Chapter 2

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."