And just as she feared, it was Maximilian.
"What are you doing back here?" he asked, his tone light, unaware of the storm brewing inside her.
"I..." Catherine almost told him the truth.
The words sat right at the edge of her lips, but disbelief held them back. She still couldn’t accept it herself—how could she have lost sothing so important, sothing she had waited for with such anticipation?
Instead, she turned away again, searching once more, as if the ring might suddenly appear out of sheer desperation. She retraced every step she had taken that morning, checked every surface again, every corner she had already checked twice, three tis over.
Nothing.
Her thoughts scrambled as she tried to rember the last mont she had seen it on her finger.
She couldn’t.
She wasn’t used to the weight of it yet.
And that realization only made it worse.
By the ti they stepped outside again, the cold air biting against her skin, Catherine couldn’t hold it in anymore. The guilt sat too heavy in her chest, choking her.
She reached for his hand, her fingers tightening around his, her heartbeat loud and uneven.
"I..." she began, her voice unsteady. "I lost the ring."
Maximilian stopped.
"I don’t rember where," she continued, the words spilling out now, rushed and panicked. "I rember sleeping with it, and in the morning, I—"
"Catherine..." he murmured, already reaching into his pocket.
"I don’t know where I left it," she pressed on, her brows knitting together, her voice breaking slightly. "I don’t even rember taking it off—"
"It’s here."
His words cut through hers.
She froze.
Maximilian held out a small velvet box.
"The ring is here."
Catherine stared at him, then slowly lowered her gaze to the box in his hand.
There it was.
Perfectly placed. Untouched. Glimring as though it had never left its place.
Her ring.
The sa one that had rested on her finger the night before, back where it began.
"I asked you this morning for it, rember?" Maximilian said gently.
Catherine looked up at him. Her brows drew together. And then—her lips trembled.
He knew that look. He didn’t wait. The mont it appeared, Maximilian turned and bolted.
"Stop, you dumb moose!" Catherine shouted, lunging after him.
Snow crunched under her boots, slipping in places, but she didn’t care. Her earlier panic had transford into pure, unfiltered outrage.
"I wanted a photoshoot!" he called over his shoulder, laughing as he ran, glancing back at her. "For your family! For rembrance! I asked you before taking it!"
"Like hell you did!" she snapped, chasing him faster. "Then why don’t I rember?"
"Because you were half asleep!"
"You liar!"
They ran like that, breathless and ridiculous, laughter and anger tangled together in the cold air, their voices echoing faintly across the quiet expanse.
Until...
They reached the lake.
Catherine slowed, her steps faltering as her breath ca in uneven bursts. She bent slightly, catching her breath, ready to throw another insult...
But then she looked up... and stilled.
The frozen lake stretched before her, but it wasn’t as they had left it. Sothing had changed.
The lake had transford.
What had been a quiet, frozen expanse monts ago now looked like sothing pulled straight out of a dream.
Torches and paper lanterns circled the lake, their flas flickering softly against the snow, casting a warm golden glow that danced across the ice. The trees surrounding them were no longer bare and still—they shimred with delicate fairy lights, ribbons woven through their branches, swaying gently in the cold breeze. Petals had been scattered across the ground, a trail of soft red against the white, leading her forward.
And right where she stood... was a heart.
Perfectly shaped, laid out in deep red rose petals against the snow.
Catherine’s breath caught in her throat.
For a mont, she couldn’t move.
Above her, the distant thrum of blades cut through the silence, and she instinctively looked up. A helicopter passed overhead, and as it did, a shower of petals began to fall, drifting down slowly, catching the light, surrounding her in a quiet storm of crimson and white.
She stood in the middle of it all, frozen, her earlier anger gone without a trace, replaced by sothing far too overwhelming to na. She also noticed all the caras recording and flashing at them. But she didn’t care about that.
Because... once... a long ti ago... she had liked a post of a proposal where the groom used a helicopter to rain petals. She had wanted it.
And this man...
Her throat went heavy with choked emotions.
And then... Maximilian stepped toward her, with that adorable smile of his.
Petals fell around him as he walked, his gaze fixed on her, steady, unwavering. When he reached her, he didn’t speak imdiately.
He simply dropped to one knee.
The velvet box opened in his hands.
The ring caught the light again, brighter this ti, as if it knew where it belonged.
"Catherine Elizabeth Preston," he said, his voice no longer teasing, no longer light—just full, grounded, carrying everything he felt without restraint. "I asked you once... and you said yes."
His lips curved faintly, but his eyes held sothing deeper.
"But I wanted to ask you again. The right way."
The wind stirred, carrying the faint scent of roses and snow.
"I want you beside ," he continued, softer now, but no less certain. "In every life we get... in every world we end up in... I want you with . Not because of fate, not because of promises we made before..."
He looked up at her fully.
"But because you choose ."
Catherine’s vision blurred.
"And I choose you," he said.
The petals continued to fall around them, settling at her feet, on her shoulders, in her hair.
"Will you marry ?"
For a heartbeat, for two, for sothing that felt like forever... She couldn’t speak.
And then she laughed; a breathless, trembling laugh that broke through the tears already slipping down her cheeks.
"Yes," she said, her voice shaking, but sure. "Yes. Yes, for every lifeti."
Maximilian exhaled, sothing in his shoulders loosening as if he had been holding that breath for a lifeti.
He slid the ring onto her finger, where it belonged.
And before she could say anything else, before she could even fully process it, she threw her arms around him.
He caught her instantly.
Laughed.
And then lifted her clean off the ground, spinning her in a slow circle as petals rained around them, the world blurring into nothing but light and color and warmth.
Catherine buried her face against his shoulder, her arms tightening around his neck.
"You idiot," she whispered, half laughing, half crying. "You absolute idiot... You have no idea how much I love you."
Maximilian only held her closer as they kissed.
And in that mont—standing at the edge of a frozen lake, surrounded by light, petals, and promises—
nothing else mattered.
Ti seed to return slowly after that.
The petals settled. The wind softened. Their laughter faded into quiet smiles, into lingering touches, into the kind of silence that only ca when two people had said everything that truly mattered.
Eventually, Catherine pulled back, still holding his hand, still glancing at the ring as if it might disappear if she looked away for too long.
"Wait," she said suddenly, eyes lighting up again. "The photos!"
Maximilian chuckled under his breath as she hurried to gather the photographers, her excitent bubbling over once more. They checked the footage together, standing close, shoulders brushing, her fingers occasionally tightening around his sleeve whenever she spotted a fra she liked.
"That one," she said, pointing. "And this—oh, and this one too."
He didn’t argue.
He rarely did, when she looked like that.
A few minutes later, Catherine sat on a low stone ledge, her phone in hand, carefully selecting the pictures. Her lips curved into a mischievous smile as she typed.
"I’m engaged!!!"
She hit send.
And chaos followed.
Her phone lit up almost instantly, buzzing non-stop, calls flooding in one after another. Catherine laughed, half-exasperated, half-thrilled, as she answered them—Sophia’s loud excitent, Miranda’s dramatic disbelief, Samantha’s squeal that nearly burst her eardrums.
Maximilian watched from beside her, amused, occasionally brushing snow off her shoulder or tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear while she spoke.
He made his own calls too, quieter, more composed—but the warmth in his voice didn’t go unnoticed.
Catherine spoke to Eileen.
To Alia.
There was happiness there—real, unfiltered—but beneath it, sothing quieter lingered. Sothing unspoken. Still, Catherine chose not to dwell on it. Not today.
Today was hers.
The day stretched on like that, filled with laughter, teasing, overlapping voices, and the kind of joy that felt almost too full to hold.
Far away from that warmth—
Fitzgerald Rathbourne sat alone, the glow of his laptop casting sharp shadows across his face.
A new email blinked open.
[Want to earn so money?]
He tapped his fingers lightly against the desk, eyes scanning the sender.
Dorian Blackwood.
A slow smile crept onto his lips.
After a mont, he typed.
{Sure}
The ssage sent with a soft click.
Fitzgerald leaned back in his chair, his gaze drifting upward to the ceiling, his expression unreadable, thoughtful—calculating.
"Preston..." he murmured, almost lazily.
His smile sharpened.
"et you soon."
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