“WILL YOU BE MY WIFE?” THE MILLIONAIRE ASKED THE LOST SINGLE MOTHER sitting alone at the bus station with nowhere left to go …
“If you need a job, come find me. But only if you want to.”
Emily slipped the card into her purse without much hope.
The next morning, with nowhere else to sleep and nowhere else to go, she walked into Nathan’s company building hoping to ask for a cleaning job.
Two receptionists looked her up and down before quietly laughing.
“Look at the clothes she’s wearing.”
“And she even brought a child with her…”
Emily tightened her grip around her daughter’s hand and had already started turning toward the exit when Nathan suddenly appeared …
Part 1: The Millionaire’s Proposal at the Bus Station
“Are you seriously asking me to marry you… or are you making fun of me?”
The words burst out of Emily Carter loud enough that several exhausted travelers waiting near the station platform turned to stare. She stood there holding her little daughter against her chest, one worn duffel bag hanging from her shoulder while cold wind whipped through the nearly empty bus terminal outside Lexington.
Across from her stood Nathan Holloway.
And he didn’t blink once.
“I’m serious,” he answered quietly.
Emily laughed bitterly, shaking her head in disbelief. “Rich men love this stuff, don’t they? Humiliating poor women to entertain yourselves.”
Her daughter, four-year-old Lily, tightened tiny fingers around her mother’s neck while watching the tension with frightened eyes. Emily looked exhausted in every possible way. Her faded sweater smelled faintly like rainwater and cheap detergent, and the dark circles beneath her eyes came from months of sleeping lightly, always prepared for the next disaster life might throw at her.
She had arrived at the station only hours earlier after fleeing the crowded apartment where she’d been staying temporarily with her brother’s family. At three that morning, Emily overheard her sister-in-law whispering through the kitchen doorway:
“That girl’s going to drain this family forever.”
