**Diary Entry**
The sky drizzled softlylike a delicate veil of rainas people hurried past with their umbrellas raised and eyes downcast. Yet no one paid any mind to the woman in a beige suit kneeling in the middle of the crossing. Her voice trembled. *”Please marry me,”* she whispered, clutching a velvet ring box. The man she was proposing to? Unshaven for weeks, wearing a coat patched with duct tape, he slept in an alley just a block from the City of London.
**Two Weeks Earlier**
Eleanor Ward, 36, billionaire CEO of a tech firm and a single mother, had everythingor so the world believed. Fortune 500 awards, magazine covers, a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park. But behind her glass office walls, she felt like she was suffocating.
Her six-year-old son, Oliver, had gone silent after his fathera renowned surgeonleft them for a younger model and a life in Paris. Oliver no longer smiled. Not at cartoons, not at puppies, not even at chocolate cake.
Nothing brought him joy anymore except the ragged, kind-eyed man who fed pigeons outside his school.
Eleanor first noticed him when she was late picking Oliver up. The boy, usually so withdrawn, pointed across the street and murmured, *”Mum, that man talks to the birds like theyre his family.”*
She dismissed ituntil she saw for herself. The homeless man, perhaps in his forties, with warm eyes beneath layers of grime and a scruffy beard, broke bread on the pavement, whispering to each pigeon as if they were friends. Oliver stood nearby, watching with a quietness she hadnt seen in months.
From then on, Eleanor arrived five minutes early just to witness it.
One evening, after a brutal board meeting, she walked past the school alone. There he waseven in the rainmuttering to the birds, soaked but still smiling.
She hesitated, then crossed the street.
*”Excuse me,”* she said softly. He looked up, his eyes bright despite the dirt. *”Im Eleanor. That boy, Oliver hes taken a shine to you.”*
He smiled. *”I know. He talks to the birds too. They understand things people dont.”*
She laughed despite herself. *”May I ask your name?”*
*”Jonah,”* he answered simply.
They talked. Twenty minutes. Then an hour. Eleanor forgot her meeting. Forgot her umbrella, letting the rain soak her back. Jonah didnt ask for money. He asked about Oliver, about her company, how often she laughedand he listened. Really listened.
He was kind. Clever. Unassuming. And unlike any man shed ever known.
Days turned into a week.
She brought him coffee. Then soup. Then a scarf.
Oliver drew portraits of Jonah and told her, *”Hes like an angel, Mum. But a sad one.”*
On the eighth day, Eleanor asked a question she hadnt planned:
*”What would it take for you to start again? To have a second chance?”*
Jonah looked away. *”Someone would have to believe I still matter. That Im not just a ghost people ignore.”*
Then he met her gaze.
*”And Id want that someone to be real. Not out of pity. Just because they chose me.”*
**The PresentThe Proposal**
And so Eleanor Ward, billionaire CEOthe woman who used to acquire AI startups before breakfastfound herself kneeling in the rain on Regent Street, ring in hand, before a man who had nothing.
Jonah looked stunned. Not at the cameras already flashing, not at the murmuring crowdbut at *her*.
*”You want to marry me?”* he whispered. *”Eleanor, Ive no name. No bank account. I sleep behind a skip. Why me?”*
She swallowed. *”Because you make my son laugh. Because you make me feel again. Because youre the only one who never wanted anything from meyou just wanted to know me.”*
Jonah stared at the box in her hand.
Then he took a step back.
*”Only if you answer one thing first.”*
She froze. *”Ask. Just ask.”*
He leaned in slightly, meeting her eye to eye.
*”Would you still love me,”* he said, *”if you knew I wasnt just some bloke off the street but a man with a past that could ruin everything youve built?”*
Her eyes widened.
*”What do you mean?”*
Jonah straightened. His voice was quiet, almost rough.
*”Because I wasnt always homeless. Once, I had a name people whispered in courtrooms.”*
Ethan Walker stood there, wrapped in stunned silence, clutching a worn toy car in his palm. The red paint was chipped, the wheels wobbly, yet it was worth more to him than any luxury hed owned.
*”No,”* he finally said, kneeling before the twins. *”I cant take this. It should belong to both of you.”*
One of the boys, with wide hazel eyes brimming with tears, whispered, *”But we need the money for Mums medicine. Please, sir”*
Ethans chest tightened.
*”Whats your name?”* he asked.
*”Leo,”* said the older twin. *”Hes Oliver.”*
*”And your mum?”* *”Emily,”* Leo replied. *”Shes very sick. The medicine costs too much.”*
Ethan studied them. Barely six years old. Yet here they stood, in the bitter wind, selling their only toyalone.
His voice softened. *”Take me to her.”*
At first, they hesitated, but something in his tone made them trust him. They nodded.
He followed them through narrow alleys to a dilapidated flat. Up crumbling stairs to a tiny room where a woman lay on a tattered sofa, pale and unconscious. The room was freezing. A thin blanket barely covered her frail body.
Ethan pulled out his phone and called his private doctor.
*”Send an ambulance to this address. Full team. I want her admitted to my clinic.”*
He hung up and knelt beside her. Her breathing was shallow.
The twins watched him with wide eyes.
*”Will Mum die?”* Oliver choked out.
Ethan turned to them. *”No. I promise shell get better. I wont let anything happen to her.”*
Minutes later, paramedics arrived and took Emily away. Ethan stayed with the boys, holding their small hands as the ambulance raced through the night.
At Walker Memorial, the hospital hed once funded, Emily was rushed into intensive care. Ethan paid for everythingno questions asked.
For hours, the twins huddled together in the waiting room, half-asleep. Ethan kept watch, his mind reeling.
Who was this woman? And why did she feel strangely familiar?
**A Week Later**
Emily opened her eyes to a sunlit private ward. The last thing she remembered was unbearable painand her boys whispering as if saying goodbye.
Now the pain was gone.
She sat up sharply, gasping.
Leo and Oliver burst in, followed by Ethan in his tailored suit.
*”Youre awake,”* he said, relief washing over his face. *”Thank God.”*
Emily blinked. *”You? What are you doing here?”*
*”Thats my question,”* he replied, sitting beside her. *”Your boys tried to sell their only toy to buy your medicine. I found them outside my shop.”*
Emilys hand flew to her mouth. *”No”*
*”They saved you, Emily.”*
She shook her head, overwhelmed. *”How can I ever repay you?”*
*”You dont have to,”* Ethan said. Then, after a pause: *”But I have a question.”*
He pulled a faded photo from his coat pocket. In it, a younger Emily and Ethan stood arm in arm at university. Back when hed walked away for wealthand left her behind.
*”Ive kept this all these years,”* he said softly. *”You never told me you had children.”*
*”I didnt want to ruin your life,”* she whispered. *”You left. I thought youd moved on.”*
Ethan looked up. *”Are they mine?”*
She nodded.
*”Theyre our sons.”*
Ethan went still.
All this time hed had twin boys he never knew existed. And theyd tried to sell their only toy to save the woman hed once loved.
He knelt beside her, taking her hands. *”I made a mistake, Emily. The worst of my life. If youll let me I want to make it right. For them. For you. For us.”*
Tears rolled down Emilys face.
From the doorway, Leo whispered, *”Mum is that man our dad?”*
Emily smiled. *”Yes, love. It is.”*
The
