**Diary Entry**
The sky drizzled softlylike a delicate curtain of rainas people hurried by with umbrellas open and eyes downcast. Yet no one noticed the woman in a beige suit kneeling in the middle of the crossing, her voice trembling. *”Please marry me,”* she whispered, clutching a velvet box. The man she was proposing to? Unshaven for weeks, wearing a taped-up coat, sleeping in an alley just a block from the City.
**Two Weeks Earlier**
Eleanor Ward, 36, billionaire CEO of a tech firm and single mother, had everythingor so the world thought. Fortune 500 accolades, magazine covers, a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park. But behind her offices glass walls, she felt like she was suffocating.
Her six-year-old son, Liam, hadnt spoken since his fathera renowned surgeonleft them for a younger model and a life in Paris. Liam no longer smiled. Not at cartoons, not at puppies, not even at chocolate cake.
Nothing brought him joy except the ragged man who fed pigeons outside his school.
Eleanor first noticed him one day when she was late to pick Liam up. Her quiet boy pointed across the street and whispered, *”Mum, that man talks to birds like theyre his family.”*
She dismissed ituntil she saw for herself. The homeless man, perhaps in his forties, with warm eyes beneath the grime and a scruffy beard, broke bread on the stone ledge, murmuring to each pigeon like an old friend. Liam stood nearby, watching with soft eyesand a silence she hadnt seen in months.
From then on, Eleanor arrived five minutes early just to watch.
One evening, after a gruelling 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 alive despite the dirt. *”Im Eleanor. That boy, Liam hes taken a shine to you.”*
He smiled. *”I know. He talks to the birds. They understand things people dont.”*
She laughed despite herself. *”May I ask your name?”*
*”John,”* he answered simply.
They talked. Twenty minutes. Then an hour. Eleanor forgot about the meeting. Forgot about the umbrella, forgotten as rain trickled down her back. John didnt ask for money. He asked about Liam, her company, how often she laughedand listened. *Really* listened.
He was kind. Clever. Unassuming. And unlike any man shed ever known.
Days turned into a week.
She brought coffee. Then soup. Then a scarf.
Liam drew portraits of John and told her, *”Hes like a real angel, Mum. But sad.”*
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?”*
John looked away. *”Someone believing I still matter. That Im not just a ghost people walk past.”*
Then he met her gaze.
*”And Id want that someone to be real. Not out of pity. Just choosing me.”*
**The Present The Proposal**
And so it came to be that Eleanor Ward, billionaire CEO, the woman whod once acquired AI startups before breakfast, now knelt in the rain on Oxford Street with a ring in her hand, before a man who had nothing.
John seemed stunned. Not by the cameras already clicking around them, nor the murmurs of passersby.
But by her.
*”You want to marry me?”* he whispered. *”Eleanor, Ive got no name. No bank account. I sleep behind bins. 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 mejust to know me.”*
John 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 eyes.
*”Would you love me,”* he murmured, *”if you knew I wasnt just a man on the street but someone with a past that could ruin everything youve built?”*
Her eyes widened.
*”What do you mean?”*
John straightened. His voice was quiet, almost rough.
*”Because I wasnt always like this. Once, I had a name whispered in courtrooms.”*
Ethan Walker stood there, wrapped in stunned silence, holding a worn toy carthe one thing hed kept. The red paint was chipped, the wheels wobbly, yet it was worth more than any luxury hed ever owned.
*”No,”* he finally said, kneeling before the twins. *”I cant take this. It should stay with you both.”*
One of the boys, with big hazel eyes brimming with tears, whispered, *”But we need the money for Mums medicine. Please, sir”*
Ethans chest tightened.
*”Whats your name?”* he asked.
*”Im Leo,”* said the older twin. *”Hes Liam.”*
*”And your mum?”* *”Emily,”* Leo answered. *”Shes really sick. The medicine costs too much.”*
Ethan studied them. Barely six years old. Yet here they stood, in the cold, selling their only toyalone.
His voice softened. *”Take me to her.”*
They hesitated, but something in his tone made them trust him. They nodded.
He followed them through narrow alleys to a crumbling flat, up creaking stairs to a tiny room where a woman lay unconscious on a frayed sofa, pale and shivering under a thin blanket.
Ethan pulled out his phone and called his private doctor.
*”Send an ambulance. And prep my clinic. I want her admitted immediately.”*
Hanging up, he knelt beside Emily. Her breathing was shallow.
The twins watched with wide eyes.
*”Is Mum gonna die?”* Liam choked out.
Ethan turned to them. *”No. I promise shell be okay. I wont let anything happen to her.”*
Minutes later, paramedics arrived and rushed Emily to the hospital. Ethan stayed with the boys, holding their small hands as the ambulance raced through the night.
At Walker Memorialthe hospital hed once fundedEmily was stabilised. Ethan covered every cost without question.
For hours, the twins huddled together in the waiting room, half-asleep, clinging to a blanket. Ethan watched over them, his mind racing.
Who was this woman? And why did she seem familiar?
**A Week Later**
Emily woke in a sunlit private ward, the pain gone. The last thing she remembered was agonyand her boys whispers, as if saying goodbye.
Leo and Liam burst in, followed by Ethan.
*”Youre awake,”* he said, relieved. *”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 for your medicine. I found them outside my shop.”*
Her 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 Ive got a question.”*
He pulled an old, faded photo from his coat pocket. It showed a younger Emily and Ethan, arms wrapped around each other at university. Back when hed chosen wealth over loveand left her.
*”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 ours.”*
Ethan froze.
All this time hed had twin sons he never knew. And theyd been ready to sell their only toy to save the woman hed once loved.
He knelt beside Emily, 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 spilled down Emilys cheeks.
From the doorway, Leo whispered, *”Mum is that man our dad?”*
Emily smiled. *”Yes, love. It is.”*
The twins rushed forward, hugging Ethan tight. For the first time in his life, he felt whole.
**Epilogue**
Six months later, Emily and the boys moved into Ethans estate. Not just into a
