He Proposed For His Ex

What does it feel like when the boy you loved in secret for seven years turns around and asks you to be his wife? On my twenty-fifth birthday, Jasper Reynolds dropped to one knee. When he slid that diamond onto my finger, a constellation of fireworks exploded along the riverfront, painting the dark water in shades of violent gold and violet. For twenty-four hours, the spectacle held the top spot on local feeds. A fairy tale, strangers called it. The kind of grand gesture that made ordinary girls believe in miracles. A few days later, my thumb slipped while scrolling, and I landed on a livestream. It belonged to Lexie. The girl who had carved my high school years into a series of jagged, bleeding wounds. "Did you guys see that proposal blowing up TikTok?" she was saying, leaning into the ring light, her glossed lips parted in a knowing smirk. "The guy on his knee? Yeah. That's my ex." The live chat started scrolling with question marks, disbelief, and mockery. "You think I'm lying?" Lexie laughed, a light, tinkling sound that sent an instinctive shudder through my spine. She tapped her screen, inviting a user with a solid black profile picture up to the audio broadcast. "Look. The man himself is right here. Ask him." ... My breath caught in my throat. Jasper used that same void of a black avatar. "It’s a coincidence," I told myself, the blood roaring in my ears like static. "Half the men in this city use blank avatars. And how many people proposed by the river this week?" Still, my fingers moved toward the icon. When I lifted my hand, I realized I was trembling so violently I could barely strike the glass. Before I could click, the feed refreshed. The audio linked, and for a split second, a camera angle flickered on the guest's end. A man’s torso. Broad shoulders encased in an unbuttoned slate-gray shirt. And behind him, the tall, built-in walnut bookshelves of our new brownstone—holding a vase of white lilies I had purchased only that morning. The floor seemed to drop out from beneath my feet. "Say something," Lexie pouted, resting her chin on her manicured hand, batting her eyelashes at the screen. "They think I'm making it up. Are you really going to let your girl look foolish in front of ten thousand people?" The man’s shoulders moved. A silent, amused chuckle. He didn't speak. Instead, ten massive animated gift rockets lit up her screen in rapid succession, turning her room into a cascade of virtual neon. The chat went feral. "Wait, is this the billionaire ex who spent three years chasing her across the Atlantic?" "The End-Game Ship is real?! I literally learned about romance from their breakup posts!" "Didn't he just get engaged? What about the poor fiancée?" "What fiancée? It’s an arranged merger. Pure family business. No feelings involved." I sat in the dark of my room, staring through the blue light of my screen, the air in my lungs turning to glass. That room was the study of our home. The walnut shelves had been custom-built to my exact height so I wouldn’t need a step stool to reach my design drafts and art books. On the upper rows sat his heavy volumes on macroeconomics and political history. The expansive white-oak desk was his idea—made double-wide so we could sit opposite each other on quiet evenings, working in companionable silence. Just yesterday afternoon, I had sketched two portraits of him across that very desk. The low autumn sunlight had washed across the clean line of his cheekbone, and I had lost myself in the angle of his face. He had caught me staring, glancing up with that impossibly tender smile. "Am I monopolizing the great designer Irene's billable hours? Maybe I should take the guest room. I don't want to get in your way." I had shaken my head furiously. "No. Stay." He had laughed—that low, warm rumble—and leaned across the oak to press a lingering kiss to my forehead. My face had burned crimson. Even after all this time, touch was complicated for me. The ghosts of high school still lingered in my nerve endings, making me flinch at sudden gestures. But I had welcomed Jasper’s kisses. Because every time he held me, he held me as if I were made of blown glass. As if I were something precious. How could that man be the same one sharing a clandestine late-night feed with Lexie? On screen, Lexie played with a lock of hair, casual as a cat batting at a wounded mouse. "Sending gifts won't shut me up, Jasper. You know me better than that." She tilted her head toward the lens. "Everyone wants the truth? Fine. That antique cut ring he slipped on her finger? It’s the one I turned down three years ago when we had that blowout in Paris. Those riverfront fireworks? Booked for an anniversary we never got to celebrate. Hell, even that charcoal silk tie he was wearing in the video—I bought that for him in London during our last Valentine’s together." Her smile was sharp enough to draw blood. "Everyone knows the Reynolds heir doesn't hurt for money. You really think he put on that whole circus for "her"? It was a message to me." A cold numbness crept down my arms, settling into the tips of my fingers. I remembered the weight of the platinum band when Jasper slipped it on my hand, his voice thick with emotion: "This ring means everything to me, Irene. Promise me you’ll never lose it." I had been so overwhelmed with reverent gratitude that I put it in the safe the moment we got home, terrified I might scratch the stone. It was an off-cast. A ghost of a promise made to the girl who had almost broken my spine. Tears, hot and silent, spilled over my lashes. Why? Seven years. I had worshipped Jasper Reynolds from the shadows for seven years. When my world was an unlivable nightmare, he had been the solitary sliver of light slipping under the door. He knew what happened to me. He had held me through panic attacks that left me choking for air, whispering with furious certainty that the people who hurt me were monsters who deserved to rot. He had pursued Lexie? Dated her? Mourned her? It felt like a fever dream. My trembling hand brought up my keypad. I dialed his private number. Through the phone in my hand, I heard the ringing. A second later, that exact ringtone chimed through Lexie's livestream. I bit down on the inside of my lip until the sharp, metallic taste of copper filled my mouth. Two rings. Then the call was abruptly silenced. "Ooh," Lexie cooed, eyebrows arching in theatrical amusement. "The little fiancée? Why didn't you answer? Put her on speaker. Let her say hello. After all, we're practically old friends, aren't we?" The silence stretched over the digital connection, taut and suffocating. Then came Jasper’s voice. That familiar, velvet tone. "There's no need," he said with an easy, dismissive chuckle. "Besides... didn't you always hate the sound of her voice?" Lexie burst into delighted laughter. A wave of ancient nausea rose in my throat, violent and paralyzing. I could hardly keep my balance. The comment section was spiraling into hysteria. "So the golden boy proposed to someone else just to make his queen jealous?! That is criminally romantic." "Wait, is this fiancée the same girl who got Lexie kicked out of Saint Jude’s back in the day?" "Holy shit, it is! The corporate pet! He’s marrying her to avenge Lexie!" I stood frozen in the center of the dark bedroom, my arms hanging limp. Three years. For three years at Saint Jude’s Academy, Lexie had ensured I didn't have a single safe inch of ground to stand on. Perhaps it was because I was quiet, or because the first week of freshman year I hadn't handed over my lunch money when she demanded it with a laugh. Or perhaps cruelty never requires a reason at all. They shoved wet trash into my locker. They created group chats dedicated solely to mocking my thrift-store sweaters. They shredded my art portfolios and padlocked me inside the gym bathroom during winter afternoons until the heating clicked off. They whispered loudly in the corridors about my bloodline. The dirty secret of the wealthy Bancroft family: the illegitimate daughter born to a mistress who lost her mind. It didn't matter that my father sent a black town car to drop me off at the gates every morning. Everyone knew no one was ever coming to defend me. When they realized I wouldn't fight back, the games evolved. One afternoon, they lured an intellectually disabled boy from the special education annex into an empty third-floor classroom and locked me inside with him. Just because I had once given him an eraser when he dropped his pencil case, they spread rumors that he was my secret lover. I could still hear them laughing through the reinforced glass window, pounding on the door, watching as the boy grew agitated, screaming and backing me into the corner. I had curled under a row of desks like a cornered stray, sobbing into my knees. That was when Jasper appeared. He had unbolted the door and stepped into the room. The afternoon sun had caught his jawline, rendering him almost blinding. I was covered in dust and tears, a pathetic, shivering mess. He had knelt down, pulled a clean handkerchief from his blazer, and carefully blotted the tears from my cheeks. I had looked down in burning shame, but he had merely spoken softly: "Excuse me, do you know the way to the headmaster's office?" The kids outside had vanished. The disabled boy was gone. I wiped my face, stood up, and nodded. The walk down the hall felt infinitely short. When he thanked me at the door, I finally gathered the courage to look into his eyes. He had the kindest smile I had ever seen. I turned away quickly, terrified he would hear the violent hammering of my heart against my ribs. Back then, I never asked myself why the student council president happened to be wandering that deserted wing. I never asked why he picked me. And I certainly never imagined he was looking at Lexie. On the screen, Lexie sighed magnanimously. "Let’s not be too mean, guys. The past is in the past, and honestly, they look fine together." A fan immediately chimed in on the text feed: "Don't be too nice, Lexie! We all remember how she framed you for assault. The cops came, and it turned out the bruises were from her crazy mother!" "She took away your senior year out of pure spite." "If Jasper hadn’t arranged your prep school transfer to Switzerland, your life would’ve been over." "Didn’t he pay your tuition for three full years?" "Remember when Lexie showed us that shoe box full of flight stubs? He was flying to Zurich every holiday." The year Lexie was expelled. That was the year my biological father married his fifth wife. My mother’s descent into paranoid schizophrenia had reached its zenith; during her episodes, she would smash every plate in the apartment, screaming at me because I had my father's eyes. She hated the memory of the romance he had given her, only to discard her like an old coat. I spent weeks listening to her sobbing through thin walls, rarely sleeping more than two hours a night. So when Lexie dragged me into the girl's locker room and "accidentally" tipped a five-gallon bucket of ice water over my head, my body simply shut down. I passed out cold on the tile. It was an art teacher walking past who saw my shivering, bruised body and dialed 911. The incident exploded. Lexie was quietly expelled under threat of litigation. The details of my mother's abuse and the Bancroft family's hush money were kept strictly out of the papers. I remained an outcast, but I noticed Jasper's eyes lingering on me in the hallways after that. Later, I applied to the same college he attended. I joined the campus design society because he was its advisor. We became the sort of friends who shared a bench and a coffee between lectures. During our first two years at university, he traveled abroad constantly. Entire breaks would pass without a word. At the end of junior year, hearing he was due back, I manufactured an excuse to meet him at JFK. I got lost in the international terminal, sweating through my coat, frantically scanning the crowd. When I accidentally collided with him near baggage claim, I looked up into his face. The look in his eyes was pure, hollow grief. I pulled back, mortified, asking tentatively if something awful had happened overseas. He looked at me for a long, quiet moment, then said, almost offhandedly: "Irene. Do you want to try being together?" I thought I had won the lottery. I thought love was a quiet seed that had finally bloomed. After that day, he never took another international flight. When I asked why, he smiled and touched my hair, saying he just wanted to be home with me. Now the pieces aligned with sickening clarity. He hadn't been traveling for business or leisure. He was visiting Lexie. Were my clumsy attempts at affection something they laughed about over dinner in Europe? No wonder he always changed the subject whenever Saint Jude’s came up. No wonder he could never tell our friends what his first impression of me had been. No wonder he never once introduced me as his high school classmate. The memories shattered, sharp edges turning inward. Tears fell like lead weights onto my bare knees. Through the phone, Lexie’s voice turned honeyed and provocative. "Tell me, Jasper... if you’re really over me, why didn't you put my name on the wedding guest list? Are you scared to see me?" The man let out a dark, low chuckle, saying nothing. My gaze drifted to the leather-bound planner on the desk, where the final, finalized guest list lay awaiting my signature. I picked up the pen. In the final blank space, in clean, steady strokes, I wrote her name. "Jasper, I’m giving you exactly what you want." Lexie grew bored after a few more minutes and signed off. Silence reclaimed the room. Outside, twilight deepened into ink. Nearly forty minutes later, my phone vibrated against the desk. Jasper. My muscles were stiff from sitting in the cold. It took an effort to lift the device to my ear. His voice came through, full of easy warmth and gentle apology. "Irene? Sweetheart, did you call earlier? Is everything okay?" "What were you doing?" My voice sounded sandpaper-dry, foreign to my own ears. He paused for half a beat, his tone smooth as glass. "Silly girl, did you forget? I’ve been at the new house all afternoon with the planners, going over the floral arrangements." "Right." He had canceled an executive board meeting to spend the day at the brownstone. He had promised me an unforgettable wedding, designing the space with his own hands, checking every fabric swatch. If I hadn't tapped on that stream, I would still be sitting here, bathed in the delusion of being adored. Was it really revenge? Did he pursue me, cradle me, touch me with reverence, solely to punish me for being an inconvenience to Lexie? "Irene? What's wrong?" He caught the flat edge in my silence, his tone instantly shifting to concern. "Are you crying?" I swallowed the bile at the back of my throat, forcing the muscles of my face into a practiced, empty smile. "Nothing. I just wanted to let you know the guest list is finalized. I added one person." He let out a relieved laugh. "That’s what this is about?" "You're the bride, Irene. You can invite whoever you want. You never have to ask my permission." "She’s an old classmate from Saint Jude’s," I said evenly. "I thought you might remember her." A beat of polite curiosity: "Oh? Who?" "Lexie Thorpe." The silence on the line was instant, total, and absolute. Seconds dragged into eternity before I heard the faint sound of his sharp intake of air. "Why... why would you invite her?" His voice dropped an octave, the warmth vanishing behind a wall of caution. "I thought you... despised her." I didn't miss the subtle defense embedded in his words. I kept my voice quiet, deadened of inflection. "I don't despise her out of vanity, Jasper. She hurt me. But having her there is a way of reminding myself that the past is dead. That I've moved on." Another long silence. Then, cautiously: "If that brings you peace... I’m proud of you." For the rest of the call, his mind was miles away. He didn't ask how my day at the firm was, nor did he describe the floral centerpieces he had spent five hours reviewing. I played my part, hanging up with a quiet goodnight. Immediately, my screen lit up with another caller ID: Meredith. My half-sister. The eldest, legitimate daughter of the Bancroft estate. I didn't need to answer to know why she was calling. Tomorrow was the monthly dinner at the family compound. Ever since the patriarch's liver started failing, the old man had developed a sudden, sentimental itch to play the repentant father. Out of all his illegitimate offspring, I was the only one who hadn't groveled at his bedside for stock options. Combined with my impending union with the Reynolds family, I had suddenly become worthy of a seat at the mahogany dining table. The other twenty-odd members of the extended Bancroft clan hated me for it. To Meredith, the ideal scenario would be the complete dissolution of my engagement. It would strip me of any leverage, allowing her to turn her full attention to gutting the other contenders for the family trust. I swiped accept. Her voice came through crisp, imperious, and cold. When I told her I had no intention of showing up to the estate tomorrow, her sharp breathing eased into something approaching satisfaction. "Don't flatter yourself into thinking the old man's sudden guilt gives you a claim to the estate," she warned, ice in her cadence. "When he's in the ground, I take the chair. And a Reynolds alliance won't save you from being cut loose." I stared at the city lights below my window. "If I guarantee that I will vanish permanently, leaving you with zero competition... would you do me a favor?" A pause on the other end. "What kind of favor?" "Help me leave the country." ... Over the next two weeks, I cited extreme deadlines at the architectural firm, handing over every detail of the wedding logistics to Jasper. He threw himself into the revisions. Every time he altered an element, he made a point of sitting down with me, his eyes full of earnest devotion. "Let's swap the red wine for sparkling white grape juice. Your cycle starts right after the reception; I don't want you getting cramps." "White lilies look a bit stark for the altar. Champagne roses will bring out the warmth in your skin." "Buttercream cake is so standard. I spoke to the patisserie—a dark chocolate Black Forest with kirsch will be far more memorable." He was persuasive, gentle, a master at framing his adjustments as acts of supreme consideration. Except I knew. The grape juice was because Lexie had a severe allergy to tannins. The champagne roses were because Lexie once declared on her feed that no woman should ever marry without them. And the Black Forest cake was simply Lexie’s favorite dessert in the world. I hadn't known any of this before. But over the last fourteen days, I had watched her channel far more diligently than he ever did. On the day the formal embossed invitations arrived at her flat, her livestream was practically electric. "Is the fiancée picking a fight? Does she really think she won?" "Lexie, go! Set up a live feed right from the pews! We’ve got your back!" "Expose what a fake she is in front of high society. Let’s see who claps for her then." "Wait, is Jasper actually marrying her? I thought this was just a game?" Lexie leaned back against her pillows, swirling a glass of sparkling water, a triumphant smirk curving her mouth. "I wondered why he was texting me so many questions about floral palettes and vintage bakeries last week," she purred. "Turns out, he was setting the stage for me." She looked straight into the camera lens. "Don't worry, my loves. I'll be there. And I'm going to give him a surprise he'll never forget." The chat erupted into fire emojis and cheers. "A wedding heist!" "Take him back! He set the trap just so you’d walk into it!" I watched the screen for a few seconds longer, my fingers moving lightly across the keys. From a throwaway account, I left a single comment: "Looking forward to the surprise."