grip without breaking her

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Chapter 148 Bachelorette Night 2

eenversation with Adaeze.

Clam

The female strippers arrived at midnight, which I had not known about, which meant Maya had been operating with information she had deliberately withheld, which was absolutely on brand.

“Maya,” I called out.

“Bella,”

“You said you told me everything.”

“I told you the important parts,” she said. “This is a bonus.”

One of my business contacts – a forty-three-year-old CFO named Adaeze who I had always considered reserved – looked at me with bright eyes and said, “I’m so glad Maya organised this.”

I gave up and laughed, I watched women who had been professional and careful all week being something else for one evening.

Then Maya worked her way to the front of the room with the confidence of a woman who had decided tonight was entirely for her and was correct. The beat dropped harder, and she locked eyes with the tall, dark-haired male stripper who had stayed after his set. Without hesitation, she crooked a finger at him.

He smirked and moved toward her like he’d been waiting for permission. Maya didn’t wait for him to reach her fully-she met him halfway, sliding her hands up his bare, oiled chest as the music pulsed around them. She turned, pressing her ass back against his groin, rolling her hips in a slow, deliberate grind that made the room erupt in cheers and whistles.

The stripper’s hands settled on her waist, then slid lower, gripping her hips as she arched her back and moved against him harder, faster, matching the heavy/bass.

Maya threw her head back, laughing breathlessly, her body undulating with zero shame. She reached behind her, grabbing one of his hands and dragging it up her side, over the curve of her breast, encouraging him to touch her while she ground down on the very obvious bulge in his tiny G-string.

He leaned in, mouth close to her ear, saying something that made her bite her lip and laugh again before she spun in his arms, facing him.

ľ

Their bodies were flush now, her thigh sliding between his legs as she rolled her hips forward, pressing right against his erection.

The friction was blatant, dirty, and Maya was clearly enjoying every second of it-her hands roaming over his shoulders, nails digging in as she rode the rhythm, hips circling and thrusting in a way that left nothing to the imagination.

She looked back at me from across the room, flushed and laughing, eyes bright with pure mischief, and pointed at me in the specific way that meant your turn.

I pointed back at her in the specific way that meant absolutely not.

She shrugged, turned back to the stripper, and kept grinding on him like the rest of the room didn’t exist- her ass moving in tight, sensual circles against his c**k while his hands explored her body with

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Chapter 148 Bachelorette Night 2

professional confidence and growing heat.

Claim

+ shook my head, smiling despite myself. Maya was my best friend and I loved her completely, and I was not going to narrate the rest of what she was doing to that poor man on the dance floor.

By midnight the room had become quieter now, people in clusters, the music lower, the evening winding toward one AM and Maya’s promised end time, I sat on the window seat with a glass of water, Maya dropped past me on her way to the kitchen, still flushed, and dropped my phone in my lap without a word. The no-phones rule had apparently expired along with her energy for enforcing it.

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