One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 136: Chapter 136

The garden smelled like lavender and earth.
It was the scent of summer lingering on the edge of fall, when the breeze still carried warmth but the nights whispered promises of cooler days. Damien moved through the soft evening air with careful hands, stringing the fairy lights between the pergola beams the way he remembered—just as he had years ago, when he first asked her to be his wife.
Only this time, everything was different.
They had built a life.
They had bled and wept and laughed through births, breakdowns, love, and loss. And now, she wore the new ring on her right hand, his silent vow shimmering in every delicate sapphire glint.
But he hadn’t officially asked her.
Not with words.
Not yet.
He wasn’t waiting for perfection—he knew by now that didn’t exist. He was waiting for something real. A night like this. When the world felt slow and full of meaning, and she had that faraway look in her eyes—the one that meant she’d been writing, or crying, or both.
Arielle stepped outside wrapped in a knit shawl, her hair loose around her shoulders. The moment she saw the lights, she froze.
“Oh…”
Damien stepped forward, unsure, a sudden nervousness swelling in his chest. “Is this okay?”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“It’s perfect.”
She moved closer, fingers brushing over the nearby flowers he’d planted earlier that spring. Her voice trembled. “You remembered.”
“I remember everything about you,” he said.
A pause.
Then: “Even the moments I wasn’t worthy of them.”
Her eyes shimmered.
Damien reached into his pocket and pulled out the velvet box again. The one she’d found in the study. The one that had sat unopened for months while he waited.
He sank to one knee.
“Arielle Grace Whitaker,” he began, voice hoarse, “you saved my life. More times than I can count. You loved me when I wasn’t easy to love. You fought for us. For our family. For your own healing. You’ve taught me what it means to stay.”
Her breath caught.
“I didn’t want a grand gesture,” he continued. “I just wanted a second chance to ask you with the man I am now. A better man, I hope. A man who knows your worth. Who sees you—not just the mother, not just the survivor, but the woman who still makes my heart race when you walk into a room.”
She covered her mouth again as tears slipped down her cheeks.
Damien opened the box slowly.
“Will you marry me… again? Not just because we have a history. But because I want a future.”
Arielle knelt down to him, knees pressed into the earth. Her arms wrapped around his neck, the tears now falling freely.
“Yes,” she whispered against his skin. “Yes. A thousand times, yes.”
He slipped the sapphire ring onto her finger.
This time, it sat beside her wedding band—not replacing it, but complementing it.
Not erasing the past.
But illuminating it.
Later, they danced.
No music. Just the sound of wind in the leaves, and the fairy lights swaying like stars above their heads.
Damien held her close, resting his forehead against hers.
“I’ve never felt more married to you than I do right now.”
She smiled, eyes still wet. “Because now we know what the vows really mean.”
“To love in sickness,” he said.
“To hold through fear,” she added.
“To keep choosing each other—even when it hurts.”
They kissed. And this time, it didn’t feel like a return.
It felt like arrival.
Like something new.