She Was Forced To Marry A Poor Homeless Beggar Unaware He Is The Richest Man Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Evelyn who never left a job half done. If a stray dog had a cut on its ear, she stayed out in the rain until she wrapped it in a clean cloth. If her neighbor’s roof leaked, she was up on the rusty ladder holding the nails. She did not [music] do these things to be nice or to hear people say thank you. Around her was broken. That was just who she was. But on this particular evening, Evelyn felt completely broken herself. She stood in the middle of her stepmother’s massive kitchen staring down at a shiny white piece of paper on the marble counter. The kitchen smelled like expensive vanilla candles and roasting meat, but the air felt so thick and hot that Evelyn could barely breathe. Her throat was dry and she kept squeezing the hem of her faded blue skirt until her knuckles turned white. Across the counter stood Victoria, her stepmother. Victoria was not screaming. Instead, she was slowly cutting a piece of chocolate cake with a silver fork making a Scratch. She looked up at Evelyn with cold, calm eyes. Victoria said that if Evelyn did not sign the marriage paper by midnight, the checks for the hospital would stop. She [music] said the private room where Evelyn’s grandmother lived would be locked. [music] The machines that helped the old woman breathe would be turned off and she would be sent to a crowded, noisy state clinic where nobody would watch her. Evelyn felt a hot drop of sweat slide down her neck. She looked at the paper, then at the silver fork in Victoria’s hand. She asked why it had to be him. She asked why it had to be the silent man who lived in the alley behind their big house. Victoria took a slow bite of her cake, chewed it, and wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin. She told Evelyn that the family business was going through a very difficult time. She said that according to her father’s old will, the family could only touch the grandmother’s medical trust fund money if Evelyn was legally married and settled. Victoria smiled a tiny sharp smile. She said she was just finding Evelyn a husband so they could get the money to save the business.

High up on the ceiling, a tiny drop of rainwater was slowly forming, eventually falling with a soft plop into a plastic blue bucket Evelyn had placed on the floor. Evelyn locked the door behind them and let out a long, tired sigh. She told Julian that it was not a grand palace like her stepmother’s house, but it was safe and nobody in this room would ever yell at him or call him mean names.

She told him to take off his wet coat so he would not catch a cold. Julian stood still for a moment, then he slowly slid the heavy, dirty brown coat off his shoulders. Underneath the rags, his chest and arms were [music] big and strong and he stood very straight. He looked around the tiny room with sharp, intelligent eyes, noticing the leaking ceiling, the single mug on the counter, and finally looking back at Evelyn.

Evelyn fetched a small plastic box from underneath her bed. Inside the box were different colored threads and some scraps of clean cloth. She sat down on the single wooden chair and asked Julian to hand her his coat. She told him that she could not let her new husband walk around the city with a giant rip in his shoulder. Julian handed her the heavy fabric and sat down on the edge of the couch, watching her closely.

She began to work, her fingers moving quickly and carefully in the dim light of the single lamp. She threaded a thick black string through the needle and started to sew the torn edges of his sleeve back together. As she worked, she talked to him in a soft, gentle voice, even though she knew he would not answer her back.

She told him that she knew her family was very cruel to him today. She apologized for Priscilla’s phone video and said that her sister only cared about things that sparkled and [music] cost a lot of money. Evelyn looked up from her sewing and looked straight into Julian’s dark eyes. She told him that a person’s true worth did not come from their clothes or their bank account, and she promised that as long as he lived under her roof, she would always treat him with respect.

Julian sat perfectly still, watching her small hands move over his old coat. [music] Inside his mind, his thoughts were rushing like a river. For his whole life, every single person he met [music] wanted something from him. Women wanted his fancy sports cars, businessmen wanted his billions of dollars, and his workers wanted his corporate power.

They all smiled at him because he was the richest man [music] in the country. A girl who had almost nothing, sitting under a leaking roof, using her own time and her own thread to fix a coat for a man she thought was just a poor beggar. She did not want his money because she did not even know he had a single dollar.

She was doing this simply because she saw someone [music] who was cold, and her heart told her to fix it. Evelyn finished the last stitch, pulled the thread tight, [music] and cut it with a small pair of scissors. She handed the coat back to Julian and told him to try it on. The giant [music] rip was completely gone, replaced by a neat, strong line of black stitches.

[music] Julian slid his arms back into the sleeves. The coat felt warm and whole again. He looked down at the neat stitches, then he looked up at Evelyn and gave her a very slow, gentle nod of his head to say thank you. [music] Next, Evelyn went over to the small stove. She lit a tiny blue flame and warmed up some thick [music] potato soup she had made the day before.