The sky drizzled softlylike a delicate veil of rainas people hurried past with their umbrellas up and eyes down. Yet no one noticed the woman in a beige suit kneeling in the middle of the street, her voice trembling. *”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, and sleeping in an alley just a block from the Bank of England.
**Two weeks earlier**
Eleanor Ward, 36, billionaire CEO of a tech firm and single mother, had it allor so the world thought. Fortune 100 awards, magazine covers, a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park. But behind the glass walls of her office, she felt like she was suffocating.
Her six-year-old son, Oliver, had gone quiet ever since his fathera renowned surgeonleft her for a younger model and a life in Nice. Oliver hadnt smiled since. Not at cartoons, not at puppies, not even at chocolate cake.
Nothing brought him joy except the scruffy, tattered man who fed pigeons outside his school.
Eleanor first noticed him when she was late picking Oliver up. Her quiet boy pointed across the road and said, *”Mum, that man talks to birds like theyre his family.”*
Shed brushed it offuntil she saw for herself. The homeless man, maybe in his forties, with warm eyes beneath the grime and a beard, crumbled bread onto the pavement, murmuring to each pigeon like an old friend. Oliver stood nearby, watching with soft eyesand a calm she hadnt seen in months.
After that, Eleanor arrived five minutes early every day, just to watch.
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 quietly. He looked up, his eyes bright despite the dirt. *”Im Eleanor. That boy, Oliver hes really taken with you.”*
He smiled. *”I know. He talks to the birds too. They understand things people dont.”*
She laughed, despite herself. *”Can I ask your name?”*
*”Jonathan,”* he replied simply.
They talked. Twenty minutes. Then an hour. Eleanor forgot her meeting. Forgot her umbrella, rain trickling down her back. Jonathan didnt ask for money. He asked about Oliver, her company, how often she laughedand he listened. *Really* listened.
He was kind. Clever. Uncomplicated. And unlike any man shed ever known.
Days turned into a week.
She brought him coffee. Then soup. Then a scarf.
Oliver drew pictures of Jonathan and told her, *”Hes like a real angel, Mum. But sad.”*
On the eighth day, Eleanor asked a question she hadnt planned:
*”What what would it take for you to start again? To get a second chance?”*
Jonathan looked away. *”Someone believing 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 choosing me.”*
**PresentThe Proposal**
And so it happened that Eleanor Ward, billionaire CEO, the woman who used to acquire AI startups before breakfast, was now kneeling in the rain on Oxford Street, ring in hand, before a man who had nothing.
Jonathan looked stunned. Frozen. Not because of the cameras already snapping around them or the crowd with raised eyebrows.
But because of *her*.
*”You want to marry me?”* he whispered. *”Eleanor, Ive got 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.”*
Jonathan stared at the box in her hand.
Then took a step back.
*”Only if you answer one question first.”*
She froze. *”Ask. Just ask.”*
He leaned in slightly, meeting her eye to eye.
*”Would you love me,”* he asked, *”if you found out I wasnt just a man on the street but someone with a past that could destroy everything youve built?”*
Her eyes widened.
*”What do you mean?”*
Jonathan straightened. His voice was quiet, almost rough.
*”Because I wasnt always homeless. I used to have a name people whispered in courtrooms.”*
Ethan Walker stood there, wrapped in stunned silence, clutching a worn-out toy car in his hand. The red paint was chipped, the wheels wobbled, yet it was more precious than any luxury hed ever 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 big hazel eyes full of tears, whispered, *”But we need the money for Mums medicine. Please, sir”*
Ethans heart twisted.
*”Whats your name?”* he asked.
*”Im Leo,”* said the older twin. *”Hes Oliver.”*
*”And your mums name?”*
*”Emily,”* Leo answered. *”Shes really poorly. The medicine costs too much.”*
Ethan studied them. They couldnt be older than six. And yet, here they were, in the cold, 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 until they reached a rundown flat. Up broken stairs, into a tiny room where a woman lay on a worn-out sofa, pale and unconscious. The flat was barely heated. A thin blanket barely covered her frail frame.
Ethan pulled out his phone and called his private doctor immediately.
*”Send an ambulance to this address. And prep a full team. I want her admitted to my clinic.”*
He hung up and knelt beside Emily. Her breathing was shallow.
The twins watched him with wide eyes.
*”Is Mum going to die?”* Oliver choked out.
Ethan turned to them. *”No. I promise, shell be okay. I wont let anything happen to her.”*
Minutes later, paramedics arrived and took Emily to the hospital. Ethan insisted on staying with the twins, holding their small hands as the ambulance raced through the night.
At Walker Memorial, the hospital hed once funded himself, Emily was rushed into intensive care. Ethan paid for everythingno questions asked.
For hours, the twins huddled together in the waiting room, half-asleep, clutching a blanket. Ethan stood guard, a storm raging in his mind.
Who was this woman? And why did she feel strangely familiar?
**A week later**
Emily slowly opened her eyes to a sunlit private hospital room. The last thing she remembered was unbearable painand her boys whispering as if saying goodbye.
Now the pain was gone.
She sat up, gasping.
Leo and Oliver burst in, followed by a tall man in a tailored suit. Ethan.
*”Youre awake,”* he said, his face lighting up. *”Thank God.”*
Emily blinked. *”You? What are you doing here?”*
*”Thats my line,”* he replied, sitting beside her. *”Your boys were trying 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 hugged a younger Ethan. Back when they were at uni. Back when hed left everything for business and wealthand left *her*.
*”I kept this all these years,”* Ethan 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 children.”*
Ethan froze.
All this time hed had twin sons he never knew existed. And theyd been trying 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 biggest of my life. If youll let me I want to make it right. For them. For you. For us.”*
Tears rolled down Emilys face.
At the door, Leo whispered
