Five years later, I returned to Harbor City. The invitation to Mrs. Shaw’s birthday gala had arrived at my hotel three days prior—cream-colored card stock, the Shaw family crest pressed into the seal. I almost threw it away. But Julian had raised an eyebrow when he saw the name, and something in his expression told me he already knew I’d go. Because can not hide forever. But also not for Adrian Shaw’s shameless love acting. So I went. — The Shaw estate hadn’t changed. Crystal chandeliers, white roses, the same old money perfume that clung to the drapes.Every major family in Harbor City was in attendance. I stood near the terrace doors, a glass of champagne in my hand. I recognized most of the faces. They recognized mine. The whispers started before I’d made it past the foyer. I ignored them. Then Adrian Shaw walked toward me. He was still handsome. He wore a charcoal suit that fit him like a second skin. His jaw was sharper than I remembered. In his hands, he held a garment bag. And even before he unzipped it, I knew what was inside. The wedding suit. The one I had designed for him with my own hands, twenty years of love stitched into every seam. The one he had ripped off and ground beneath his heel on our wedding day—in front of cameras, in front of reporters, in front of every person who had ever watched me love him. The room went quiet. “Elara.” His voice was low. Controlled. The voice of a man who’d rehearsed this. “I know I have no right to stand here. But I’ve carried this with me for five years, and I need you to hear what I have to say.” He held the suit out like an offering. “Marry me.” A gasp rippled through the crowd. Then whispers. I looked at the suit. At his face. At the tremor in his hands. And I felt—nothing. “Oh my God. He’s proposing. Adrian Shaw is proposing to Elara Su.” “After everything that happened? After the scandal? He must be losing her mind right now.” “Are you kidding? She loved him for twenty years. She’ll say yes. Of course she’ll say yes.” They remembered. Everyone remembered. This is the woman who spent ninety million dollars on a fireworks proposal over Harbor Bridge. The drones that spelled his name across the night sky. The LED screens on every building in the financial district—*I love Adrian Shaw*—for an entire month. Twenty-five-year-old Elara had loved with her whole chest. I had wanted the entire world to witness our love story. And the entire world had watched it burn. I set down my champagne glass. The clink echoed in the sudden silence. “Thank you for the kind gesture, Mr. Shaw,” I said. My voice was calm. Almost bored. “But I was young and foolish back then. I don’t have those feelings anymore.” The crowd went absolutely still. Adrian’s face flickered—shock, then disbelief, then something that looked almost like panic. “Elara, don’t joke with me. I know you’re still angry about what happened, but I can explain—” “There’s nothing to explain.” I smiled. Not warmly. “Five years is a long time. People will change. And I don’t have a habit of recycling trash.” He stepped closer, the wedding dress still hanging from his hand. ““You don’t mean that. You loved me. You followed me everywhere. You—” “I also forgave you once for wearing my wedding dress on someone else,” I cut in. “And I forgave your sister calling me a fraud. And I forgave you choosing her over me on our wedding day.” His jaw tightened. “Lily was my family. I had to protect her.” “You had to protect her from what? The truth?” The whispers turned sharper. “She’s really saying no. Elara Su is saying no to Adrian Shaw.” “After all that?” “Maybe she may has love another man.” Adrian’s expression hardened. He lowered the dress. “You’re still angry. I understand. But Elara, we had something real. You can’t just—” “I can,” I said. “And I did.” He stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, he lowered himself to one knee. The room gasped again. “Elara Su,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I love you. Five years I’ve regretted what I did. I know I don’t deserve a second chance. But I’m asking for one anyway.” He held up the wedding dress. “Elara Su—will you marry me?” I opened my mouth and ready to refuse. And then a small voice cut through the silence like a bell. “Mommy!”
The entire room froze. A tiny figure in a white lace dress broke through the forest of adult legs, dark hair bouncing, eyes locked on me with the single-minded determination that only small children possess.She crashed into my legs and wrapped her arms around my knees. Sienna. I caught her automatically, my body responding before my brain caught up. She smelled like baby powder and strawberries. “Mommy, Mommy! Daddy said to wait in the car, but I missed you!” Every eye in the ballroom was locked on us. On her. Adrian stared at my daughter like he had seen a ghost. His face went from white to gray. The wedding dress slipped from his fingers and pooled on the floor. “You… you have a daughter?” His voice was barely audible. I picked up my daughter and settled her on my hip. “She’s four,” I said calmly. “Born in April 2020.” Whispers exploded like a bomb. “A daughter? Elara Su has a daughter?” “Who’s the father? She never announced any wedding.” “She’s bluffing. Probably hired a child actress—” Adrian heard them too. Something desperate shifted behind his eyes—the first flicker of real fear. He squared his shoulders, and for the second time that night, lowered himself to one knee. “Elara Su.” His voice rang out—pitched deliberately for the room, for the witnesses, for the record. “I was wrong. I lost you through my own stupidity. But I am asking—in front of every person here tonight—for one more chance.” “Will you marry me?” The hall held its breath. I looked down at him. At the suit I had once stitched with trembling, lovesick hands. At the face I had once believed I would grow old beside. I didn’t answer right away. I felt Sienna’s small fingers curl into my collar. Her weight on my hip—warm and real. I kissed Sienna’s forehead, then looked at him. “March 2020. I held the ceremony overseas.” Adrian rose slowly to his feet. Whatever remained of his composure lay in ruins. His jaw was locked tight, his knuckles white around the wedding suit’s fabric. He stepped closer. His voice dropped—as though lowering the volume could somehow erase the audience of two hundred. “Elara, whatever game this is—whoever you married to punish me—it doesn’t matter. I’ll wait. However long it takes.” He lifted the suit again. The gesture that had seemed grand fifteen minutes ago now looked desperate. Fraying at the edges. “This was made for me. By your hands. That means something. That doesn’t just easliy disappear.” Sienna chose to look up at Adrian with the kind of withering disdain only a four-year-old could deliver with total sincerity. “Mommy,” she announced, loud enough for the nearest fifty guests to hear, “why is that man still talking? He’s very annoying.” A strangled laugh escaped someone nearby. Adrian’s jaw clenched. “Elara, I don’t believe you’ve moved on. I know you. I know what we had.” The crowd was watching us like a tennis match—heads swiveling, breaths held, waiting to see who would break first. Before I could respond, another voice cut through the murmur. “She doesn’t want to.” Every head turned. The crowd parted. Julian Sinclair walked through the gap like he owned the room. Navy suit. Cufflinks gleaming. His face was calm, but his eyes were cold—radiating the kind of cold fury that made people instinctively step aside. He came to my side and wrapped an arm around my waist. Possessive. Unapologetic. “Julian Sinclair.” He extended his hand toward Adrian, but his voice perfectly polite and perfectly lethal. “Her husband.” A collective gasp. “Apologies for the interruption, butI believe my wife already said no.”
Julian’s presence hit the room like a cold front. The whispers didn’t just die—they evaporated. Two hundred guests stared at the man who had materialized beside me, his arm around my waist, his gaze fixed on Adrian Shaw with the kind of quiet contempt that didn’t need volume to be devastating. Adrian was still stood there. The wedding suit pooled across his arms. His face had gone from white to gray. “Sinclair?” someone breathed. “Julian Sinclair is her husband?” ““Heir to the Sinclair Group?—that’s who she married?” “How is that possible? He’s been off the radar for years—” Julian didn’t acknowledge any of it. His attention shifted to Sienna, who was tugging at his sleeve with practiced urgency. “Daddy.” She pointed at Adrian with one small, accusatory finger. “That bad man tried to steal Mommy. He got on his knees and everything.” Julian crouched to her level. His expression was grave—the kind of seriousness he reserved exclusively for their daughter’s reports on injustice. “Did he scare you?” “No.” Sienna crossed her arms. “But he’s very annoying. And he made Mommy talk to him for a really long time.” “I see.” Julian straightened, one hand still resting on my waist. He looked back at Adrian. Adrian rose slowly. He stared at Julian—not with the hostility of a rival, but with the bewilderment of a man whose entire reality had shifted beneath his feet. “You—” Adrian’s voice was hoarse. “You’re her husband?” “And also the father of her daughter, her legal husband” Julian said smoothly. “Would you like to see the certificate? I carry it everywhere.” He reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a small booklet. He set it on the nearest table with a sharp *clap* that echoed through the silent hall. Adrian’s face went gray. Sienna—clearly sensing the moment required her participation—climbed down from my arms, marched to the table, and patted the marriage certificate with her small palm. “See?” she announced to the room at large. “Mommy and Daddy. It’s real. It has stamps and everything.” The tension fractured. Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd—disbelieving, unable to look away. Adrian stood frozen in the wreckage of his grand gesture. The suit lay at his feet like a shed skin. “This is—” His voice cracked. “This isn’t possible. You left the country and immediately—” I said flat. “Julian proposed. I said yes. It was remarkably uncomplicated.” “But—twenty years.” Adrian’s composure was in free fall. “Twenty years, Elara. The fireworks, the billboards, the chapel—everything we promised each other. You don’t just erase that.” Julian’s arm tightened around my waist—barely perceptible, but I felt it. I glanced up at him. His face hadn’t changed: cold, composed, utterly controlled. But his jaw was set in that particular way that meant he was approximately two sentences away from doing something that would require legal counsel. I turned back to Adrian. “The past,” I said. “It’s the past.” “Mr. Shaw, I designed that suit when I was twenty-four years old and very much in love with someone who no longer exists in my heart.” My voice was pleasant. Almost conversational. “If you’d like to keep it as a souvenir, you’re welcome to. But proposing with it in front of my husband is rather tasteless, don’t you think?” Adrian flinched as if the words had physical weight. Julian heard it. Something flickered at the corner of his mouth—not quite a smile, but close. He picked up the marriage certificate from the table, slipped it back into his pocket, and turned to me. “Ready to go?” I nodded. He offered me his left hand. His right scooped up Sienna, who immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his collar. On the whispers, the staring eyes, on Adrian Shaw standing alone in the center of a room that had, five years ago, watched him destroy me. We turned toward the exit. My heels clicked against the marble. Julian’s stride matched mine—unhurried, deliberate. Sienna hummed tunelessly against his shoulder. Behind us, Adrian’s voice followed—cracked, desperate: “Elara—” My footsteps didn’t falter. Julian’s hand found mine. Very Warm. We walked out together. The night air hit my face—cool, salt-edged, carrying the distant scent of the harbor. The valet had already brought the car around. Julian helped Sienna into her car seat with the practiced efficiency of a man who had done it a thousand times. Then he held the passenger door open for me. “You okay?” I nodded and slid in. He closed the door, rounded the hood, and settled into the driver’s seat. For a moment, neither of us spoke. The engine hummed. City lights blurred past the windows—amber and white, streaking through the dark like falling stars. Then Julian reached across the console and took my hand. His thumb traced slow circles across my knuckles—a gesture so familiar, so achingly gentle, that something in my chest unclenched. “Elara,” he said quietly. He didn’t look at me. His eyes stayed on the road, on the lights. “Those things—everything that happened back then.” His thumb paused on my knuckle. “Those things… from before…” He paused, searching for words. “You really let them go?” I didn’t answer right away. I looked at his profile—the sharp jaw, the dark lashes, the faint tension at the corner of his mouth that he thought he was hiding. “I don’t know,” I whispered. I looked down at our joined hands. “Tonight, when he knelt in front of me with that dress, I didn’t feel anything for him. Not love. Not hate. Just… tired.” He was quiet for a moment. Then he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “It will be fine,” he said. “I’m not asking you to delete them. I’m just suggesting if you’ve buried them deep enough that they can’t hurt you anymore.” I met his gaze. The sincerity there made my chest ache—not from pain, but from gratitude. “Yes,” I said. “I think so.” He smiled. “Good girl.”
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