Just weeks before her wedding, Emma stumbles upon her fiancé’s email. When her best friend, Sophie, translates a mysterious French message, Emma’s blood runs cold. “My love, we’ll be together soon.” Daniel always said these emails were from family… but was he lying?
The wedding was just a few weeks away, and honestly? I was feeling it.
Not in the “I’m so excited I could burst” kind of way, but more like the “I’m so exhausted I could collapse” kind of way.
Daniel, my fiancé, was supposed to be my partner in all this, but lately, it felt like I was planning this wedding solo.
He was always away on business trips, leaving me to deal with the florist, the caterer, and the endless guest list drama.
We’d only been together for nine months, which I know sounds fast, but when you know, you know, right?
At least, that’s what I’d been telling myself. Daniel was steady, reliable, and… well, not exactly the most romantic guy in the world.
I’d brought it up a few times (how I wished he’d surprise me with flowers or write me a love note), but he’d just shrug and say, “Love isn’t about grand gestures, Emma. It’s about being there.”
I tried to believe him. I really did. But sometimes, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was just saying that because grand gestures weren’t his thing.
His proposal, for example, was about as predictable as it gets. Dinner at our favorite restaurant, a ring in his pocket, and a question I’d seen coming from a mile away.
I said yes, of course, because I loved him. But deep down, I’d hoped for something… more.
The night Daniel was due back from his latest business trip, I invited my best friend Sophie over for dinner.
I needed a distraction, something to keep my mind off the gnawing unease that had been creeping in lately.
The stress of wedding planning was part of it, sure, but there was something else, something I couldn’t quite put into words.
Sophie, as always, brought the perfect energy.
We’d been inseparable since high school, and she had a way of making everything feel lighter, even when life was weighing me down.
She burst through my front door with a bottle of wine in one hand and a box of cupcakes in the other.
“Emergency carbs,” she declared. “Figured you could use them.”
I laughed, grateful for her presence. “You figured right.”
We sat at the kitchen table, digging into pasta and reminiscing about our teenage years. The conversation felt easy, and comfortable, exactly what I needed.
At one point, Sophie pulled out her phone and started scrolling through old photos.
“Oh my God,” she said, laughing. “Remember this?”
She turned the screen toward me. It was a picture of us at prom: me in a too-puffy, baby blue dress, her in an equally disastrous sequined monstrosity.
I groaned. “Why did we think those dresses were a good idea?”
“Because we were 16 and idiots,” she said with a grin. “Wait, don’t you have more of these? Let’s check your laptop.”
I stood, fetched the laptop from the living room, and flipped it open.
An open email tab appeared on the screen. Daniel had last used the laptop before he went on his trip. My fingers instinctively moved to close the tab. But then I froze.
This was Daniel’s email, and he was still logged in.
That was odd. He always logged out. He was meticulous about it, almost paranoid.
My stomach twisted. It wasn’t like I was looking for anything — I trusted him — but something about this felt… wrong.
“What’s up?” Sophie asked, sensing my hesitation.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, reaching to close the tab. But before I could, Sophie’s eyes flicked to the screen.
“Wait.” She leaned in, and her brow furrowed as she pointed at the screen. “What’s that email that starts with ‘My love, we’ll be together soon’?”
My stomach lurched.
The subject line was in French, just like the other emails I’d seen before. Daniel had told me they were from his distant relatives in France, catching up on family matters. I’d believed him, never questioning why he never translated them for me.
Now, staring at that single line, my pulse pounded in my ears. “It’s supposed to be from his relatives in France. What did you say it means?”
“It says ‘My love, we’ll be together soon,'” Sophie repeated. She looked at me, then back at the screen. “Emma… do you want me to translate it?”
My throat went dry. Part of me wanted to slam the laptop shut, and pretend I’d never seen it.
But another part, one that had been whispering doubts in the back of my mind for months, refused to ignore this.
I swallowed hard. My voice was barely a whisper. “Please.”
Sophie’s expression shifted as she read, her face draining of color. She covered her mouth with her hand.
“Emma… this isn’t from a relative,” she said slowly. “It’s from another woman.”
My breath caught. No. That couldn’t be right.
My hands started to shake. “What does it say?”
Sophie hesitated, her eyes scanning the message again as if searching for some kind of mistake. But there was no mistake.
She exhaled sharply and read aloud:
“My love, we’ll be together soon. Once the wedding is over and I have access to her father’s money, I’ll leave her. I promise. I just need to gain his trust so he won’t suspect a thing when I start scamming him.”
I couldn’t breathe.
For a moment, my mind refused to process the words. They couldn’t be real. Daniel wouldn’t, he couldn’t…
But the evidence was right there, glowing on the screen in damning black and white.
Everything — the rushed engagement, the constant business trips, his detached, unromantic demeanor — snapped into focus like a puzzle I had been too blind to see.
Daniel wasn’t marrying me because he loved me.
He was marrying me for my dad’s money!
I don’t remember much about the next few minutes. All I know is that at some point, I started crying, and Sophie was there, holding me and telling me it was going to be okay.
But it wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay.
My body felt like it wasn’t my own, like I was floating, watching this nightmare unfold from a distance.
Sophie was saying something, her voice urgent, but I couldn’t process it. All I could hear were Daniel’s words in my head, over and over again.
“Once the wedding is over and I have access to her father’s money, I’ll leave her.”
Bile rose in my throat.
Sophie touched my arm gently. “Emma, breathe.”
I sucked in a ragged breath. Breathe. Right. Tears blurred my vision, but I forced myself to focus.
“I have to call my parents.” My voice sounded hollow.
Sophie nodded, grabbing her phone. “I’ll stay with you.”
I barely remembered the call, just my mother’s sharp inhale, and my father’s immediate “We’re coming over.”
I should have been relieved to hear their support, but relief felt impossible. My entire world had just collapsed around me.
Minutes stretched into hours. I sat on the couch, staring blankly ahead. Every memory I’d made with Daniel felt tainted now. Had any of it been real?
Then, the sound of tires crunching on gravel snapped me out of my daze.
Daniel was home.
Sophie and my parents stood beside me as I stepped onto the porch, my body thrumming with nervous energy.
Daniel was reversing the truck onto the lawn. He parked and hopped out of the truck, but before I could say anything, Daniel opened the back doors.
What I saw inside the truck made my jaw drop.
A cascade of roses spilled out, hundreds of them, spilling onto the lawn and front path like a waterfall of red and pink. I stared, too stunned to speak.
Daniel walked toward me, a nervous smile on his face. He got down on one knee and pulled out a ring.
“Emma,” he said, “I know our first proposal wasn’t exactly what you dreamed of. So I’m doing it again. Will you marry me?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. Was this a joke? A cruel trick?
Then Sophie burst out laughing. I turned to her, confused. “What’s going on?”
“It was a prank,” Daniel said, standing up. “Sophie and I planned it together. I knew my lack of romance disappointed you, so we set this up to surprise you.”
I blinked at him, then at Sophie, who was still laughing. “The emails?”
“Fake,” Daniel said. “I sent them to myself from a different email account. I wanted to throw you off so the proposal would be a real surprise.”
For a moment, I just stood there, my emotions whip-lashing between shock, anger, and relief. “So… you’re not scamming my dad?”
Daniel laughed. “Of course not! What kind of person do you think I am?”
I stared at him, then at the sea of roses, and despite myself, I started to laugh.
Maybe Daniel wasn’t the most traditionally romantic guy, but he did love me. And in his own bizarre, unexpected way… he had just given me the surprise of a lifetime.
“Yes,” I said, still laughing. “I’ll marry you.”
And as Daniel slipped the ring on my finger, I realized something: love might not always be about grand gestures, but sometimes, it’s the unexpected ones that mean the most.
