One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 49: Chapter 49

The world moved fast when you were married to Damien Lancaster. One moment, Arielle was recovering from the firestorm at the dinner with Victor Grafton. The next, her schedule was filled with impromptu meetings, media apologies, and interviews that tried to rewrite her narrative with a gentler brush.
She hadn’t seen Damien much the past two days. He claimed he was working on something—something she didn’t need to worry about. That usually meant trouble. Or a palace.
But it was Wednesday morning when the email arrived.
> "Arielle, please be outside the bakery at 2:00 PM sharp. Don’t ask. Just trust me."
No subject line. Just that sentence. And her heart fluttered.
She arrived early.
The street outside her bakery had been cleared. Security barricades lined the sidewalk, and a soft spring breeze stirred the smell of rising dough from the vents.
Then came the reporters.
Camera crews. Paparazzi. Bloggers. Fans. All standing silently. No one shouting questions. No chaos. Just... waiting.
Her heart pounded. “What is this?” she asked her assistant.
But the girl only smiled. “I think it’s love.”
The limo arrived at exactly 2:00 PM.
Damien stepped out in a tailored gray suit, crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, no tie. He looked impossibly handsome and utterly calm.
He walked slowly, deliberately, through the hush of flashing lights and lenses.
He stopped in front of her.
“Arielle Monroe Lancaster,” he said, loud enough for the crowd to hear, but soft enough that it still felt like it was just between them.
Her breath caught.
Damien reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a velvet box. Then he dropped to one knee.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. The cameras clicked like thunder.
“I married you once,” he said, opening the box to reveal a ring unlike any she had ever seen—intertwined bands of rose gold and platinum, set with a brilliant marquise diamond and smaller sapphires framing the sides.
“I married you because I loved you. Because I saw in you everything the world pretended not to value—grit, grace, raw honesty. But I never gave you a moment worthy of you. We were rushed. Cornered. Quiet.”
Arielle’s hands trembled. Her eyes filled.
“So here I am again,” Damien continued. “No boardroom. No scandal. Just me, on my knees, asking the woman who made me believe in softness again—will you marry me again?”
She didn’t answer right away. She was crying too hard.
Then she laughed—half-broken, half-blissful—and nodded through her tears.
“Yes.”
And when she said it, the crowd broke into applause. Not orchestrated. Not polite.
Real.
Damien slipped the ring onto her finger and stood, cupping her face in both hands before kissing her in front of a hundred lenses.
It was raw. Glorious. Honest.
And it went viral before they even made it back inside.
The video was everywhere by nightfall.
Major news outlets ran with the headline: CEO Re-Proposes to Wife in Tearjerking Public Gesture
Celebrity blogs posted side-by-side photos of Arielle at the school gate, at the gala, and now—standing radiant in front of her bakery, crying in the arms of her husband.
But what mattered most wasn’t the trend.
It was the message.
Damien wasn’t apologizing.
He was declaring.
Arielle wasn’t surviving.
She was choosing.
And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel like someone the world tolerated.
She felt like someone it finally saw.
That night, lying in their bed, her hand over his heart, Arielle whispered, “You didn’t have to do all that.”
Damien kissed her knuckles. “Yes, I did.”
“Why now?”
He turned to face her, the city lights casting soft shadows on his face.
“Because after everything they’ve tried to take from you... from us... I wanted to give you something no one could twist.”
Arielle smiled, tears burning at
the corners of her eyes again.
“Then come here, husband.”
And the rest of the night was for them alone.