Episode 3

For the first time since they had met, Sebastian was silent for a long while.

His eyes did not answer immediately. There was no spontaneous reaction, no shock and no relief. Only a deeper gaze, as if he were weighing something that was not simple. It was not Vivian's body he was looking at in that moment.

It was the decision behind her words.

Sebastian finally leaned back slightly, his voice still flat when he answered. "Why do you think that needs to be said now?"

Vivian lifted her head, a little startled. "I thought... it was important."

Sebastian shook his head, almost imperceptibly. "What matters isn't whether you can or cannot have children."

The sentence left Vivian quiet for a moment.

Sebastian continued, more quietly than before, but still cold. "What matters is that you enter that house fully aware of what you'll face." He paused. "My children don't need a new reason to reject someone."

Vivian said nothing. Something in her chest loosened a little. Not relief, not exactly. But not complete unease either.

Sebastian looked at her again. "And I..." He stopped for a moment, as if unwilling to finish the sentence. "I'm not looking for a wife for that."

For the first time, Vivian understood that this was more complicated than fear or acceptance.

The man before her was not judging whether she was worthy because she could not have children. Sebastian seemed as if he no longer believed this marriage could ever become anything normal at all.

After Sebastian left, the room felt far colder than before. Not because of the air conditioning or the closed walls, but because of what remained inside Vivian's head: an unfinished conversation, an unreadable gaze, sentences that offered no foothold.

Vivian stayed in her chair. Several minutes passed without her truly moving. Her hands remained in her lap, but her mind had gone far away, replaying every second of the meeting.

Sebastian had not rejected her. He had not accepted her either.

He had simply refused to make Vivian the center of the decision.

As if this marriage was not about two people choosing each other, but about two people dragged along by their own circumstances.

Vivian lowered her head. "What exactly am I walking into?" she murmured, so softly she could barely hear herself.

Sebastian's face returned to her mind: cold, distant, still caught in a past no one could touch. Then came the image of the five children she had not even met, children who had rejected her before she arrived. And herself. A woman who had lived for years believing she was not whole.

Vivian took a long breath.

For the first time since the offer had come, the question no longer sounded like someone else's decision. It had become hers.

"What kind of marriage am I going to live in?"

She stared at the empty table in front of her, then continued in her heart, more honestly than before.

Would this be the right choice?

There was no answer. Only silence, giving her no certainty at all, as if her own life were waiting to see whether she dared step forward or stopped here and returned to the life she had always known, even if that life had never truly made her feel whole.

That night, Vivian was sitting in her room when her phone vibrated. A message had come in from Margaret. At first, Vivian thought it must be academy business. Perhaps a teaching schedule or an overdue administrative report.

But as soon as she read the message, her chest tightened.

[Vivian, I hope you can give me an answer by tomorrow. You and Sebastian have met. If this is meant to be, there is no need to wait too long. We have many things to prepare.]

Short. Polite. That was exactly what made Vivian feel even more pressured. Behind the perfectly reasonable words, she could feel the push clearly. They were waiting for her answer.

And they wanted it soon.

Vivian stared at the screen for a long time. She had not even calmed down after meeting Sebastian, and now she was facing a decision that had to be made as quickly as possible. She set the phone on the bed and rubbed her temples.

"Why does everything have to move so fast?" she murmured.

A few days ago, she had never imagined she would marry at all. After failing at relationships again and again, Vivian had made a kind of peace with the possibility that she might never marry. Now she was being asked to decide her future in a matter of days.

Maybe even hours.

Vivian closed her eyes. Her meeting with Sebastian flashed through her mind. He was handsome. Still young. He looked responsible. But he was also cold, and clearly had not truly let go of his late wife.

Then there were five children she had never met.

Five children who, according to everyone, had managed to make thirty-two prospective stepmothers give up.

Thirty-two.

The number alone was enough to make anyone reconsider.

Vivian rose and walked to her bedroom window. Outside, the night was calm, so different from the noise inside her head.

"A marriage shouldn't feel like a job interview," she whispered.

She gave a small laugh. There was nothing funny in it. Because that was exactly how it felt. Everything was happening so fast. The meeting. The consideration. The decision. As if her life were being pushed along by a current too strong to resist.

But she knew one thing. Marriage was not a small decision.

It was not a one-year or two-year contract. It was not something one could simply cancel when things became difficult. Marriage was the longest act of devotion in a person's life. Lived every day. Every morning when they woke. Every shared meal. Every problem. Every time they chose to stay when life did not match their hopes.

And now she was being asked to decide all of it based on one meeting.

One meeting with a man she barely knew.

Vivian looked at the night sky beyond the window. Without realizing it, she whispered, "God... if this is the right path, please make it easier."

Her voice was so quiet it was almost a prayer too shy to leave her mouth.

Because deep inside, Vivian still carried the same question. It returned every time she tried to convince herself.

What if I choose wrong?

And more frightening still:

What if I'm not truly being given a choice?

That morning, Vivian had not even managed to enjoy breakfast in peace. She had barely slept all night. Margaret's message kept echoing in her head, mixed with Sebastian's face, the five children she had never met, and a fear she could not explain to anyone.

She had just poured tea into her cup when her mother sat across from her. The woman's gaze was different, as if she had been waiting for the right moment to bring something up.

"So?" her mother asked.

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