Forced into a debt-clearing marriage and seated beside a groom who wouldn’t kiss his bride, Lila learned the truth the night she stumbled: Ethan could stand. The wheelchair was a shield—against gold-diggers, against a stepfamily hungry for his inheritance. Her anger cooled when she overheard Helena planning a fire to finish the “helpless” heir. Lila slipped Ethan a warning, and when flames ate his empty room, the masks burned too. Arrests followed. In the smoke’s afterglow, he stood before her—no tests, no lies—and asked to start again.
They did. Pasta left at midnight became conversations, then trust, then love. A second wedding by the sea replaced chandeliers with sunlight and vows that finally meant something. Together they built a school with his fortune and her heart, proof that falling can be a doorway, not an ending. Years later, with their daughter laughing in the courtyard, Lila knew: security never saved her—choosing each other did.
