10/13/2025
**Diary Entry – 12th March**
The sky drizzled softly—a delicate veil of rain—as people hurried past with umbrellas and downcast eyes. 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 proposed to? Unshaven for weeks, wearing a coat patched with duct tape, he slept 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 everything—or so the world thought. Fortune 100 awards, magazine covers, a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park. But behind her office’s glass walls, she felt like she was suffocating.
Her six-year-old son, William, had fallen silent ever since his father—a renowned surgeon—left her for a younger model and a life in Paris. William 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 when she was late picking William up. Her quiet, withdrawn son pointed across the street and said, "Mum, that man talks to birds like they’re his family."
She dismissed it—until she saw for herself. The homeless man, perhaps in his forties, with warm eyes beneath layers of grime and a scruffy beard, crumbled bread onto the stone ledge, whispering to each pigeon as if they were old friends. William stood beside him, watching with soft eyes—and a quietness she hadn’t 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 was—even in the rain—murmuring to the birds, soaked but still smiling.
She hesitated, then crossed the street.
"Excuse me," she said softly. He looked up, his eyes alive despite the dirt. "I’m Eleanor. That boy, William… he’s really taken to you."
He smiled. "I know. He talks to the birds. They understand things people don’t."
She laughed despite herself. "May I… ask your name?"
"Jonah," he replied simply.
They talked. Twenty minutes. Then an hour. Eleanor forgot her meeting. Forgot her umbrella, the rain trickling down her back. Jonah didn’t ask for money. He asked about William, her company, how often she laughed—and he listened. Really listened.
He was kind. Sharp. Unpretentious. Nothing like any man she’d ever known.
Days turned into a week.
Eleanor brought coffee. Then soup. Then a scarf.
William drew portraits of Jonah and told her, "He’s like a real angel, Mum. But sad."
On the eighth day, Eleanor asked a question she hadn’t planned:
"What… what would it take for you to start again? To get a second chance?"
Jonah looked away. "Someone believing I still matter. That I’m not just a ghost people ignore."
Then he met her gaze.
"And I’d want that someone to be real. Not out of pity. Just… choosing me."
**Now – The Proposal**
So there Eleanor Ward stood, the billionaire CEO who once bought AI startups before breakfast, now kneeling in the rain on Oxford Street, a ring in her hand, before a man who had nothing.
Jonah looked stunned. Not because of the cameras already flashing or the crowd with raised eyebrows.
But because of *her*.
"You want to marry me?" he whispered. "Eleanor, I’ve no name. No bank account. I sleep behind a bin. Why me?"
She swallowed. "Because you make my son laugh. Because you make me feel again. Because you’re the only one who never wanted anything from me—you just wanted to *know* me."
Jonah 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 slightly closer, so their eyes were level.
"Would you still love me," he murmured, "if you knew I wasn’t just a man on the street… but someone with a past that could ruin everything you’ve built?"
Her eyes widened.
"What do you mean?"
Jonah straightened. His voice was quiet, almost rough.
"Because I wasn’t always homeless. I had a name once—one the papers whispered in courtrooms."
Ethan Walker stood there, wrapped in stunned silence, holding a worn-out toy car in his palm. The red paint was chipped, the wheels loose, yet it was more precious than any luxury he’d owned.
"No," he finally said, kneeling before the twins. "I can’t take this. It belongs to both of you."
One of the boys—big hazel eyes brimming with tears—whispered, "But we need the money for Mum’s medicine. Please, sir…"
Ethan’s heart twisted.
"What’s your name?" he asked.
"Leo," said the elder twin. "He’s William."
"And your mother’s name?"
"Emily," Leo replied. "She’s very ill. The medicine costs too much."
Ethan studied them. Barely six years old, yet here they stood, in the cold, selling their only toy—alone.
His voice softened. "Take me to her."
They hesitated, but something in his tone made them trust. They nodded.
He followed them through narrow alleys to a crumbling flat. Up broken stairs to a tiny room where a woman lay on a rotting sofa, pale and unconscious. The room was barely heated. A thin blanket covered her frail frame.
Ethan pulled out his phone and called his private doctor.
"Send an ambulance to this address. Prepare a full team. I want her admitted to my clinic."
He hung up and knelt beside her. Her breathing was shallow.
The twins watched with wide eyes.
"Is Mum going to die?" William choked out.
Ethan turned. "No. I promise she’ll get better. I won’t let anything happen."
Minutes later, paramedics arrived and took Emily to hospital. Ethan stayed with the twins, holding their small hands as the ambulance raced through the night.
At Walker Memorial—the hospital he’d once funded—Emily was rushed into intensive care. Ethan covered everything without question.
For hours, the twins huddled in the waiting room, clinging to each other, half-asleep. Ethan watched over them, a storm raging in his mind.
Who was this woman? And why did she…
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