POV Jocelyn

There’s something absolutely fucking surreal about hearing the word “remission” spoken aloud in daylight.

Not whispered in desperate prayer.

Not scribbled in doctor’s notes that require translation.

Just said clearly, directly, in a sunlit clinic room where Mia sat upright swinging her legs like cancer had never tried to murder her.

Dr. Hoffman’s voice was warm, congratulatory, somehow distant—like it was echoing through water or maybe my brain had just short-circuited from shock.

I barely heard the technical details, the follow-up schedules, the monitoring protocols.

My entire consciousness latched onto three words: No active cancer.

My knees buckled. Didn’t fall—thank Christ, because that would’ve been embarrassing as hell—but my breath left in a gust I hadn’t realized I’d been holding for six months.

My hands flew to cover my mouth as tears broke loose like a dam explosion.

Hot, shaking, impossible to contain. A sob cracked from my chest loud enough to startle nurses in the hallway, probably making them think someone had died instead of someone finally getting to live.

“Mommy?” Mia’s voice was light, confused, completely unbothered by the fact that I was having an emotional breakdown in public. “Are you crying happy again?”

I dropped to my knees beside her bed, laughing through tears that felt like they were washing away six years of terror.

“Yes, baby. The happiest I’ve ever been.”

Zayden stepped forward without a word, his hands landing on both our backs like an anchor in a storm I never thought we’d survive.

No CEO mask. No controlled perfection. Just quiet reverence as he knelt beside us and held on like we might disappear if he let go.

Time passed—could’ve been minutes, could’ve been hours—until Mia got bored with our crying and started telling her stuffed tiger the good news with the seriousness of a medical correspondent.

I sat back, wiped my face with the back of my hand, and tried to remember how to breathe like a normal human being instead of someone who’d been drowning for years.

That’s when Zayden reached into his blazer.

“Wait,” I said, raising a hand because my emotional capacity was maxed out for the day. “Please don’t tell me that’s a ring. I’m not sure I can handle any more major life events without requiring sedation.”

“It’s not a ring,” he replied, smiling that soft smile I was still getting used to. “Not yet.”

He handed me a navy-blue velvet box that looked expensive enough to contain state secrets.

I opened it cautiously—and frowned like I was solving a puzzle.

No diamond. No sparkle. Just a stack of ivory paper, carefully folded and bound with satin ribbon that probably cost more than my first apartment’s security deposit.

I undid the ribbon with trembling fingers, heart hammering for reasons I couldn’t name yet.

Gold-embossed print at the top read: The Hartwell Initiative – Founding Contract.

Beneath that, my name. My full fucking name. As owner.

“What is this?” I whispered, because apparently my vocabulary had shrunk to basic questions.

“A foundation,” Zayden said softly. “Under your control. Fully funded for decades. Clinics, shelters, employment training, childcare programs. Everything you didn’t have when you needed it most.”

I stared at him like he’d just spoken in ancient Greek.

“I don’t want to be the man who just rescued you,” he continued. “I want to build something with you. You once said love wasn’t a promise—it was a pattern. This is me proving I’ve learned yours.”

The room tilted sideways. I pressed the papers to my chest and tried to remember how breathing worked.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would you give this to me?”

“Because you turned pain into purpose. Because you fought every single day and still managed to love her fiercely. Because this world breaks women like you—and you’re still standing.”

He stepped closer, green eyes serious as surgery.

“You taught me what strength actually looks like. I want to put your name on something permanent. Something powerful. Something that says: Jocelyn Hartwell survived and thrived.”

I blinked hard. “You used my last name.”

He nodded. “Not because I gave it to you. But because you earned it.”

Tears threatened again, but this time they felt different. Cleaner.

He wasn’t done.

Zayden reached into his other pocket and pulled out a smaller box—square, unmistakable, the kind that makes single women’s fight-or-flight responses activate.

“Zayden…” I breathed.

“Wait,” he said gently. “I need to do this properly.”

He knelt, but not with grand theatrics or orchestral swells.

No cameras, no witnesses except Mia, who was still braiding ribbons into her tiger’s tail and humming something that sounded like a medical commercial jingle.

“I met you as a stranger in a ballroom,” Zayden said, voice rough with emotion that made my chest tight. “Then I lost you without ever knowing what I had. You gave me a daughter I didn’t know I needed. You gave me a chance to become someone better than the man I was raised to be.”

He opened the box.

Inside was a ring—rose gold, single square-cut diamond flanked by two smaller stones. Elegant, strong, undeniably perfect in a way that made my throat close up.

“I’m not perfect,” he continued. “Never will be. I’ll probably drive you crazy with my control issues and brooding. But I love you. And I will spend every day proving that love means showing up. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”

He reached toward my hand but didn’t take it, waiting for permission.

“I don’t want to fix you or own you or change you into someone more convenient. I just want to build a life with you. A real one. With scraped knees and school plays and teenage rebellion and whatever comes after that.”

I looked down at this man who’d once been a fantasy, a beautiful lie behind a charity gala mask. Now kneeling in Swiss clinic lighting, offering me everything I’d never dared believe I deserved.

The foundation papers still trembled in my other hand.

“I burned the first ring,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said.

“This one’s different.”

“It’s real.”

I exhaled, feeling the weight in my chest finally lift after six years of carrying it alone. I stepped forward, took the ring with fingers that barely shook, and kissed his palm like a promise.

This time, I didn’t cry.

I said ‘yes’.