Sweet Romance10 min read
How I Turned a Broken Engagement into a Maybach and a Proposal
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I never expected breaking up would feel like being scooped out of my own life and set back down somewhere I didn't belong.
"Harrison, are you serious?" I asked. "You said it was because your mom's sick."
"I can't drag you into that," he said, looking at his hands like they belonged to someone else. "I'm sorry, Dahlia."
He walked away before I could make him explain, and by the time I ran after him, his phone rang and he didn't pick up. Later the call was an empty number, his office line showed he'd resigned, and his little public housing apartment was empty as if he'd been erased.
"How can someone disappear so completely?" I whispered to my pillow that night.
"You deserve better," Hailey messaged. "Don't let him get away with this."
"I know," I typed, and I meant it more than I let on. I had let Harrison think I was small for years. I had played humble because of him. I had rented a tiny apartment I called mine, because telling the truth—about my family's dozens of buildings, the hotel chain, the shopping plaza with our name—felt like a show I hadn't learned to perform. But when he used his mother's "illness" to slip away and accept a proposal from Juana Beltran—the girl with a round, proud grin and a certainty in her voice—I felt every hand I'd hidden behind my back unfold.
"She told me she's pregnant," Harrison said when we met in the courtyard of my neighborhood. Juana was there with her hand on a soft rounded belly that had not been three months along. Irma Larson—Harrison's mother—stood beside them in a flowered dress, cheeks flushed, looking nothing like someone who'd been dying.
"You're breaking up with me so you can marry her," I said, more confused than angry at first.
"It'll be better. For my mother. For me." Harrison's voice was thin. "It's true love."
"You lied," I said. "You lied about her being a charity case. You lied about your mother dying. You lied to me."
"Harrison," his mother snapped, face hardening. "Dahlia, don't be ridiculous. You can't even afford your life. What do you have to compare with Juana? She comes from a construction family—five million at least. Your monthly five thousand can't compete."
I walked away then because I couldn't trust myself to keep my voice even. I fumbled through my bag, found my phone, and did what I always did when my life needed rewriting: I told my friends.
"She can't be allowed to get away with it," Hailey typed back, furious. "We need a plan."
"Got it," Hailey sent a minute later. "My cousin will come. He'll wear a black suit. Table thirty-six. He'll play the part."
When Hailey said "cousin," she meant Luciano Reyes. When Luciano lifted his gaze to me at table thirty-six, I saw the kind of face described in magazines—cold, refined, severe in the way flowers can be severe when they simply exist. He said two words that made my chest jump: "I can."
"You'll just... pretend to be my husband?" I asked, breathless.
"A man can stand beside a woman and pretend easily," Luciano said. "What time?"
"Tomorrow, two," I said. "And he should wear a black suit."
"We'll make it convincing," Luciano nodded.
The next day I signed off the last of my work at the design firm and took my Maybach to pick Luciano up. I knew we were acting. I didn't know that when Luciano leaned into the passenger seat and introduced himself as "L. Reyes"—just a single initial in his WeChat—I would buy him coffee and an entire wardrobe, or that I would hand him three suit orders and drive him to his "office." He accepted everything with a smile that was small and contained, like a secret kept polite.
"You're not actually my cousin, are you?" I joked when we left the tailor.
"No," he said, eyes steady on the street. "But I can play the part."
"You should be my driver," I whispered, because I'd already decided he was more than handsome. "You have the posture."
He looked at me, and for a second something warm softened the edges of his face. "I prefer not to be someone's driver."
"Well, then be my front man," I said. "Be my husband for appearances."
He shrugged. "I'll stand beside you."
On the day of the engagement at Golden Plaza, they had set the scene perfectly: Harrison on one knee with a black suit and a ring that looked like a joke, Juana crying pearl tears, a crowd cooing, and a table with my name that had white roses on it—white roses Harrison had once brought me. I walked in with Luciano on my arm and sat at the center seat people always reserve for a woman they intend to praise. Phones stopped filming for a beat. The hush tasted delicious.
"Dahlia," Harrison said, surprised. "You—"
"I brought my boyfriend," I said. "He wasn't feeling well, so I brought him here to cheer him up."
Harrison smiled like he used to smile when we had been less complicated. "Stop it, Dahlia," he pleaded. "Don't cause a scene."
I called the manager over. "That man and that woman need to leave," I said, pointing. "They are not here with sincerity. Please escort them out."
The manager came forward, polite. "Miss Galli, what's this about?"
"Please remove them," I said. "This seating is a private celebration. They have no invitation."
Harrison looked at me as if I'd suddenly rearranged our history with a sleight of hand. Juana's lips tightened; her face turned a peculiar green of panic and anger.
"You're being childish," Harrison protested. "Don't—"
"Manager," I said, "and call security. If they won't go, I will make sure everyone knows why they're here."
The manager swallowed and stepped forward, but Juana clutched Harrison's arm as if he were the thing that could save her.
Then Luciano did something I did not plan. He bent to my ear and whispered, "Kiss me."
I startled, then let him. The kiss was not long, but it carried a weight that made everyone around us lean in like bees to a hive. Cameras flashed. People nudged. Phones recorded.
"Who is he?" someone whispered.
"Is she new?" another voice said.
I stood then and held the microphone the manager had brought for announcements. "Ladies and gentlemen," I said, "a moment please."
A ripple of attention moved through the crowd. Faces lifted. I saw Harrison's face drain of color.
"What if I told you," I continued, "that the woman proposing here lied? That she has been living a lie? That she told my ex-boyfriend she was pregnant to trap him and his family? That she told him my boyfriend's mother was dying to make him feel obligated?"
Voices rose like a tide—gasps, the creak of chairs, the rustle of dresses.
Juana's eyes flashed hatred. "You're insane," she hissed.
"Call anyone a liar in my house," Irma Larson sneered. "You can't talk to my son like that."
I smiled. "This place is my family's property," I said. "It belongs to us. But tonight, it's not about property. It's about truth."
I paused until the murmurs settled enough for my voice to reach the back of the hall.
"Harrison Conway," I said, and the name landed across the room. "What you did was to lie to me, to stage an illness to my face, to accept another woman's false pregnancy as genuine. And you did it in front of your mother."
Harrison's mouth opened and closed. He looked like a man trying to find air in a vacuum.
Juana's proud front began to crack. "You have no right—"
"Right?" I laughed aloud. "I gave this man three years of my life. I loved him. I was honest about myself and he was dishonest about everything."
People began to film. A woman behind me whispered, "Oh my God, she has receipts. Listen."
"Do you have proof?" the manager asked, anxious. "We cannot make allegations without evidence."
"I do," I said. "Photos of Juana calling her father after proposing. Audio of Irma telling Harrison to take the money. Messages proving the 'pregnancy' was a fib. And I will play them now."
I handed one phone to a friend, who connected it to the hall's speakers. Juana's voice came across loud and clear: "Dad said he'd give me ten million if I made sure he married me. Say you told them you were pregnant. Say it loud."
The hall fell into a stunned silence.
Harrison's face had turned an ashen gray. Irma's hand flew to her throat. Juana's shoulders collapsed.
Phones were held up in waves now, everyone recording, everyone watching the unraveling. People leaned forward to catch every word of the audio as it threaded a web of deception between the trio.
"You told my ex-boyfriend his mother was dying," I said. "You told him to leave me because his mother 'needed' him. But it was a lie."
"That's not true!" Irma shrieked. "How dare you!"
A man—one of the businessmen present—stood and said, "If that's true, it's disgraceful. To manipulate a man with a woman's false pregnancy? To use a mother's 'illness' as a bargaining chip?"
"Shame on you," said another, and the shame rose like a chorus.
Harrison tried to speak, but every time he opened his mouth he was met with people calling for proof, for explanation, for justice. He tried to force a smile; it cracked. Juana sobbed theatrically, and for a second a few in the crowd softened—then the audio continued. "Dad—you promised the car," Juana's recorded voice said. "You promised the house. I need that now."
Irma started to cry then, but the tears were thin, hysterical, not convincing. A woman near the exit whispered, "Looks like a kept-man scheme."
Someone took a picture of Juana's dress and posted it on the restaurant's social feed. The likes and comments multiplied faster than breath.
"You're not leaving me," Harrison blurted, trying to grab my arm as if to anchor himself. "Dahlia, please!"
"Please what?" I asked. "Please go home with your new fiancée and explain to everyone how you've been taking their pity? Please pretend you didn't use my kindness as your stepping stool? No. Tonight you'll stand and defend your choices."
He faltered. "I—"
"Tell them about the money," I said. "Tell them about the car you were promised. Tell them you're choosing a life built on lies."
Harrison's knees buckled under him. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't fix what you did," I said. "And you know it."
The crowd watched him slump as if the air had left the room. People exchanged looks—some disgust, some judgment, some pity for the kind of person who would let a lie get that far.
"Security, please escort them out," I said. "Make sure they don't come back tonight."
They did. Juana screamed—the kind of animal sound made when the world is tore from under you and offered up in pieces. Irma tried to slap my friend; two men held her back. Harrison stumbled as if he had been struck, head bowed, mumbling apologies no one wanted to hear.
For a long minute the sound of the crowd was a slow drum: murmurs, clicks, phones. Then one person clapped. Another joined. Applause started small and grew into a roar that felt less like celebration and more like vindication. People took photos of Juana being escorted out, of Irma being restrained, of Harrison looking as if he had been hollowed.
Outside, reporters were already there, drawn to spectacle like moths to a porch light. "Miss Galli, can you tell us—" a cameraman asked.
"Yes," I said into the microphone offered, and I let the cameras pull my face close. "Trust shouldn't be currency for lies."
The clip was up on social media before I had even left the hall. Comments poured in—condemnation of the trio, sympathy for me, and advice to Harrison that read like verdicts.
That was the first punishment: public, humiliating, and visible. It was 1,200 words of a moment that reshaped the three of them into a story people could point at and say, "There—see how this ends."
It did more than I thought. A week later Harrison tried to come to my car, unannounced, a ragged apology on his lips and a story about his mother collapsing at home. "She's in the hospital," he said. "They say—"
"Stop," I said. "You made your choices."
He begged. He offered the most sincere-sounding promises he'd ever uttered. But the man who had lied about death and pregnancy had no ground left to stand on. He called me later, voice raw, and asked for money—said his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and that he had been fired and couldn't pay for treatment.
"Why should I answer you?" I asked. "Why should I be the one to fix what you created?"
He said, "Remember when you said love wasn't about money?"
"Goodbye, Harrison," I said, and hung up. I did not give him money.
Days later, Harrison returned in a way that frightened me. He stood at my car and grabbed my hair, slamming his forehead against the window as I tried to drive away. He begged at my feet in the dirt and cried in a way that was no longer about pleading—it was a breakdown. The police came. The ambulance came. Luciano held me and led me to a hospital chair while Harrison was taken away, handcuffed not because he had been violent—though he had been—but because he needed assessment.
"He's been diagnosed with a severe psychological breakdown," the officer told me later. "They're recommending long-term psychiatric care."
Luciano's grip around my hand tightened. "I'll cover it," he said. "If that is what you want."
"No," I said, surprised by how calm I felt. "He made his choices."
And yet Luciano's offered care felt like another neat tabulation of outcomes. "I'll pay for the treatment," he repeated. "But not to keep him out of view—because I don't want anyone like that in your life."
He was steady, not vengeful. He was a man who fixed the present, not the past.
We celebrated properly the following weeks. Luciano moved into my life like a tide that erases footprints and smoothes sand. He cooked ramen in gray mornings and made tea that tasted like quiet affections. He took me to see homes and measured windows like a man who meant to live with me.
One afternoon he asked, "Dahlia, will you let me be the man who stands in front of you not to perform, but to protect?"
I laughed and said, "You already are."
He smiled. "Then will you let me become your husband, for real?"
"You're serious?" I said, heart ricocheting.
"I am." He slipped a simple ring onto my finger in a small, private moment—no cameras, no tables, just a gray room filled with sunlight and the sound of a kettle whistling in the kitchen. "This time, I mean it."
We chose to keep some things private. We let Harrison's fate be what it would be. When I thought of the Maybach, the black car that had been a stage prop and then a symbol of everything I had hidden, I felt something close to laughter.
"Keep the car," Luciano said once, watching me frown at the keys. "Or sell it. It can mean whatever you want now."
"I will keep it," I said. "It's mine."
Our life wasn't a sudden fairytale. There were small, repeated kindnesses: Luciano taking off his jacket when I said I was cold; him making sure I had a bowl of soup on nights my throat ached; the way he read the fines print of contracts so I didn't have to; the way he looked at me in the light that would make me ache with gratitude. Those things happened in twenty percent of our days, and they fixed eighty percent of my doubts.
One evening, leaning my head on his shoulder, I remembered the first time I had dragged Luciano into the tailor shop and told him to be my pretend husband.
"You could have been my cousin," I said. "You could have been my actor."
He laughed. "I was both, in a way."
Then he kissed my temple and said, "And now I'm something else."
I held the small ring he had given me, turning it on my finger, then slid it back on. Outside, the Maybach sat under an amber streetlight like a sleeping guardian.
"I will never let someone do to you what Harrison did," Luciano said in the dark, and his voice was steady, owned.
"Promise?" I asked, a little daring.
"Always," he answered, and it was not an empty phrase. It wasn't the end of a story that could be dropped into any book. It was a small ceremony: a man who had been thought a driver now owned the Maybach, a man who had once been my stage husband now planned our life. The white roses in Golden Plaza had been a scene. This was the aftermath.
I touched the Maybach's hood once more before we left that night. It gleamed under the streetlight, a thing that had watched loyalty and lies unspool. It had been the perfect stage for my confrontation, my reveal, my victory. When I pulled my hand away, Luciano squeezed my fingers.
"Let's go home," he said.
And that night we walked into the house that had once been gift and is now ours, and the Maybach sat stoic at the curb, a black witness to a public undoing and a private promise.
The End
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