Chapter 4

Time seemed to stop.

The coffee shop was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Everyone stared at us, frozen.

Samantha lifted her head. Her eyes were wet with tears, and they were filled with shock and total disbelief.

She looked at me. She looked at the ring. Her lips trembled. She couldn't get a single word out.

Chris was the first one to snap out of it. She doubled over laughing.

"He's lost it — he has absolutely lost it!"

"Some broke guy pulls out a glass marble and thinks he's doing a proposal? I'm dying!"

Stockton joined in. "Mr. Johnson, isn't this a bit dramatic? If you don't have the money, just say so. Isn't this embarrassing for you?"

The relatives fell over each other laughing.

"Did the army knock something loose in his head?"

"That's a pink diamond? I'd bet that's from a dollar machine!"

"Samantha, don't fall for this guy — he can barely feed himself, let alone you!"

Samantha's face shifted between red and white.

She looked at me with a complicated mix of emotions — moved, uncertain — but above all, worried.

"Mr. Johnson, please stand up," she whispered. "Don't do this."

She thought I was staging this to give her a way out.

She thought I was sacrificing whatever dignity I had left to fight these people off for her.

She was afraid they'd humiliate me even more.

I didn't stand. I just looked at her and waited.

I knew what she was afraid of.

Chris's laughter turned sharper. "Samantha, what are you just standing there for? Tell this lunatic to get out."

"If you dare say yes, I'll make sure you never graduate. I will make your life in this city impossible."

Stockton followed up with her own threat. "Samantha, remember your contract. I still have your documents. Think carefully about the consequences."

Samantha was shaking harder now.

She looked at Stockton and Chris — hard-faced and threatening — then back down at me, still kneeling.

The tears finally broke loose, rolling down one after another.

She didn't say yes. She didn't say no.

She just cried, and kept saying, over and over, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

I knew she was apologizing to me. For not being able to help herself. For not being able to accept what I was offering.

Just as Chris was moving to drag me away, the coffee shop door swung open.

The sound of synchronized footsteps came from outside.

Ten black Rolls-Royce Phantoms pulled silently to a stop in front of the shop.

The doors opened. A line of men in black suits and white gloves filed in and took positions along both sides of the room, cutting the noise in half like a wall.

At the front was my assistant, Wesley.

He was wearing a perfectly tailored Armani suit, gold-rimed glasses, and an expression cold enough to drop the temperature in the room.

He walked straight through the crowd, stopped in front of me, and bowed slightly.

"Mr. Johnson. Everything you requested is ready." He held out a black folder.

I didn't take it. I stayed one knee, eyes on Samantha.

Wesley understood. He opened the folder himself.

He removed a card first — matte black, a fish design engraved in solid gold.

"This is the Global Elite Black Card. No spending limit. Redeemable for cash at any bank in the world."

Chris stopped laughing.

Stockton's eyes nearly popped out of her head.

They might not have recognized the card, but they couldn't miss the weight it carried.

Wesley didn't acknowledge their reactions. He continued

"These are the property deds for the entire Tower A of Riverside Crown — all forty-eight penthouse units, transferred into your name."

"These are the purchase contracts for ten pink Porsche 718s."

"This is a certified check for eight hundred and eighty thousand dollars, redeemable immediately."

"And additionally—"

With every item Wesley named, the color drained further from Chris's and Stockton's faces.

By the time a thick stack of deds and car contracts sat on the table, their legs had started to give.

A collective intake of breath swept through the coffee shop.

Everyone was staring at me — at this man in a worn-out shirt, kneeling on the floor of a coffee shop, proposing to a matchmaker — like they were seeing something they couldn't explain.

Chris's mouth worked soundlessly. She pointed at me, voice cracking. "You — you—"

She couldn't finish a sentence.

Stockton lost it entirely. She collapsed straight to the floor with a thud, and a moment later the acrid smell of urine spread from where she sat. She had wet herself.

I didn't look at either of them.

From the beginning to the end, there had only been one person in my sight.

I raised the ring again and asked quietly, "So — will you marry me now?"