---
Mina stared at Ari and thought, What is going on?
Ari looked up at her with big, hopeful eyes. "Please? You're really pretty, and you saved me. That means you're a good person, right?"
Mina opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her brain—still processing the emotional wreckage of her morning—could not compute this.
A runaway child.
A near-death experience.
A stranger—handsome, panicked, and possibly insane—asking for her hand in marriage.
She glanced at him. His suit was expensive but wrinkled and soaked. His face was taut with worry, but his eyes… his eyes held the kind of desperate sincerity you couldn't fake.
"I'm sorry," she said, finally finding her voice. "Are you seriously proposing to a woman you just met in the middle of the street because your daughter ran into traffic?"
He flinched. "Okay, yes, it sounds crazy when you say it like that. But I have a reason. A very important one. Just give me five minutes. I'll explain everything."
Mina hesitated. Pride said to walk away. Reason screamed to run. But curiosity—traitorous, stupid curiosity—held her in place.
She crossed her arms. "Five minutes. That's it."
He straightened, ran a hand over his drenched face, and offered a sheepish smile. "Shall we head to my car first? It's drizzling."
---
He carried Ari in his arms and led Mina to his car, his broad shoulders blocking the worst of the rain as they moved. The little girl's damp curls left streaks on his ruined suit jacket, but he didn't seem to care—his entire focus was divided between the child in his arms and the wary woman following just out of reach.
Mina hesitated, raindrops catching in her lashes as she studied the man before her—this disheveled stranger with a CEO's posture and a single father's exhaustion. Every logical instinct told her to leave. But then Ari wiggled in his arms, stretching tiny fingers toward her.
*"Please?"* the girl whispered, her voice syrup-sweet and stubborn.
Joon adjusted his grip without breaking stride, his soaked sleeves clinging to his forearms as he nodded toward the sleek black sedan. "We can talk in the car," he said, his calm tone belied by the tension in his jaw—that unspoken plea for her not to run.
A gust of wind sliced through Mina's thin coat, making her shiver. Pride warred with the bone-deep ache of having nowhere else to go as her fingers brushed the divorce papers still crumpled in her pocket.
*Five minutes,* she reminded herself, and stepped forward.
Joon moved with the unconscious grace of someone used to holding fragile things. One arm cradled Ari effortlessly while the other hovered near Mina's elbow—not touching, but close enough to catch her if she slipped on the wet pavement. The absurdity of the moment prickled at her skin: a freshly-divorced waitress, a runaway heiress, and a CEO with a marriage proposal, trudging through the rain like characters in some twisted fairytale.
As he reached to open the car door, Ari nestled her head against his shoulder and grinned at Mina, her earlier defiance melting into sleepy contentment. *"See? Daddy's nice."*
Mina's throat went dry as she nodded nervously.
---
The car smelled faintly of leather and rain. Mina sat stiffly in the passenger seat, her arms still crossed, watching raindrops streak down the windshield. Ari was safely buckled in the backseat, humming to herself as if she hadn't just caused a minor heart attack.
Kang Joon turned the engine on, but didn't drive. Instead, he rested his hands on the steering wheel and exhaled like a man about to defuse a bomb.
"I know this is unorthodox," he began, voice low. "But I'm in a... complicated situation. My ex-wife is trying to take full custody of Ari."
Mina's eyes narrowed. "So you think proposing to a complete stranger in public is going to help your case?"
"Not just any stranger," he said quickly. "You saved her life. She—Ari—she doesn't take to people easily, but she clung to you like she'd known you for years. That matters."
Mina blinked, caught off guard.
"She's my everything," he continued, his fingers tightening slightly on the steering wheel. "But my ex-wife comes from a powerful family. She's well-connected, she's ruthless, and she's painting me as unstable, incapable of providing a nurturing home."
"And how does marrying me change that?" Mina asked, skeptical.
"Family court loves stability," he said. "Structure. A two-parent household, especially one where the child seems happy and safe. If I show them that Ari has not just a father, but a potential stepmother who genuinely cares about her, it could change everything."
Mina was quiet for a moment, absorbing his words.
"You want me to fake being your wife to win custody of your daughter."
"Just until the court date," he said quickly. "Three months, tops. No strings, no real obligations. I'll pay you, of course. Anything you need."
"And after that?"
"We go our separate ways. Clean break. I just... I need to give Ari a fighting chance. She deserves more than being turned into a pawn in a power game."
His voice cracked a little at the end, and Mina glanced back at Ari, who had fallen asleep, cheek pressed against the window.
"Three months?" she asked slowly.
He nodded.
Mina closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the seat.
"I must be out of my damn mind."
---
---
Kang Joon looked over, hopeful. "So… is that a yes?"
Mina sighed and turned to face him fully. "It's a maybe. And before you get any bright ideas, we're going to have rules. Clear ones."
He straightened like a student being scolded. "Rules. Of course."
"One," she said, holding up a finger. "No touching. No pet names. No pretending we're in love unless absolutely necessary."
"Understood."
"Two. You tell me everything—court dates, press, your ex's next move. If I'm playing the role of your loving fake wife, I'm not going in blind."
His mouth twitched, almost like he wanted to smile. "You'll be fully briefed."
"Three," she said, voice quieter now. "This ends the moment the custody case is over. No dragging it out. No mysterious extensions. No sudden surprises."
Joon hesitated for a breath before nodding. "Three months. I promise."
She exhaled, long and slow. "Okay, Mr. Kang Joon. I'll do it."
Relief broke across his face like the first sunlight after a storm. "Thank you. You don't know what this means to me."
"I don't need to," she said, undoing her seatbelt. "Just get me home. I'm soaking wet, unemployed, and newly divorced. If we're going to fake a marriage, I at least want dry socks."
He turned the ignition key with a soft laugh, the sound foreign even to his own ears.
Behind them, Ari stirred in her sleep, murmuring something too soft to catch. Mina glanced at her again, and this time, something unspoken passed through her chest—too delicate to name, too dangerous to linger on.
She looked away.
Fake or not, it had already begun.
---