The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 35

Chapter 33: The Meeting

Bella POV

I didn’t sleep that night. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my mind racing through every possible scenario for the morning’s meeting. What would I say to Caleb? How would I explain why I’d kept Tom hidden? What if he tried to take my son away from me?

What if he looked at me with those grey eyes and I forgot how to hate him? At 4 AM, I gave up on sleep and went to the gym, running on the treadmill until my legs burned and my lungs screamed. Physical pain was easier to handle than the emotional chaos threatening to

consume me.

By 5:30, I was showered and dressed in dark jeans and a simple sweater, no armor today, no power suit to hide behind. This wasn’t a business meeting. This was something I couldn’t quite name, and that terrified me.

Maya was already awake when I emerged from my room, two cups of coffee waiting on the

counter.

“You look terrible,” she said bluntly, handing me one.

“I feel worse.” I took a long drink, grateful for the bitter burn. “Is Tom still asleep?”

“Out cold. Angela’s on alert in case he wakes up, but he usually doesn’t surface until eight on weekends.” Maya studied me carefully. “Are you sure you want to do this alone? I could come with you.”

“No. This is something I need to do myself.” I set down my coffee and grabbed my coat. “But Maya? If I’m not back in two hours, or if anything happens”

“I take Tom and disappear,” she finished. “I know the plan, Bella. We’ve been over it three

times.”

“I’m not being paranoid. I’m being careful.”

“I know.” She pulled me into a hug. “Just remember, you’re not that broken girl anymore. You’re the Iron Empress. You can handle anything, even Caleb Black.”

I almost smiled at that. “No promises.”

The address I’d given Caleb was a small coffee shop on the edge of downtown, one that opened at 6 AM for the early morning crowd and had private booths in the back. I arrived first, claimed the most secluded booth, and ordered coffee I didn’t want.

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Chapter 33 The Meeting

+25 Points

Caleb walked in exactly at six, his eyes scanning the room until they found me. He looked as terrible as I felt, dark circles under his eyes, his usually perfect hair slightly disheveled, his expression haunted and desperate.

He slid into the booth across from me, and for a long moment, we just stared at each other.

“Thank you for meeting me,” he said finally, his voice rough. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“I’m here because Jade is threatening me,” I said coldly, keeping my hands wrapped around my coffee cup. “Not because I want to reconcile or hear your excuses. So say what you need to say, Caleb.”

He flinched but nodded. “I know about your son. The boy in the photo Jade sent, he has my eyes.”

My heart stopped, but I kept my face neutral. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

*Bella, please. Don’t lie to me. The timeline matches, he looks exactly like me, and Jade clearly knows”

“That child isn’t mine,” I interrupted, the lie coming smoothly despite the panic in my chest. “He’s my friend’s son. I help take care of him sometimes. Jade is just trying to manipulate you with false information.”

I watched the hope die in Caleb’s eyes, watched his face crumple with disappointment so

profound it was almost physical. His hands clenched on the table, and for a moment, I thought he might cry.

“Your friend’s son,” he repeated dully. “So there’s no… you didn’t…”

“I did what you told me to do,” I said, forcing coldness into my voice even as my heart screamed at me to tell the truth. “You demanded I get rid of it, and I did. There is no baby, Caleb. There never was.”

The words felt so bad, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. Not yet. Not when Jade was threatening Tom, not when I didn’t know if I could trust Caleb not to use my son against me. Tom’s safety came before everything, even before the guilt I felt watching Caleb’s face as he absorbed what he thought was the truth.

“I see.” His voice was hollow, empty. “So I killed our child. That’s what you’re telling me. I pressured you into aborting our baby, and now there’s nothing left of what we could have had.”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” I met his eyes without flinching, even though every word felt like a knife in my chest. “You made your choice that night, and I made mine. There’s

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Chapter 33: The Meeting

nothing more to discuss.”

+25 Points

Caleb was silent for a long moment, staring down at his hands like they were stained with blood. When he looked up, his eyes were wet.”Who’s your friend?” he asked quietly. “The one

with the son.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because I need to know. I need to understand your life now, who you have around you.” He swallowed hard. “Please, Bella. Just tell me who she is.”

“Her name is Maya,” I said carefully. “She’s a nurse. I met her when I… when I first left Silverton. She helped me when I had nowhere else to go. We became close.”

“A nurse.” He absorbed that information. “So she was there when through with it?”

you… when

you went

The accusation in his voice, the assumption that I’d actually terminated the pregnancy, made me want to scream the truth at him. But I held firm, kept the lie in place.

“She was there when I needed someone,” I said instead. “Which is more than you were.”

“I know.” He looked broken, devastated. “God, Bella, I know. And I hate myself for it every single day. I had a chance to be a father, to have a family, and I threw it away because I was too damaged to see what I had.”

Part of me felt vindicated seeing him suffer, seeing him realize what he’d lost. But a larger part felt sick with guilt, lying to him about Tom’s existence when I could see how much the loss was destroying him.

But I couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not when everything was still so dangerous.

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