CHAPTER 65

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Chapter SIXTY Five

Daniella’s Pov

Marcus’s words ring in my head all night: As soon as she’ll let me put a ring on her finger.

My hand drifts to the silver jade bracelet on my wrist. I am ready. I don't want a stage, I don't want cameras flashing red dots, and I don't want high-society wives whispering over champagne flutes. I want quiet, private, and real.

Next morning, Kent acts weird. He checks his phone twice while making coffee. He taps his screen with a tight, focused thumb, then slips it into his pocket fast when I walk into the kitchen.

Old instincts twitch. Is Robert pulling another supply line? Did Dean Holloway reopen the review?

I catch myself. I am not living in paranoia mode anymore. I lean against the fridge, sipping black coffee, and watch him zip a small leather folio bag.

"You're acting like a spy trading secrets in a alley, Vance," I tease, raising an eyebrow.

Kent pauses, turning around with a slow, faint smirk touching his mouth. "Just organizing workflow. Put your coat on. We're going out."

"Where? Back to the advisory office?"

"No office today," he says, taking my coffee mug and setting it in the sink. "Trust me."

I grab my wool coat, slipping my boots on without pressing further. No anxiety. Just clean, steady curiosity.

We drive across town, past the crowded financial district, heading toward a quieter older mid-rise brick building near the park where tree branches are bare grey twigs against the sky. Kent pulls into a underground visitor bay, turns the engine off, and reaches for my hand across the center console. His palm is warm, firm, and slightly tense.

"First place I bought with cash from my own pre-Vance consulting retainers," Kent says low, unlocking his door. "Before the bunker. Before the noise."

We ride a quiet elevator up to the fourth floor.

Kent slides a brass key into unit 402. The heavy wood swings open, revealing a bright, wide-open loft with hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, and tall arched windows letting in pale afternoon sunlight.

It's completely empty. No smart-home screens, no velvet couches, no corporate ghost hovering in the corners.

"It's yours?" I whisper, stepping across the threshold, my boots clicking soft against the wood.

"Mine," Kent says, closing the door behind us. He walks up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder. "When I walked away from the family trust eighteen months ago, I bought this square foot by square foot with money I earned lecturing at night and writing independent audit briefs. Nobody gave me the key card. Nobody tracked the utility bills."

I turn around in his arms, looking up into his dark, steady eyes. "Why bring me here now?"

"Because I didn't want you thinking my life started and ended with a billionaire bunker or a fallen dynasty," Kent murmurs, his hands sliding down to frame my hips. "This is where I learned how to breathe on my own. And I want to fill it with us."

We spend the next hour walking through the empty rooms like architects dreaming in daylight.

Here by the corner brick wall? A low charcoal sectional sofa where we read Sunday papers. Over by the south-facing window with morning light? A long reclaimed oak dining table where we pass butter andargue about macroeconomics. And down the short hallway past the bathroom? A bright, quiet square room with high windows for a crib, a yellow floor rug, and a bookshelf stacked heavy with bedtime stories.

I trace my finger over the sill of the sunny bedroom window. My chest fills with a warm, quiet pressure that feels like coming home from a long, cold walk.

He isn't offering me a golden cage or a charity token. He's handing me blueprints to a life we carved out of raw stone, side by side.

"It's perfect, Kent," I whisper, looking back at him standing in the doorway of the nursery room.

A shadow of a smile touches his mouth. He reaches into his dark wool coat, pulling out a slim glass bottle of sparkling cider and two paper cups. "We christen the floorboards first."

We share cold cider standing by the wide-open living room window, watching downtown traffic crawl like tiny ants far below. The sky turns the color of bruised plum and dark indigo as evening rolls in, streetlamps blinking awake one by one across the concrete grid.

Kent sets his paper cup down on the wide wooden window ledge.

"Come outside," he says softly.

He pushes open the glass French door leading out onto a private brick balcony wrapped in wrought-iron railing. The cold night air hits my face, sharp and clean, carrying the scent of rain and city asphalt.

I step out, pulling my coat tighter around my shoulders.

Kent doesn't follow me side by side. He steps in front of me, blocking the cold draft, his dark eyes locked straight onto mine with a gravity that makes the air between us go thick and still.

My heart gives a heavy, slow thud against my ribs.

This is it.

Not a reporter shouting under blinding flashbulbs. Not a boardroom contract clause. Just us, forty feet above the street, standing on ground he paid for with his own blood and brain.

Kent doesn't say a speech. He doesn't quote poetry or reference family ledgers.

He bends his right knee, dropping slow and heavy onto the cold brick patio floor.

My breath jams in my throat. My fingers curl tight into my wool coat pockets.

Kent reaches into his inner suit pocket with his left hand, pulling out a small dark blue velvet box.

He holds it flat on his palm for one heartbeat, letting the quiet night wrap around us.

Then he clicks the silver latch open with his thumb.

The velvet lid lifts.

Inside, resting against cream satin, the deep midnight sapphire catches the orange glow of a streetlamp down below, ringed by a simple platinum band that looks like starlight frozen in metal.

Kent looks up at me, his dark gaze burning bright, steady, and unshakeable.

"I told you I'd earn your forever piece by piece," Kent says, his voice rough and low in the quiet air. "No board vote approves this. No trust fund buys this answer. Daniella Vance... walk through this door with me. Marry me."

Hot, bright tears spill over my eyelashes, tracking fast down my cheeks into the cold wind. I don't hesitate. I don't look back at the empty rooms or the ghost of a billionaire empire we left burning in the rear-view mirror.

I drop down to my knees right in front of him on the cold brick, sliding my hands into his dark hair, pulling him up into a hard, desperate kiss before the ring even touches my finger.

"Yes," I sob-laugh against his mouth, my hands gripping his shoulders as the cold night air turns into fire. "Yes, Kent. Always."

He slides the cool platinum ring onto my finger, sealing the promise right where my pulse beats wildest.