When she entered the restaurant, her mother couldn’t believe what she saw…
“Have you completely lost it?” she nearly exclaimed, recoiling as if caught red-handed. “Me? In this? Playing with your fiancée? Yesterday, I was digging food from the trash!”
He quietly clicked the lock, closed the door, and, tiredly leaning against the wall, said:
“There’s no reason to refuse. I will pay more than you can think. Only one evening. Become my fiancée. For them. For my parents. It’s only a game. A play. “Or have you forgotten how to act?”
She was silent. Her fingers in the faded gloves trembled. Her heart was racing as if it wanted to leap forth. “Could this mark the beginning of a new life? Or at least an end to old pain?”
Thus began an unexpected story.
He was as wealthy as an entire country. His name was Nathan Berg. Young, severe, with chilly eyes and a calm expression. His name was on business magazine covers, and his photos appeared on lists of the world’s most influential bachelors. Everything was done according to the book, including upbringing, money, and power. But his parents, who live in Europe, kept repeating:
“When will we finally meet your girlfriend? Why are you hiding?”
They decided to come without warning. Tomorrow.
Nathan was not scared — he was confused. Not because he feared their judgment, but because he didn’t consider any woman suitable for the role. He despised actresses. Couldn’t stand fake smiles. He needed someone… real. Or at least very different from those they expected.
That evening, he was driving through the city. Cold, traffic jams, evening lights. And suddenly he noticed her — at the metro entrance, with a guitar and a cardboard sign saying: “I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for a chance.”
Nathan paused. For the first time, he did not drive by.
“What’s your name?”
She raised her eyes. Her voice was raspy and full of pride.
“Why do you need to know?”
He smiled slightly.
“I need a woman who understands how to survive. For real. Alive. Without makeup. Like you.”
Her name was Marta. 27 years old. Behind her — an orphanage, escapes, years on the street, rehabilitation, cold nights, and a guitar. Her only truth.
The next evening, she stood in front of the huge mirror in the Emerald Hotel room. Her hands trembled as she smoothed the fabric of an expensive velvet dress the color of the deep sea. Her hair, freshly washed and stylishly done, shone. Makeup accentuated her features so much she was almost unrecognizable.
“They’re already at the restaurant,” Nathan said, adjusting his cufflinks. “We’re late for our happiness.”
“Think it will work?”
He looked at her for a long time.
“I think you’re the only person who can win over my mother.”
Everything in the restaurant seemed under control. Almost.
His father was reticent, yet attentive. His mother was a woman with sophisticated manners and a piercing vision who could read a person with a single movement of her eyebrow. Her gaze fixated on the girl across from her.
“How did you meet my son?” she inquired.
Marta felt Nathan’s eyes on her. He nodded slightly.
“At a bookstore,” she said. “I dropped a volume of Schopenhauer and he picked it up. “And we both laughed.”
“Schopenhauer?” The woman was astonished. “You read philosophy?”
“As a child.” In our orphanage, the librarian permitted us to borrow books on even the most difficult themes if we pledged to return them.”
The silence hung. Nathan’s mother lowered her glass carefully, keeping her gaze fixed on Marta. Too intently.
“In an orphanage?” she inquired again, her voice tinged with something elusive – curiosity or a recollection of past grief.
Then an unexpected event occurred.
Marta abruptly straightened, gathered her pride into a fist, and said firmly:
“Sorry. I am lying. I am not your daughter-in-law. Not from a bookstore, but on the street. I am homeless. Just a woman who was tired of being someone’s possession and now felt like a human being for the first time.”
Instead of passing judgment or scandal, the woman in a severe suit rose up, approached her, and hugged her.
“My daughter…” I, too, started with nothing. Somebody gave me a chance. And I am delighted you took yours.”
Nathan was silent. He was just watching. And for the first time, I realized: the game was finished. And real life was only beginning.
She told the truth — and received not contempt, but an embrace. None of them yet knew it was just the first step. Nathan’s mother turned out to be surprisingly sensitive — she saw in Marta not deception, but strength of spirit. His father remained distant.
“This is madness, Nathan,” he said coldly, cutting through the tension. “You brought us to a house of street fantasies?”
“This is my choice,” the son replied calmly. “Not your verdict.”
After dinner, Marta went outside. Took off her shoes, leaned against the wall, and cried. But not from shame — from relief. She told the truth. And no one turned away.
Nathan approached gently. He grasped her coat.
“You will not return to the street. You will live with me. “As long as needed.” He paused.
“You deserve more.”
“I’m not asking for pity.”
“I’m not offering that. “I’m giving you an opportunity.”
…
So began their weird, sharp, yet honest life together. He worked late into the night, setting high expectations for himself and others. She studied. Borrowed books, attended lectures, cleaned the apartment, and cooked. Sometimes she picked up the guitar again, not for money, but because something alive was stirring inside her.
She was changing.
“You’ve become different,” he stated once.
“I’m just not afraid for the first time that they’ll throw me out.”
…
A month later, his father departed. Didn’t say anything. I just left a message saying, “If you choose your heart — don’t count on my fortune anymore.”
Nathan did not even open the envelope. I put it into the flames and quietly said:
“Money comes and goes. But if you lose yourself, you are worth nothing.”
…
Three months later, Marta noticed two lines on a test.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered, sitting on the bathroom floor. “It’s too early… We’re not even a couple…”
When she told him, Nathan was silent for a long time. Then he hugged her.
“I don’t know what this feeling is called. But I know one thing — it’s right.”
…
There were court battles over the land his father wanted to take. There were rumors on the internet about “a billionaire and a homeless woman staging a show of happiness.” There were difficult births, fear of losing the baby, pain, anxiety.
And then there was a new life.
A life in which Marta became the author of her own book. A woman who stepped onto the stage not as a beggar by the roadside, but as a person who passed through poverty, indifference, and betrayal — and survived.
And every time she faced the audience, she said:
“I was a ‘fiancée for an hour.’ Now I’m a wife for life. Because one person saw me as a human being.”
…
The final scenario takes place at the same restaurant. Marta is holding the hand of a ten-year-old girl with luxuriant hair.
“See, baby?” For the first time, your father actually smiled. Here, we became a family, not a spectator’s play.”
Nathan stands close. Smiling. Holding her hand. There was no sense of regret in his gaze.
He did not marry a princess. He selected a queen. Who once sat on the street, holding a cardboard sign, asking for a chance rather than help.
