One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 131: Chapter 131

It started with a song.
Arielle was washing bottles in the kitchen, the midday light streaming through the window like melted gold. The twins were napping. The baby gurgled softly in the bassinet. Outside, the breeze ruffled the wind chimes.
And then the first notes played.
It was a soft acoustic tune—one she hadn’t heard in years. The moment it began, her hands stilled in the soapy water. Her heart fluttered.
Their first dance.
The song that had played the night they’d wandered onto that empty rooftop above the bookstore, swaying together beneath stars and city sounds, long before rings and babies and complications.
She turned toward the living room.
Damien stood at the old record player he’d dusted off from the garage. He didn’t say anything, just held up a small, leather-bound notebook.
She dried her hands slowly.
“What is this?”
He smiled. “It’s a playlist. Our playlist. I’ve been working on it since before the wedding. Songs I’ve collected across our time together. Some you know. Some you forgot. Some you might not realize were always about you.”
She stepped closer, heart thudding. “Play it.”
And he did.
Track One: That rooftop song. Their first slow dance. No choreography, just laughter, shoes kicked off, her head on his shoulder as the city hummed beneath them.
She closed her eyes, and it was there again—the scent of old paper and beer, the way his hands trembled just before he kissed her.
“I was so scared you’d vanish,” he said quietly. “That night, I realized I could love you forever.”
She didn’t speak. She just reached for his hand.
Track Two: A jazzy, up-tempo tune that had blared from the car radio during their first road trip. They’d gotten lost in a tiny town with no signal and danced outside a diner while waiting for directions.
“You had chocolate on your lip,” he murmured, chuckling.
“And you kissed me anyway,” she replied.
“Couldn’t resist.”
Track Three: A lullaby. Soft. Melancholy.
She looked at him then.
“The miscarriage,” she said.
He nodded. “I played this in the car that day. I couldn’t cry at the hospital. But this song…”
Her breath caught. She stepped into his arms. They didn’t say much. They didn’t need to. The music filled in the words neither of them could voice back then. A memory both painful and sacred.
Track Four: A sultry, soulful melody that sparked laughter.
“Oh my God,” she said, “you put this on during our first real fight!”
He winced, grinning. “I thought it would lighten the mood.”
“You were wrong.”
“But it worked eventually.”
They burst out laughing, collapsing onto the couch, shoulders bumping. And just like that, the tension from the week faded. He kissed the side of her neck playfully. “You threw a pillow at me.”
“You deserved it.”
“Still do.”
Track Five: A haunting piano piece. The song that had played the night she went into premature labor.
“You were in pain,” Damien said softly. “But you didn’t cry. You just kept whispering our kids’ names like prayers.”
Arielle swallowed hard.
He took her hand. “Every second of that night, I prayed too. I asked for one more moment with you. And every time this plays, I remember how strong you were. How you stayed.”
Track Six: Their wedding song. Not the one they danced to at the ceremony—but the one that had played on repeat the night they got drunk in their apartment, dancing barefoot in the kitchen, her veil tangled in a ceiling fan.
“Still the best reception ever,” she laughed.
“Even if we forgot to eat the cake.”
“I forgave you for that.”
He grinned. “Eventually.”
Track Seven: A song she didn’t recognize at first—instrumental, modern. Then the lyrics kicked in.
She carries the weight of sunlight / when it forgets how to shine.
She looked at Damien, brow furrowed.
“I wrote this one,” he said quietly.
She blinked. “You… what?”
“During the hardest days. After the baby was born. When you couldn’t walk across the room without flinching. I recorded it with a friend. It’s… it’s yours.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You already have. Just by being here. Still breathing. Still loving.”
As the final track played—a simple guitar ballad he used to hum while brushing her hair when she was pregnant with Elijah—Arielle lay back against his chest. They sat on the floor, surrounded by memories.
“Promise me we’ll dance to all of these again,” she whispered.
“We will,” he replied. “At our second wedding. In front of the kids. And maybe… at your greenhouse.”
She smiled. “I want them to know this kind of love.”
“They will. They already do. They see it in you every day.”
The playlist ended.
But the story it told—theirs—played on in the quiet hum of the home they had built.
Not perfect.
But deeply, wildly, irrevocably true.