The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 24

Chapter 24 Maya Advice

Chapter 24: Maya Advice

Bella pov

+25 Points

I tucked Tom into bed and sat beside him, smoothing his dark hair back from his forehead. “I love you, Tom. More than anything in the whole world.”

“Love you too, Mommy.” His eyes opened slightly, that grey gaze so like his father’s that it hurt. “Mommy? Why do I look different from you?”

The question caught me off guard. “What do you mean, baby?”

“My eyes. They’re not like yours. They’re grey and yours are…” He scrunched up his face, trying to remember. “Are like honey. Angela said so.”

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My heart clenched. “Everyone’s eyes are different, sweetheart. You got your eyes from… from your daddy.”

“When will I meet him?” Tom asked a question he’d been asking more and more lately. “Is he nice? Will he like me?”

I thought about Caleb standing in that hallway, devastated and desperate, asking if our baby had survived. I thought about the way he’d laughed when I’d told him I was pregnant, the cruelty in his voice when he’d told me to get rid of it.

“Someday you’ll meet him,” I said carefully, the same answer I always gave. “And baby? Anyone who doesn’t love you immediately is a fool. You’re perfect exactly as you are.”

Tom smiled sleepily and closed his eyes. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.”

I stayed until his breathing evened out and he was fully asleep, then returned to the living room where Maya was waiting with both our wine glasses refilled.

“He asked about his father,” I said, sinking onto the couch. “He’s starting to notice that other kids have dads and he doesn’t.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The same thing I always tell him. Someday.” I took a long drink of wine. “Maya, I don’t know how to do this. Caleb is here, in Silverton, probably looking for ways to see me again. And I have his son hidden away like a secret, and I don’t know how long I can keep them apart.”

“Do you want to keep them apart?” Maya asked quietly. “Or are you afraid of what happens if you don’t?”

“Both.” I set down my wine before I spilled it, my hands shaking too badly. “I’m terrified that if Caleb finds out about Tom, he’ll try to take him away. He has money and lawyers and power, and I’m just”

“You’re just the CEO of a five-hundred-million-dollar company who built an empire from nothing,” Maya interrupted firmly. “You’re not that scared girl anymore, Bella. You have your own money, your own power, your own lawyers. He can’t just take Tom away from you.”

“But he could hurt him.” My voice broke on the words. “What if Tom meets his father and gets attached,

1.3

<Chapter 24-Maya Advice

+25 Points >

and then Caleb abandons him the way he abandoned me? What if Tom feels the same rejection I felt? I can’t let that happen, Maya. I can’t.”

Maya moved closer and pulled me into a hug, and this time I didn’t try to hold back the tears. I cried into her shoulder, great heaving sobs that I’d been holding back since I’d left the summit, letting out years of fear and pain and rage.

“He said he was sorry,” I gasped between sobs, clutching at Maya’s shirt. “He looked at me with these broken eyes and said he’d been searching for me, and Maya, I wanted to believe him. For one terrible moment, I wanted to believe that he actually cared, that he regretted what he’d done, and I hate myself for even thinking it.”

“You’re human,” Maya said, rubbing my back. “You’re allowed to want things, even from people who hurt you.”

“I refuse to feel anything for him,” I said fiercely, even as tears continued to stream down my face. “I refuse to let him matter. He threw us away, Maya. He told me to abort Tom. Why would I ever forgive that? Why would I ever let him back in?”

“I don’t think you should forgive him,” Maya said honestly. “I think he destroyed something that can’t be repaired. But Bella, holding onto this rage is destroying you too. Look at yourself. You’re shaking, you can barely breathe, you’re falling apart just from seeing him. That’s not strength. That’s trauma.”

“I don’t know how to let it go.” I pulled back and wiped at my face, frustrated by my own weakness. “I built everything on this anger, on proving I was worth more than he thought. If I let go of the rage, what’s left?”

“You,” Maya said simply. “The real you, not the Iron Empress or the revenge-driven CEO. The woman who loves her son more than anything, who built an empire to give him a better life, who survived hell and came out stronger. That person exists without the anger, Bella. You just have to let her breathe.”

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