Hearing that his parents were coming to visit, the rich man begged a homeless girl to pretend to be his fiancée for just one evening.

When she entered the restaurant, Nathan’s mother couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” she almost shouted, stepping back as if caught in a crime. “Me? In this? Playing your fiancée? Yesterday, I was digging food out of a trash bin!”

Nathan quietly turned the lock, closed the door, and leaned against the wall.
“You have no reason to refuse. I’ll pay more than you can imagine. Just one evening. Be my fiancée—for them. For my parents. It’s just a game. A performance. Or have you forgotten how to act?”

She said nothing. Her fingers in the worn gloves trembled. Her heart pounded as if trying to escape. Could this be the start of a new life? Or at least the end of an old pain?

The Proposition

Nathan Berg was as wealthy as a small country. Young, severe, with cold eyes and a composed expression, his name appeared on the covers of business magazines and in lists of the world’s most eligible bachelors. His life was perfect on paper—education, money, power.

But his parents, living in Europe, kept asking:
“When will we finally meet your girlfriend? Why are you hiding her from us?”

Then came the surprise—his parents decided to arrive unannounced. Tomorrow.

Nathan wasn’t afraid—he was simply perplexed. It wasn’t about fearing their judgment; it was about the fact that he found no woman suitable for the role. He despised actresses, couldn’t stand fake smiles. He needed someone… real. Or at least someone completely unlike what they expected.

The Encounter

That evening, driving through the cold city streets, Nathan noticed her at the metro entrance—a guitar at her side and a cardboard sign reading: “I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for a chance.”

He stopped. For the first time, he didn’t just drive past.
“What’s your name?”
She looked up, voice raspy but full of pride.
“And why do you need to know?”
“I need a woman who knows how to survive. For real. Alive. Without makeup. Like you.”

Her name was Marta. She was twenty-seven. Behind her were years in an orphanage, escapes, life on the streets, rehabilitation, cold nights, and music—her only truth.

Transformation

The next evening, Marta stood in a suite at the Emerald Hotel. Her hands shook as she smoothed the fabric of an expensive deep-sea velvet dress. Her freshly washed and styled hair shone; makeup refined her features so much she was almost unrecognizable.

“They’re already at the restaurant,” Nathan said, adjusting his cufflinks. “We’re late for our happiness.”
“Do you think this will work?”
“I think you’re the only person who can win over my mother.”

The Dinner

In the restaurant, everything seemed under control—almost. His father was reserved but attentive. His mother, refined and sharp-eyed, could read a person with a single glance. She fixed her gaze on Marta.
“How did you meet my son?” she asked.

Marta felt Nathan’s eyes on her. He gave a small nod.
“At a bookstore,” Marta replied. “I dropped a volume of Schopenhauer, and he picked it up. We both laughed.”
“Schopenhauer?” the woman asked, surprised. “You read philosophy?”
“As a child,” Marta said. “In our orphanage, the librarian let us borrow even the most difficult books if we promised to bring them back.”

The mother lowered her glass slowly, her gaze unwavering.
“In an orphanage?” she asked again, her tone a mix of curiosity and something else—maybe recognition of her own past pain.

Marta straightened. “I’m lying. I’m not your son’s fiancée. We didn’t meet in a bookstore but on the street. I’m homeless. Just a woman who’s tired of being invisible, finally feeling human again.”

Instead of outrage, Nathan’s mother stood, walked to Marta, and embraced her.
“My daughter… I, too, started with nothing. Someone gave me a chance, and I’m glad you took yours.”

Aftermath

Nathan’s father broke the silence. “This is madness, Nathan. You’ve brought us into some street fantasy?”
“This is my choice,” Nathan replied calmly. “Not your verdict.”

After dinner, Marta stepped outside, removed her shoes, and leaned against the wall, tears rolling down her face—not from shame, but relief. She had told the truth, and no one had turned away.

Nathan approached, gently placing his coat around her shoulders.
“You’re not going back to the street. You’ll live with me. As long as you need. You deserve more.”

A New Chapter

Their life together was strange but honest. Nathan worked late into the night; Marta studied, read, attended lectures, cooked, and occasionally played her guitar—not for money, but because something alive was stirring inside her.

One day, Nathan observed, “You’ve changed.”
“I’m just not afraid anymore that someone will throw me out.”

A month later, his father left for good, sending only a letter: “If you choose your heart, don’t count on my fortune.” Nathan burned it without opening.
“Money comes and goes. If you lose yourself, you’re worth nothing.”

The Turning Point

Three months later, Marta sat on the bathroom floor, staring at a pregnancy test—two lines.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered. “We’re not even… together.”

When she told Nathan, he held her in silence, then said, “I don’t know what this feeling is called, but I know it’s right.”

Life Rebuilt

There were legal battles over land his father tried to claim, internet rumors about “the billionaire and the homeless woman staging a romance,” and a difficult birth filled with fear.

But then came a new life—a baby, and a stronger family than either had imagined.

Marta became a writer, telling her story not as a beggar by the roadside but as a woman who had passed through poverty, indifference, and betrayal—and survived.
“I was a fiancée for an evening,” she told audiences. “Now I’m a wife for life—because one person saw me as a human being.”

Full Circle

Years later, at the same restaurant, Marta held the hand of a ten-year-old girl with thick, wavy hair.
“See, sweetheart? This is where your father finally smiled for the first time. This is where we became a family.”

Nathan stood beside them, smiling with no hint of regret. He had not married a princess—he had chosen a queen.
One who had once sat on the street with a cardboard sign, asking not for help, but for a chance.