And when she entered the restaurant, her mother couldn’t believe her eyes…”

“Have you completely lost it?” she almost shouted, recoiling as if caught red-handed. “Me? In this? Playing your fiancée? Yesterday, I was digging food out of the trash!”

He calmly clicked the lock, closing the door, and, tiredly leaning against the wall, said:

“You have no reason to refuse. I’ll pay more than you could imagine. Just one evening. Be my fiancée. For them. For my parents. It’s just a game. A play. Or have you forgotten how to act?”

She was silent. Her fingers in worn gloves trembled. Her heart was pounding as if trying to burst out. “Could this be the start of a new life? Or at least the end of old pain?”

Thus began a story no one was prepared for.

He was as rich as a whole country. His name was Nathan Berg. Young, strict, with cold eyes and a serene face. His name graced business magazine covers, and his photos were on lists of the world’s most influential bachelors. Upbringing, money, power — everything was by the book. But his parents, living in Europe, kept repeating:

“When will we finally meet your girlfriend? Why are you hiding?”

They decided to come without warning. Tomorrow.

Nathan was not scared — he was confused. Not because he feared their judgment, but because he didn’t consider any woman suitable for the role. He despised actresses. Couldn’t stand fake smiles. He needed someone… real. Or at least very different from those they expected.

That evening, he was driving through the city. Cold, traffic jams, evening lights. And suddenly he noticed her — at the metro entrance, with a guitar and a cardboard sign saying: “I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for a chance.”

Nathan stopped. For the first time, he didn’t drive past.

“What’s your name?”

She raised her eyes. Her voice was hoarse but full of pride:

“Why do you need to know?”

He smiled slightly.

“I need a woman who knows how to survive. For real. Alive. Without makeup. Like you.”

Her name was Marta. 27 years old. Behind her — an orphanage, escapes, years on the street, rehabilitation, cold nights, and a guitar. Her only truth.

The next evening, she stood in front of the huge mirror in the Emerald Hotel room. Her hands trembled as she smoothed the fabric of an expensive velvet dress the color of the deep sea. Her hair, freshly washed and stylishly done, shone. Makeup accentuated 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.”

“Think it will work?”

He looked at her for a long time.

“I think you’re the only person who can win over my mother.”

At the restaurant, everything seemed under control. Almost.

His father was reserved but attentive. His mother — a woman with refined manners and a sharp gaze, able to read a person with one eyebrow’s movement. Her eyes fixed on the girl across from her.

“How did you meet my son?” she asked.

Marta felt Nathan’s gaze on her. He nodded slightly.

“At a bookstore,” she answered. “I dropped a volume of Schopenhauer, he picked it up… and we both laughed.”

“Schopenhauer?” the woman was surprised. “You read philosophy?”

“As a child. In our orphanage, the librarian allowed us to take books even with the hardest topics — if we promised to return them.”

Silence hung. Nathan’s mother slowly put her glass down without taking her eyes off Marta. Too intently.

“In an orphanage?” she asked again, and her voice flickered with something elusive — curiosity, or a trace of old pain.

Then something happened that no one expected.

Marta suddenly straightened, gathered all her dignity into a fist, and said firmly:

“Sorry. I’m lying. I’m not your daughter-in-law. Not from a bookstore, but from the street. I’m homeless. Just a woman who got tired of being someone’s possession and today felt like a human being for the first time.”

Instead of judgment or scandal, the woman in a strict suit stood up, came over, and hugged her.

“My daughter… I started from nothing once too. Someone gave me a chance. And I’m glad you took yours.”

Nathan was silent. He just watched. And for the first time understood: the game was over. And real life was just beginning.

She told the truth — and received not contempt, but an embrace. None of them yet knew it was just the first step. Nathan’s mother turned out to be surprisingly sensitive — she saw in Marta not deception, but strength of spirit. His father remained distant.

“This is madness, Nathan,” he said coldly, cutting through the tension. “You brought us to a house of street fantasies?”

“This is my choice,” the son replied calmly. “Not your verdict.”

After dinner, Marta went outside. Took off her shoes, leaned against the wall, and cried. But not from shame — from relief. She told the truth. And no one turned away.

Nathan approached quietly. He held her coat.

“You won’t go back to the street. You’ll live with me. As long as needed.” He paused. “You deserve more.”

“I’m not asking for pity.”

“I’m not offering that. I’m giving you an opportunity.”

…

So began their strange, sharp, but honest life together. He worked late into the night, demanding of himself and others. She studied. Borrowed books, listened to lectures, cleaned the apartment, cooked. Sometimes she picked up the guitar again — not for money, but because something alive was waking inside.

She was changing.

“You’ve become different,” he said once.

“I’m just not afraid for the first time that they’ll throw me out.”

…

A month later his father left. Didn’t say a word. Just left a note: “If you choose your heart — don’t count on my fortune anymore.”

Nathan didn’t even open the envelope. Just threw it into the fireplace and quietly said:

“Money comes and goes. But if you lose yourself — you’re worth nothing.”

…

Three months later Marta saw two lines on a test.

“That’s impossible,” she whispered, sitting on the bathroom floor. “It’s too early… We’re not even a couple…”

When she told him, Nathan was silent for a long time. Then he hugged her.

“I don’t know what this feeling is called. But I know one thing — it’s right.”

…

There were court battles over the land his father wanted to take. There were rumors on the internet about “a billionaire and a homeless woman staging a show of happiness.” There were difficult births, fear of losing the baby, pain, anxiety.

And then there was a new life.

A life in which Marta became the author of her own book. A woman who stepped onto the stage not as a beggar by the roadside, but as a person who passed through poverty, indifference, and betrayal — and survived.

And every time she faced the audience, she said:

“I was a ‘fiancée for an hour.’ Now I’m a wife for life. Because one person saw me as a human being.”

…

The final scene — the very same restaurant. Marta holds the hand of a ten-year-old girl with lush curls.

“See, baby? Right here your dad smiled for the first time for real. Here we became a family, not a play for spectators.”

Nathan stands nearby. Smiling. Holding her hand. No hint of regret in his eyes.

He didn’t marry a princess. He chose a queen. Who once sat on the street with a cardboard sign asking not for help, but for a chance.