CHAPTER 1 – THE PROPOSAL NOBODY COULD UNDERSTAND
CHAPTER 1 – THE PROPOSAL NOBODY COULD UNDERSTAND
Agatha stared at the letter as if it were written in another language.
"Marry... Mr. David?"
Her voice trembled.
Her parents exchanged uneasy glances.
"He asked specifically for you," her father whispered.
"But... why me?"
Nobody knew.
Mr. David had disappeared from the village nearly thirty years ago.
Now he had returned as one of the wealthiest men in the region.
He owned factories.
Hundreds of acres of farmland.
Luxury hotels.
Entire shopping centers.
Yet everyone said the same thing...
No one had actually seen his face.
His assistants handled everything.
Whenever business meetings happened, Mr. David stayed inside a black limousine with tinted windows.
Rumors spread through the village.
Some claimed he had been horribly burned.
Others whispered he was dying.
Some even believed he wasn't real anymore...
That his assistants were using his name to hide something much darker.
Agatha immediately refused.
"I'm not marrying someone I've never met."
Her mother burst into tears.
Her father lowered his head.
Then he quietly placed another document on the table.
It was a hospital report.
John.
Stage Four Kidney Failure.
Without surgery...
He had less than six months.
Agatha felt the room spinning.
"The operation..."
Her father couldn't continue.
"It costs more than we'll ever earn."
Silence.
Then...
Her mother finally revealed the rest.
"Mr. David already paid the hospital..."
Agatha looked up.
"What?"
"He said the money is yours..."
"...if you agree to become his wife."
Her hands shook violently.
This wasn't a proposal.
It was a choice between her brother's life...
...and her own future.
That night...
Agatha signed the marriage papers.
But as Mr. David's lawyer prepared to leave...
He accidentally dropped a photograph.
Agatha picked it up.
The picture showed a handsome young man...
standing beside her own father...
twenty-five years ago.
On the back...
Someone had written one sentence.
May you like
"Never tell Agatha who her real father is."
TO BE CONTINUED...
