Here’s a shortened version that keeps the core meaning and emotional arc:
When Marta entered the restaurant, her mother recoiled in shock.
“Have you lost your mind? Me? Here? Pretending to be your fiancée? Yesterday, I was digging through trash.”
Nathan locked the door, leaned back, and said:
“Just one evening. I’ll pay whatever you want. Be my fiancée—for my parents. It’s only a play. Or have you forgotten how to act?”
Her gloved hands trembled. Could this be a new beginning?
Nathan Berg, a wealthy, stoic man with influential parents, had a problem. His parents, curious about his love life, were arriving unannounced. He despised fake women, needed someone real.
Then he saw Marta—27, homeless, with a cardboard sign: “I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for a chance.”
She agreed.
The next night, dressed in velvet at the Emerald Hotel, she barely recognized herself.
At the restaurant, under his mother’s watchful gaze, Marta lied about meeting Nathan in a bookstore. Then paused. And told the truth.
“I’m homeless. He gave me a chance. For the first time, I feel human.”
His mother stood and hugged her.
“I started with nothing too. I’m glad you took your chance.”
Nathan’s father was cold. “This is madness.”
“It’s my choice,” Nathan replied.
Outside, Marta cried from relief. She had told the truth, and no one turned away.
“You won’t go back to the street,” Nathan said. “You deserve more.”
“I’m not asking for pity.”
“I’m giving you an opportunity.”
They built a quiet life. He worked, she studied. She played guitar not for money, but because she was healing.
“You’ve changed,” he said.
“I’m just not afraid anymore.”
A month later, his father cut him off. Nathan didn’t flinch.
“Money comes and goes. Lose yourself, and you’re nothing.”
Three months later, Marta found out she was pregnant.
“It’s too early… we’re not even a couple…”
Nathan hugged her. “Whatever this is, it feels right.”
They faced rumors, court battles, a difficult birth.
But Marta emerged stronger—a woman who once held a cardboard sign, now holding a microphone, telling her story.
“I was a fiancée for an hour. Now, I’m a wife for life—because one person saw me as human.”
Years later, back at the same restaurant, Marta held her daughter’s hand.
“See, baby? This is where we became a family.”
Nathan smiled beside her. He didn’t marry a princess. He chose a queen—one who once only asked for a chance.
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