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📖 Chapter 8 — Plans, Promises, and Uninvited Shadows
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Mira never thought she'd be the type to fall in love with slow mornings.
There was a time she woke to carefully drawn curtains, a personal maid whispering about breakfast waiting on the terrace. A time when each day felt like a performance—slipping into sleek dresses, attending brunches that were really disguised negotiations, nodding politely at women who pretended to be her mother's friends.
Now her mornings were simpler.
A chipped mug of coffee on her nightstand, Adrian's feet tangled with hers under the quilt, sunlight crawling lazily across the wall.
Sometimes she woke first and watched him sleep, dark lashes against his cheek, mouth relaxed into an innocence he rarely showed when awake.
Sometimes he woke first and did the same—she could tell from the way his eyes crinkled when she finally stirred, as if he'd been quietly soaking her in.
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One such morning, Mira lay sprawled across Adrian's chest, listening to his heartbeat while her apartment slowly warmed from the weak winter sun.
His hand traced lazy patterns on her shoulder. "So. I have a question that might scare you."
She propped her chin on his chest. "Hmm. Should I be worried?"
"Only a little." His eyes sparkled. "How would you feel if… someday, we found a place together? Not just me camping out here half the week. An actual home."
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Her breath caught.
For a flash of a second, old panic threatened—voices whispering she wasn't enough without her family's name, that she was still just a girl who'd been politely discarded, that even Adrian might one day see her as small and inconvenient.
But his hand was warm on her cheek, thumb stroking in grounding circles.
And this was Adrian. Who had stood by her in every ruined version of herself.
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"I'd…" Her voice cracked, so she swallowed and tried again. "I'd really like that. When we're ready."
His answering grin was so full of quiet joy it made her chest ache.
"Good. That's all I needed to hear."
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🌸
They started, cautiously, to dream.
Nothing elaborate yet—no contracts or mortgage hunting. Just small conversations in the quiet.
"Might be nice to have a sunroom," Mira mused one night, curled with him on her sofa, her feet tucked under his thigh.
"So your plants can finally stop dying tragic deaths?"
She swatted his arm. "They're not tragic, they're… artistically wilted."
"Right," Adrian drawled. "I'll start writing eulogies."
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Sometimes she caught him looking around her apartment with a thoughtful tilt to his head.
"You've done so well here," he said once, voice low, almost reverent. "Building this life from nothing. I hope if we ever live together, you'll keep that same fearless hand over things. I want our home to feel like you. Like us."
She had to kiss him then, because words felt too small.
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🌸
But the wider world had a way of intruding.
One afternoon she was reviewing lease renewals in her small office when her phone lit up with a call from a long-ago friend—Clara, a socialite she used to brunch with mostly because their mothers arranged it.
Mira almost let it go to voicemail. But curiosity (and a little old guilt) won out.
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"Clara! It's been… ages."
"Mira, darling!" Clara's voice was syrupy as ever. "So glad I caught you. Listen, we're putting together this charity showcase—some big design houses, a few galleries. We'd love to have you come, just for old times' sake. It'll be all over the society pages. You've been keeping such a low profile, people are positively intrigued."
Mira's stomach sank.
Intrigued was never good. It meant speculation, half-lies printed under elegant bylines, photographers trying to catch her in awkward angles.
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"I'm… really busy with the building," Mira hedged. "It's a rough season for maintenance—"
"Oh nonsense," Clara laughed. "Bring that handsome Adrian along. He's still at your side, isn't he? People would love a photo spread. Just think about it, will you? I'll text the details."
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After she hung up, Mira sat very still, fingers tightening around her phone.
She didn't realize Adrian had come in until he gently pried it from her grip.
"What's wrong?"
She explained, trying to sound casual, but he read her far too easily.
"It's just a party, Mira. You've been to a thousand."
"That's the problem," she whispered. "I don't want to be that girl anymore. The one who exists to be photographed at someone else's event so they can gossip about my fall from grace. Or speculate on whether I'm only 'slumming it' for thrills."
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Adrian was quiet for a moment. Then he lifted her chin so their eyes met.
"You're not that girl anymore. But if you decide you want to go—for you, not for them—I'll be there. Right beside you, exactly like always."
She let out a shaky laugh. "Even if the tabloids call you my tragic rebound from the Song family's rejection?"
"Especially then." His grin was wolfish. "I've always wanted to be scandalous."
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🌸
In the end, Mira declined the invitation.
Instead, she spent that evening with Adrian in her building's cozy back courtyard, stringing cheap fairy lights between the fences while tenants trickled in with folding chairs and plates of food.
It turned into an impromptu winter block party—people laughing over mismatched mugs of mulled wine, kids chasing each other around the cracked pavement.
Esha and Noor brought steaming biryani, the tailor downstairs handed out flaky sweet pastries, and someone even produced a battered guitar.
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Mira stood in the middle of it all, hands jammed into her coat pockets, feeling her heart bloom so wide it almost hurt.
This wasn't society's idea of success. No flashing cameras, no curated guest lists.
But it was real.
When Adrian pulled her close under the glow of the fairy lights and pressed a kiss to her temple, she realized she wouldn't trade this moment for any glittering ballroom.
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🌸
Yet even in this small new life, echoes of her old one rippled in.
A few weeks later, she walked into a coffee shop near the building and nearly collided with a journalist she vaguely recognized—one who used to write fluff pieces about "the Song girls."
They exchanged awkward greetings.
An hour later, Mira's phone buzzed with a polite but probing email.
"Would you be open to an interview? A piece on reinvention and resilience. Our readers would love an update on your journey from heiress to independent property owner…"
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She stared at it for a long time.
Then she thought about her tenants, her careful balance sheets, the trust she'd built by simply showing up day after day.
Maybe there was a story here worth telling—one about how real life wasn't all scandal or triumph, but something messy and deeply human in between.
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When Adrian came by that night, she showed him the email.
"You're allowed to say no," he said immediately. "Or yes. Or write your own damn article if that's what you want."
She laughed, even as tears pricked her eyes. "God, I love you."
He stilled, then blinked.
"What?"
Her breath caught. She hadn't planned to say it, certainly not blurt it out over a laptop screen. But the truth of it was too big to contain anymore.
"I love you, Adrian. In every version of this life. Even the messy, unglamorous one I was terrified you'd never want."
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His face cracked into the softest, brightest smile she'd ever seen.
"Thank you," he whispered, voice rough. "For letting me love all your versions back."
Then he pulled her into his lap, laptop forgotten, and kissed her like they had all the time in the world.
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🌸
By the end of winter, the little building stood prouder than ever—fresh signage for the tailor shop, tiny pots of daisies lining the front step, a new security light that didn't buzz ominously every time it switched on.
Mira was still learning, still stumbling. But she was also thriving.
And with Adrian at her side—his laughter in her kitchen, his steady hands over hers when doubt crept in—she found she could finally start planning a future that was truly theirs.
Maybe even a house with a sunroom someday. And plants that might actually live.