The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 301

Chapter 264: Paris News

Bella POV

On a Wednesday morning, days after Victor came home, I sat at the kitchen table with a cold cup of coffee and a Hart Worldwide acquisition brief. Victor lay in the bassinet two feet away, making small sounds.

The kitchen door swung open, and Lena walked in. Her face was pale, her lips pressed into a tight line. She did not say good morning. Instead, she set her tablet on the wooden table right in front of my coffee cup.

“Media monitoring picked this up last night,” Lena said, leaning over the table and tapping the glass screen. “It hasn’t published yet, but a draft is being shopped to three major outlets.”

I looked down at the bright screen. My eyes scanned the harsh, bold text formatted into a clean, digital draft that was being shopped to the media:

EXCLUSIVE DRAFT: THE MARCHETTI AFFAIR Sources close to the leadership at Black Enterprises have confirmed a series of private encounters between CEO Caleb Marchetti and former executive Nadina during their recent operational trip to Paris.

On the night of the fourteenth, following an intimate dinner at L’Ambroisie, hotel logs and eyewitness accounts place the two of them inside room 402 of the Le Meurice.

The door was closed behind them at 11:42 PM. While representatives maintain the interaction was strictly professional, sources close to the situation suggest a far more personal connection developed behind closed doors-one that directly precipitated Nadina’s sudden, quiet termination from the firm last week.

I sat with it for a moment, my chest tightening. “Who is the source, Lena?” I asked.

“We don’t have a confirmed name yet,” Lena replied, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to me. “But the details that are accurate are highly operational. They have the internal trip logistics, the specific restaurant, and the private guest list.”

“So it’s someone who was there,” I muttered, staring at the text. “Or someone who was briefed directly by someone who was there.”

“Exactly,” Lena said, nodding. “From what my team can piece together, Nadina isn’t trying to fight the termination itself. She knows she’s legally done. But she is furious because she misjudged Caleb’s reaction. She thought she understood what she was dealing with.”

“She didn’t know him,” I said flatly.

“No,” Lena agreed. “She didn’t.”

I looked at the outline of the story again. We had already settled the truth of that night in our therapy sessions with Dr. Anand. Caleb did not touch her. But implications do not need to be accurate to do massive damage. I knew this better than anyone.

I closed the tablet with a sharp snap and picked up my cell phone.

“What is the plan?” Lena asked me.

Chapter 264 New

“Communications first,” I said. “Then legal. Then talk to Caleb.”

1 dialed Caleb’s number. He picked up on the second ring, his voice alert.

“Bella? Is everything okay with Victor?” he asked quickly.

Claim

“Victor is fine,” I said, keeping my voice low. “But there is a story coming. Lena’s team just picked it up. It hasn’t been published yet, but it will. Probably within forty-eight hours.”

“What story?” Caleb asked, his voice sharp and alert.

“The Paris trip,” I said. “Someone is shopping a draft to the media. It mentions the dinner, the hotel room incident, and implies that something happened.”

There was a long silence on the line as I heard his pen tapping against his desk. “Bella, I am so sorry,” Caleb whispered, his voice cracking. “I will handle this. I’ll call the legal team and enforce the non-disclosure agreement.”

“No, we get ahead of it,” I interrupted him, my voice firm. “We are not sitting here and letting an angry ex-employee tell our story with the details she chose and the gaps she filled in. We put out a joint statement before it runs. We control the frame, and we stand in front of it together.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Caleb said softly. “You don’t have to stand next to me for this public mess. I can take the heat alone.”

“Caleb,” I said, stopping him. “I know I don’t have to. I am choosing to. Do you understand the difference?”

Another pause, longer this time. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Victor made a sharp sound from the bassinet. I reached over without looking and rested my palm against his tiny chest. He settled instantly under the warmth of my hand.

“I’ll call the communications director right now,” Caleb said. “We can have a draft statement ready by

noon.”

“I’ll write the statement,” I countered. “You can review it when I’m done. But I am writing the words.”

He knew better than to argue with me on this. “Okay,” he said. “Send it to me as soon as it’s ready.”

The story was published exactly at seven o’clock the next morning. I knew the moment it went live because Lena sent the schematic link to my phone at six fifty-nine. She had been monitoring the press sites all through the night.

I clicked the link. The headline was exactly what I expected: TROUBLE IN THE MARCHETTI PARADISE: BLACK ENTERPRISES CEO FACES SCANDAL. The details were sharp, but the written implication was much worse than I had anticipated. The journalist had filled the gaps with pure gossip.

By eight o’clock, Caleb and I were standing in front of a room full of cameras at the corporate headquarters. The bright flashes reflected off the dark wood of the podium.

I had been in front of cameras in worse situations than this. I had testified in a custody court with Richard sitting ten feet away from me. I had stood in a crowded boardroom and stopped a hostile acquisition attempt without a single blink.

Chapter 264 Pans News

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