Whispers of Destiny: His Belated Love novel Chapter 154

Hogan chuckled, "You've been staring at that juice cup for like half an hour. If you're really that attached to it..." He paused, then added sincerely, "Why not find someone else to take your mind off things? I'm not a bad option – I can charm, fight, look dashing in a drawing room, or get cozy in the bedroom. Heck, I could even learn to cook. And I don't mind that you're acting like a grumpy old granny right now. You better snap me up before someone else does!"

Rosemary laughed so hard she almost doubled over, shaking her head, "No way, I can't do that with a bro."

"So, you're into this bunch of mama's boys?" Hogan quipped, shooting daggers at Yolanda. We were supposed to be Rosemary's main ship, and here she goes, bringing a gaggle of guys who can't even tell their pants from their skirts.

Dumping the now warm juice, Rosemary yawned, "Not interested in them either, so I think I'll just hit the sack."

Staying up late comes back to bite you with days of feeling like a zombie.

Yolanda, hearing she was leaving, stood up too: "Then let's head out together. The whole point of this shindig was to help you relax. If you, the guest of honor, bail, what's the point of us partying?"

The group left the private room, and wouldn't you know it, it's like asking for rain and getting a storm – Rosemary didn't want to bump into Maxwell, and there they were, smack in front of the elevator.

And it wasn't just him; Victoria, Martin, and Archer were there too.

Rosemary muttered 'talk about bad luck' under her breath but didn't dodge them, just stared straight ahead, pretending they weren't there.

The elevator was stuck on the ground floor, for whatever reason, the numbers on the display not budging.

Victoria broke the silence, her voice tinged with a chilly tenderness, "Rosemary, what a coincidence to see you here."

Silence.

The already stiff atmosphere turned icy in a flash.

Victoria, feeling awkward, continued, "Rosemary, if you misunderstood something about last night, I've already explained..."

"Sorry," Hogan, draping an arm protectively over Rosemary's shoulder, pulled her back, "Miss, are you blind or just thick-skinned? Can't you see she's not into chatting with you?"

He'd done his homework on the gossip columns and knew Victoria was rumored to be Maxwell's girlfriend.

Victoria's eyes suddenly reddened, her lips pressed into a thin line paling with tension. She turned her head, a mix of hurt and defiance in her gaze meeting Maxwell's icy stare.

Maxwell's eyes briefly swept over Hogan's hand on Rosemary's shoulder, a mix of mockery and aloofness.

Hogan followed Victoria's gaze to Maxwell, lips curling in a disdainful smirk, "Mr. Templeton sure has exotic tastes, fancying this kind."

Maxwell retorted coolly, "If we're talking thick-skinned and clueless, Mr. Abbott takes the cake. Chasing after someone who clearly isn't into you."

That was a harsh burn. Rosemary frowned, "Maxwell, even if you want to back up your buddy, at least open your eyes and see who started it."

Hogan had just been trying to help her fend off unwanted attention from Victoria; she couldn't let this unprincipled pair target him.

She turned to Victoria, her words dripping with scorn, "Ms. Temple, you could've been less cryptic. The way you're talking, people might think I've wronged you somehow. You and Maxwell were about to hit the sheets last night, and I walked right in on it. He's got your back, probably without a word to anyone, so maybe you should wise up and not waste all his good intentions. You're practically shouting it from the rooftops with your blabbering."

Rosemary had honed her skills in verbal sparring with the Chambers family and Stacey for years, managing to lay it out without a single slur. After her spiel, she turned her sharp tongue on Maxwell, "Keep your woman in check. It's bad enough she's a nuisance, but she doesn't have to be all up in other people's faces."

"Ding."

The elevator arrived.

Rosemary pulled Yolanda in, turning to Archer who was about to enter, "Archer, it's gonna be too heavy, you guys take the next one."

Without waiting, she slammed the close door button.

Left in front of the elevator were Archer, Maxwell, and a teary-eyed Victoria trying to hold back her tears.

The pic is from last night at the Night Club elevator entrance, where she and Maxwell were having a spat.

The lighting made things a bit blurry, but you could still tell both of them were icy as hell.

Rosemary gave it a quick look and offhandedly threw out a comment: "They're not just arguing, it's like they're headed for splitsville."

After dropping that bomb, she chucked her phone aside, got up to freshen up, totally clueless that her off-the-cuff remark was about to set that barely-noticed Twitter on fire.

By the time she emerged from the bathroom, her Twitter notifications were blowing up with three dots of doom.

She took a peek and it was all DMs coming at her—

"Keep your claws off your ex and stop throwing shade at our angel Victoria."

"You're such a piece of work, Victoria cleared the air already, she's just friends with Mr. Templeton, and here you are leading folks astray."

"Better issue a public apology to our Victoria or I'm lawyering up for defamation."

Rosemary was clueless, so she clicked on the tweet she had commented on and saw that the poster had replied to her: "Is it 'cause of Victoria? I always thought she had this holier-than-thou act, popping up everywhere. A proper ex should be as good as dead to the world, but not her, she's not just playing dead, she's haunting Mr. Templeton like a bad penny."

A whole tirade of abuse followed, all from Victoria's fans slinging mud and filth. The girl who tweeted all this was probably young, and by the end of it, her replies sounded almost tearfully bullied.

These two, they're like a bad rash, just won't go away, can't even scroll through my phone or surf the web in peace.

Rosemary clapped back with: "The guy's got performance issues, couldn't meet the basic marital duties, so cheers to a certain fairy for taking out the trash and pulling me out of the fire."

Five minutes later, that thread turned into a full-blown war zone, and it wasn't just heating up—the whole Twitter went kaput!