Billionaire Romance11 min read
“You Saved Me Once — Marry Me Now?”
ButterPicks14 views
"Get away!" I shouted, and my shoe hit the wet alley wall.
I backed into the dark and two men stepped closer, smelling like cheap liquor.
"Pretty thing," one of them slurred. "Come sit with us."
"I said no," I said. My voice trembled even when I tried to make it steady.
"Don't be like that," the second man said and grabbed my sleeve.
I kicked. One hit the groin and cursed. The other reached for me.
"Stop!" a man's voice cut through the night.
A fist flew. One drunk went flying. The other dropped like the ground opened.
A tall man in a dark suit pulled his jacket off and threw it across my shoulders.
"Keep it on," he said. His voice was cool, like stone.
"I... thank you," I managed. I clung to the jacket like something warm.
"Where do you live?" he asked.
"Here," I lied, nodding toward the street end. I was shaking.
"Let me drive you home," he said.
I hesitated, then climbed into the low, black car. The engine hummed like a sleeping tiger.
We did not talk much on the way. He drove through streets I knew but never saw clearly.
"You're safe now," he said when the car stopped.
"Thank you," I said, and reached to give the jacket back.
"Keep it," he said. "Maybe we'll see each other again."
"I'd like to give it back." I almost asked for his number, but the words died.
"I'll wait," he said, and smiled once. It was small but it stayed in my head.
At home I hung the jacket at the back of my closet and went to bed with the stranger's face in my head.
I had another life that no one at my family's dinner parties knew about. I fixed old books in the studio by day and, sometimes, I danced in a club by night. I kept it secret because my parents would worry and because I liked the two very different halves of my life.
The next week I went to work with a cracked nook of calm. Brooks Berg, my boss at the restoration studio, put a broken Ming book on my bench.
"How long?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said, tracing the torn page. I loved these slow repairs. They were quiet and honest.
"When you can, finish it," he said, then left me to my brushes.
Miles Fox called that afternoon.
"Your mother says dinner tonight," he said, in his soft, easy way.
"Okay," I said. Miles sounded like home. His voice had been in my life since I was a child. He was my first friend, my first kiss, and now our families had set a wedding date.
"Come early," he said.
"I will," I lied. The jacket in my closet made my chest tight.
That evening at a charity auction, everything looked normal until I saw Miles with another woman.
"Who is she?" I whispered.
"Don’t be petty," Miles said lightly when I asked him on the phone. "She’s a model. Business."
"You're with her now," I said.
"Just business," he said.
I watched them at the auction. I wanted to be small and unseen. He raised his paddle. So did I, on a small thing, just to feel present.
When the auction moved to a jade bracelet, Miles made a show of bidding high.
"Fifty thousand," he said loudly.
"One hundred thousand," the voice behind him said, calm.
I turned. Graham Mathieu sat back, comfortable, as if the money meant nothing.
"Two hundred," Graham said.
"Three hundred," Miles shot back.
Each bid was louder. I felt sick. I didn't care about the bracelet. I cared about how the fight made me look like a prize.
"I don't want this," I said and stood up.
"Stay," Graham said quietly.
"I don't need this kind of game," I told Miles and walked out, stunned that I had said the words out loud.
I went home and cried. I hid until morning.
The next day the papers screamed scandal. A tabloid had pictures of Miles and a model in a private room, their faces too intimate to be innocent. My father, Errol Coleman, held the paper like a weapon.
"Is it true?" he demanded when I walked into the room.
"I don't know," I said. I had seen Miles at the club with her that week. I had seen the same car. It all fit into one ugly picture.
"Call him here," my mother, Josephine Barry, said. Her voice shook.
"He will come," I said, and to myself I whispered, I hope he will come and fix it.
Miles did come. He stared at the paper, then at me.
"Those are old photos," he said.
"August, September, October," I recited. The dates rolled off my tongue like facts. "And last night."
He had no answer. He just held out a wilted bouquet and said, "I can explain."
"Explain how you will ruin our family?" my father snapped.
He did not answer. He barely met my eyes. I hated him at that moment for being weak and for being so used to my forgiveness.
Later that night, a man at my door announced he had flowers and a message. It was Graham. He had read the papers and drove to make sure I was all right.
"Are you safe?" he asked.
"I am better," I said. I should have been furious—he had a hand in the city now, a man whose land deals were quiet and huge—but I was exhausted.
"Come to my office," he said suddenly. "Tomorrow."
"Why?" I asked.
"Just dinner. You owe me a story about that jade bracelet," he said with a smirk.
I almost said no. Instead I wrote back: "Okay."
The next night I sat across Graham in a private dining room.
"Why did you buy that bracelet?" I asked.
"Because you looked small and pale," Graham said simply. "I didn't like it."
"You were kind," I said.
"Kindness is dangerous in my world," Graham said. "I don't like making the wrong bet."
"Is that what marriage is? A bet?" I asked.
"It can be," he said. "But it can also be a shelter."
The papers kept coming. Miles avoided my looks and pretended all could be fixed by time. I believed less each day until one night he forced my car door and dragged me into his car.
"Don't touch me," I said.
"Don't be dramatic," Miles said. He drove to a hotel and said, "No one will believe you. We'll disappear for a night."
"This is wrong," I whispered.
"Then keep quiet," he said, and his hand was on me in a way that made my stomach flip with fear.
I grabbed my phone and dialed the only person I could think of. "Graham," I said.
"Where?" he asked without pause.
"Top floor—Clearview Hotel—Room 1209," I trilled out, shaking.
A sound of a key, a heavy foot, then the door kicked open.
Graham burst in and held me to him.
"Back off!" he roared.
Miles hit the floor fast; Graham wrapped a blanket around me and pushed me out. Reporters swarmed at the hotel door because Miles had a plan—he had called them to trap me.
Graham sprinted me to his car and drove straight through the ring of cameras. I clutched the blanket and wanted to hide forever.
"Why would you do that?" I asked later, breathless.
"Because I won't let someone make you a weapon," he said.
"You don't even know me," I said.
"I know enough," he said.
That morning the hotel photos were everywhere. I could not hide in my family's house anymore. My father called a meeting at once.
"Enough," he said. "We will end this. We will stop the rumors."
"What do you want to do?" I asked.
"Announce the wedding with Graham," my father said flatly. "An honest marriage will end the gossip."
My mouth went dry. "What? But—"
"It ends this now," my mother said, and she had that look of steel that meant she had already made the choice.
Graham called my father. He presented terms that were clear as numbers: a share of future profits from his West Edge project would go directly to me, a legal safeguard. He wanted the city land that sat like a blank square in the West Edge—my family's small but crucial lot.
"You will get one percent of the profits every year," my father told me. His eyes were tired but resolute.
"One percent?" I heard myself ask.
"Not for our family," my father said. "For you. Your name alone. You will have a foothold in the world."
I thought of Miles—his soft hands, his easy warmth—and the hard nights he had shown me. I thought of the hotel room and how small I had felt.
"Will you sign?" my father asked.
"Yes," I said. The word fell like a stone.
When Graham heard I agreed, he did something I hadn't expected: he smiled like victory and like relief at once.
"Good," he said. "We will be married in four weeks."
The city buzzed. People whispered. Many called it a convenience match; some said it was a scandalous move. Graham kept his face flat in public but he was different with me.
"Do you regret this?" he asked once, when we were alone in his car.
"No," I lied.
"Good," he said. "Because I am terrible at regret."
We prepared. My mother fussed over the dress and my father took calls about business. Brooks came by the studio and worked with me late into the night. Luca, Brooks' younger brother, teased me about wearing pearls.
"You're brave," Brooks said once. "Few would take such a step with so much at stake."
"I didn't want any more waiting," I said. "I wanted the scandal closed."
The wedding day came like a slow tide. I wore the white dress like armor. Graham walked toward me with the steady step of a man who had built cities out of dirt and money. He was not beautiful in the clean way Miles was. He was a building—tall, straight, steady. He held my hand, and when our vows were read, it felt like a signing of maps and promises and hidden deals.
"I promise to stand with you," Graham said, and his voice made me stand taller.
After the ceremony, people whispered the usual things. Some said Graham had bought me; others said my family had sold me. I didn't hear it as sharp as before. I had chosen shelter.
The honeymoon was not the foreign sun I'd planned once. Graham took me to a house he had helped build on a hill outside the city, a simple wooden place with home-cooked food and a pond with carp. He had taken me there because he liked the quiet and because it was his idea of honest comfort.
"Do you like it?" he asked as we walked on a trail.
"I do," I said. The air smelled like wet earth and wood smoke.
He took my hand and did not let go. He was careful, and not because he thought of me like a fragile thing. He was careful because he knew how sharp the world could be.
I learned things about him in small moments. He read articles about land trends and murmured to himself. He made porridge that tasted better than the chef at my parents' home. He wrapped a blanket around me when I fell asleep on the porch and left notes on the bedside table when he had to travel.
One night he brought out a small velvet box. I thought of the bracelet, of that strange auction night.
"This is not the bracelet you once loved," he said.
I opened it to find a simple ring, not flashy, but heavy and warm. "I wanted you to have something real," he said.
"I like it," I said.
He smiled like he had kept a secret and was relieved to share it.
We were married three months. Miles tried to sue and to shout and to drag names into the street. His father, Edwin Schmitz, tried to save face by offering gifts and promises. My father refused. The truth was loud: Miles had let his chances slip. He had chosen easy desire over commitment.
"You could have been kinder," my father said to Miles when he burst in once, furious.
Miles lowered his head, and for the first time I saw fear on him—not for himself, but for what he had lost.
"You are done," my father said, and Miles turned away.
Graham surprised me in other ways. At a charity dinner, a woman stepped too close and said something scornful.
"You are a lucky bride," she mocked.
Graham leaned forward and said, quiet and cold: "She's mine tonight."
He did not shout. He did not slap. His words were flat and fierce, and the woman stepped back.
Later, when I told him I hated that she had insulted me, he simply said, "No one gets to make you small."
In private, we argued about money and land and the city. I told him I did not want our marriage to be a ledger. He listened and made a promise: "We will be partners. You keep your name. Your decisions are yours. My money does not buy your life."
"You own land," I said once.
"I own a lot of land," he corrected. "But you own your life."
Weeks later we were at a museum auction again. This time we moved together through the crowd. I watched Graham quietly raise his hand and win an old China bowl I wanted for the studio.
"You did not have to," I said.
"I wanted you to have something you loved that I could not break," he answered.
I leaned into him in that loud room and felt safe like a child with a father. The feeling surprised me as much as it settled me.
People still talked. Adriana Walker, the society girl who had made her own moves with Graham earlier, returned like a small storm. She tried to make me uneasy with whispers and comparisons.
"Do you worship his money?" she asked me once at a charity evening.
"No," I said easily. "I worship quiet porridge and someone who knows when to listen."
She was not prepared for that answer. She flamed out in the drawing-room and left.
One morning my father sat me down with papers. He had signed the lot deed over as agreed; my name was on the line that said ownership.
"You will get one percent of the profit each year," he said.
"I know," I said.
"Do you understand what that means?" he asked.
"It means I have my own place to stand," I said. I had the gift of independence, not just a title.
The last test came the way the first had: public, ugly, and fast. Miles tried once more to blackmail me with old secrets. He threatened to release photos. He went to the press with partial truths.
Graham came to my office and said, "Let them take everything. You will still have your name and your land."
He walked into the press conference and said, "I married Carolyn Zhang because I like her. If anyone wants to say otherwise, bring the proof. We have nothing to hide." He handed my father a folder with legal filings. He did not fight dirt with dirt. He set the facts on the table and let the world decide.
The world settled. People lost interest. I took the studio to a new level with the museum bowl in a specially lit case. I kept dancing a few times, but not to hide; to remind myself I could do both quiet work and fire.
Graham and I grew steady. We argued at home over simple things—how to hang curtains, whether to invite certain old friends—but we reconciled at the kitchen table with cups of tea and small sweet cakes he learned to bake.
"Do you love me?" I asked one night, honestly, when the city lights were low.
He stopped stirring his tea, looked at me, and said, "I like waking up to you. I like listening to you talk about books. I like watching you care about small things. I think that's the best kind of love."
It wasn't a sudden confession of romance, but it wasn't a small thing either.
Months later I found the dark jacket he had first thrown over me. It had been mended and kept in a small cedar chest. I picked it up, and the scent of his car—tobacco and cold rain—rose up in memory.
I put it on for no reason but the want to remember.
He came into the room and did not say anything. He simply wrapped his arms around me and said, "You kept it."
"I kept it because someone saved me," I said.
"I did," he said. "And I'm still here."
We built a life that was not the fairy tale I had once imagined with Miles—no storybook kisses or endless light. It was quieter, messier, and real.
On our first anniversary, Graham leaned close and said, "I will spend my life protecting you in ways that matter: rights, land, little breakfasts. And sometimes, I will make you laugh until you cry."
"Will you ever stop buying things I don't want?" I teased.
"No," he said with a victorious smile. "I'm going to buy you a thousand things you'll say you didn't want, and then you'll end up loving one of them."
I laughed and kissed him. It felt like a small, perfect victory.
Years later, in my studio, I often watch him walk away in his dark coat, his shoulders set to the city. He built the West Edge into a small town in the making. My name sits on its map. My one percent pays for grants I give to young restorers.
Sometimes people still ask, "Did you marry him for his land?"
I smile and say, "I married him because he keeps his jacket on my shoulders when the night is dark. The city came after."
Once, standing on the hill above the first house we rested in, I put the old jacket back on. The wind pulled at it, and Graham stood beside me, hand in my hair.
"Will you ever leave me?" I asked the steady man who had saved me twice.
"If you ask me like that I will stay forever," he said.
"Promise?" I said.
He kissed my forehead and tightened his hand.
"Always," he said.
We laughed and walked back down together. The city below had new lights. My studio had new students. My family had a new chapter. Miles faded into a polite memory, a lesson of youth and wrong turns.
When I close the doors at night, I touch the old jacket and remember the alley where I was small and scared. Then I turn to my husband and think of the soft, steady things he does: boiling porridge, answering my calls at two in the morning, signing legal documents to protect my name.
I belong to no one but myself. I chose a partner who lets me keep that. That is how the story ends: not with fireworks but with a jacket wrapped around my shoulders, with a hand in mine, and with a city that we both helped remake.
The End
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