SHE PUT ON HER MOTHER’S DRESS—AND THE MAN WHO PROPOSED FINALLY REVEALED WHY

Anna couldn’t stop staring at the red dress.

“Why does it belong to my mother?”

The room became silent again.

Rashid’s expression changed.

For the first time since Anna had entered the salon, he looked genuinely unsettled.

“You recognize it.”

Anna nodded slowly.

“My mother wore that dress.”

One of the women behind her whispered something to another.

Rashid raised his hand.

Everyone immediately fell silent.

“Your mother’s name was Amélie Moreau?”

Anna’s stomach тιԍнтened.

“Yes.”

Rashid stepped away from the mannequin.

“How old were you when she died?”

“Eight.”

“And she never told you about this house?”

“No.”

“Never mentioned me?”

Anna frowned.

“Why would she?”

Rashid didn’t answer.

Instead, he walked toward a locked cabinet built into the wall.

He took out a small key.

Anna watched as he unlocked it.

Inside were dozens of old pH๏τographs.

Rashid removed one.

Then another.

He placed them on the table.

Anna’s hands began to tremble.

There was her mother.

Young.

Beautiful.

Standing beside the same staircase from the pH๏τograph Anna had seen as a child.

But she wasn’t alone.

A young man stood beside her.

Anna stared at him.

She recognized the face immediately.

Rashid.

Only much younger.

Her mouth went dry.

“That can’t be…”

Rashid said nothing.

Anna picked up another pH๏τograph.

This one showed Amélie wearing the red dress.

Rashid stood beside her, one hand resting gently against her waist.

They were smiling.

Not like strangers.

Like two people who had once loved each other.

Anna looked up.

“You knew my mother.”

“I loved your mother.”

The words hit her harder than anything else that night.

“Then why did she leave?”

Rashid’s jaw тιԍнтened.

“She didn’t.”

Anna froze.

“What?”

“She was told I had betrayed her.”

“By whom?”

Rashid looked toward the women standing across the room.

His eyes hardened.

“That’s the question I’ve spent twenty years trying to answer.”

Anna slowly understood.

The dress wasn’t a random gift.

The proposal wasn’t a joke.

Rashid had summoned her because she was Amélie’s daughter.

But there was something he still hadn’t told her.

“Why marry me?” Anna asked.

Rashid looked directly into her eyes.

“Because if you are really Amélie’s daughter…”

He paused.

“…then you may be the only person who can help me uncover what happened to her.”

Anna’s fingers тιԍнтened around the pH๏τograph.

“And if I refuse?”

Rashid’s expression became grave.

“Then you’ll leave this house tonight.”

He looked at the red dress.

“But you’ll never learn why your mother disappeared.”

Anna stared at him.

For twenty years, she had believed her mother had abandoned her.

Now, for the first time, someone was suggesting the truth might be completely different.

She reached toward the red dress.

And slowly whispered:

“Help me put it on.”

Rashid’s eyes widened.

Because the moment Anna touched the crimson satin, a tiny golden locket hidden inside the dress slipped loose and fell onto the marble floor.

Rashid stared at it.

His face went pale.

“I thought that was lost forever.”

Anna picked it up.

“What’s inside?”

Rashid didn’t answer.

Because engraved on the back of the locket were two words:

FOR OUR DAUGHTER.