CHAPTER 62

Chapter Sixty Two

Daniella’s Pov

Morning light hits the cheap kitchen blinds, and I lay the cold truth out on the table like open blueprints.

"Zero trusts," I tell Daniella, tracing a finger across a pad of yellow legal paper. "Gone. The family real estate portfolio in the valley—revoked access codes. The sovereign equity line through grandfather’s syndicate—locked out. Dividend distribution rights from the baseline parent trust—terminated."

I look up, waiting for her shoulders to drop. Waiting for the realization that she chained herself to a sinking ship.

Daniella sits cross-legged on the chair, sipping black coffee, her dark eyes steady and unblinking. "What’s left in your name alone?"

"My independent stock portfolio from pre-venture advisory advisory fees, two hundred thousand in liquid cash sitting in a clean credit union account, and Vance Advisory Group intellectual property rights," I say, laying out the exact math. "It’s enough to cover payroll, office rent for six months, and groceries. We aren't sleeping on park benches. But we are fighting uphill."

Daniella sets her mug down with a soft click. She reaches across the table, placing her warm hand flat over mine. No pity. No measuring my worth by zero counts or missing zero digits.

"My whole life before meeting you was living on zero safety net and budgeting down to the last coin," she says quietly, a small, fierce smile touching her lips. "You didn't lose your value, Kent. You just lost the golden leash."

Something tight inside my chest uncorks completely. Growing up, love was a ledger. Affection traded for compliance. Board seats given for silence. With Daniella, sharing the ugly math feels like breathing fresh air for the first time.

Forty-eight hours later, we skip the city noise. No flashing cameras, no corporate spies parked outside the gate, no glowing red warning light on a phone screen. Just a rented beat-up sedan, a two-day bag stuffed with cotton shirts, and a quiet wooden cabin forty miles out past the coast where the air smells like salt and wet pine.

The beach stretches out wide and grey under an open sky.

Daniella walks ahead of me, her oversized sweater flapping in the ocean wind, laughing as cold foam splashes her sneakers. I watch her—really watch her—moving free. Not ducking flashbulbs. Not dodging Freya’s icy glares.

I catch up in three strides, wrapping my arm tight around her waist from behind, pulling her flush against my chest. She leans back into me, warm and solid.

"You're quiet," she murmurs over the sound of the surf.

"Thinking about how much I like looking at you out here where nobody owns the view," I reply, pressing my face into her dark hair.

That night, we grill simple chicken on a tiny patio stove. No waiters in tuxedos. No wine labels worth more than a semester of college tuition. We sit side by side on a weathered wooden bench under a string of cheap yellow patio lights, passing paper plates back and forth.

My hand moves naturally, sliding down to rest flat against the soft curve of her lower abdomen.

I feel a tiny, faint thump against my palm.

I freeze. My breath catches in my throat. I look down, my fingers pressing slightly firmer. Another tap. Real. Alive.

"Daniella," I breathe out, my voice thick. "Did you feel that?"

Daniella looks down at my hand resting on her stomach, her eyes going wide, then softening into a glowing, tear-bright laugh. She covers my hand with hers, pressing us both harder against the small miracle growing under her skin.

"Hey, little one," Daniella whispers down toward her shirt, smiling up at me. "Your dad is about to start reading baby science manuals out loud again if you keep kicking like a soccer player."

I laugh—a real, raw sound I haven't made in ten years. I lean down, pressing my lips warm against the fabric over our baby, whispering things I never said to a mirror in my life. I got you. We're safe.

Daniella watches me change right in front of her eyes, her smile warm and amused at how fast a cold corporate professor turned into a man who talks to bellies.

Later, sitting on the edge of the cabin porch with our feet propped on the wooden railing, the night quiet except for crashing waves miles away, I turn to look at her.

"We build," I say softly, the thought taking root deep in my bones. "Not a penthouse with guards at the elevator. Not a stone mansion with ancestors staring down from oil portraits. A house with a big kitchen window, a yard with grass our kid can wreck, and doors that lock from the inside because we want peace, not status."

Daniella leans her head against my shoulder. "I'd like that, Kent."

My heart beats heavy and fast. I don't pull out a velvet ring box—not yet, not while the audit cloud still hangs over her university desk and the market echo of Robert’s vendetta is still fading. I keep my promise about the slow road.

Instead, I slide off the wooden bench, moving onto the cool deck boards.

I drop down on one knee right beside her chair.

Daniella looks down, surprise flickering across her face as she starts to sit up.

"Stay," I murmur, my hand finding hers, pulling her palm warm against my thumb.

I look up into her dark, steady eyes. The wind off the ocean pulls a strand of hair across her cheek, and I tuck it back slow, grounding myself in her face.

"I'm not asking for your hand tonight," I say, my voice deep, steady, and completely bare. "The world is loud, the audit is ticking, and my bank balance is a fraction of what it was when I met you."

Her thumb twitches against mine.

"I'm on one knee right now to ask you for a promise," I tell her, every word heavy and true. "When the dust clears. When we're paying electric bills in our own yard and our kid is laughing on the floor... if I ask you to marry me then, give me a real chance. Give me a shot to earn your forever, piece by piece, day after day."

Daniella’s eyes swim with bright, hot tears, clear as the tide. A slow, breaking sunrise of a smile spreads across her face.

She reaches down with her free hand, cupping the side of my face, her fingers warm and steady against my skin.

"You already started earning it, Kent," she whispers, her voice shaking with quiet power. "Get up off the wood."

I stand up, pulling her straight out of the chair and into my arms.