This wasn''t the way Forrest had nned for everything toe out, and even he, usually so direct, couldn''t help but feel a little embarrassed as he caught M''s wide-eyed look of astonishment. His gaze flickered away, uncharacteristically evasive.


    "Technically it''s just an engagement," he began, shrugging awkwardly. "And you said yourself, Jade''s in charge of the whole wedding. Let me handle this one- let''s go with my n for the engagement party, all right?"


    "Fine, fine," M replied, her tone light. What else could she say? He''d made things incredibly easy for her-she barely had to lift a finger.


    Once the basics were settled, however, they hit a snag: the guest list.


    M started first.


    Her closest friend, Miranda Wayne, was still overseas and couldn''t make it. On Jade''s end, there was no way she''d allow her adoptive mother to travel such a long distance given her health, not even for an engagement.


    As for the Suthends-those rtives had been cut off years ago. No way she was inviting any of them.


    Then there was Felicity Fontaine. For a long time, this woman had all but taken the ce of her own mother in M''s heart, and M desperately wished she could be present for such an important moment. But the whole point of this engagement was to publicly separate herself from the Montgomery family, which made inviting Felicity impossible.


    When she finished tallying things up, M realized with a strange emptiness that, aside from business associates, she had no one else to invite.


    Forrest didn''t fare much better.


    "My parents aren''ting," he stated bluntly. "They''d only make a mess of things and ruin the evening." The Whitmore rtives were the first names to be crossed off his list.


    He could at least invite a few friends, but after years spent living abroad, most of his circle was still overseas. Some of his closest friends and colleagues- especially the mentor he respected most, who was almost like family-simply couldn''t make it in time.


    In the end, they both sat in silence, staring at each other.


    "It''s all right," M finally said, breaking the tension. She squeezed Forrest''s hand and smiled, reassuring him. "It''s only the engagement. When we actually get married, we''ll hold the ceremony overseas-everyone important will be there then."


    Forrest hated how much it bothered him, how much he resented the situation. Yet he leaned into her, burying his face in the curve of her neck, and responded with a muffled, resigned, "... Yeah."


    The engagement mattered to him


    too. He wanted something official-a status that said he was more than just a boyfriend, easy to walk away from at a whim. He wanted to be her fiancé, recognized and acknowledged, with a real ce in her life.


    From now on, it would be "us."


    ...


    Once the guest list was finalized, the clock was ticking.


    They shelled out extra for overnight printing, burning the midnight oil to handwrite each invitation. The next morning, Howard was dispatched to deliver them-most going out to business partners.


    And that, really, was what mattered.


    With the invitations sent, Forrest and


    M split up-there were a million other things to handle before the party. Neither realized just how much their news had already set their social circles aze.


    After all, these weren''t just any ordinary couple getting engaged.


    And no one saw iting.