"Have you forgotten what day it is?" Bet asked suddenly.


    Yvonne paused, thinking for a moment before it suddenly dawned on her. It was her birthday today.


    Not the birthday of the woman everyone knew as Yvonne Jones, but her own, true birthday.


    She supposed she''d been dead for so long that she''d even forgotten her own birthday. Thankfully, Bet remembered it for her.


    "Happy birthday." Bet raised his ss and gently clinked it against hers.


    The sound of the two crystal sses meeting was crisp and pleasant.


    Yvonne smiled and took a sip of wine, then held out her open palm to Bet. "Where''s my present?"


    Bet let out a softugh and handed her the gift.


    He pushed a ck jewelry box across the table to her. Yvonne opened it to find a diamond ne inside.


    It was a high-end custom ne with arge, brilliant main diamond, easily worth over a million dors.


    Any other woman would be ecstatic to receive such an expensive gift. But Bet had already given Yvonne so much that her jewelry box was overflowing with pieces of this caliber. It wasn''t exactly a novel gift.


    "It''s beautiful, thank you," Yvonne replied with a smile, mainly not wanting to dampen his enthusiasm.


    “Let me help you put it on." Bet stood up, walked behind her, and fastened the ne around her neck.


    The ne felt cool against her skin, a perfect adornment on her fair neck.


    As Bet fastened the sp, Yvonne noticed a folded piece of paper in the box, tucked under where the ne had been.


    She picked it up curiously and unfolded it, realizing it was a deed of transfer.


    Bet had transferred ownership of arge, high-end shopping mall from his name to hers.


    Yvonne was speechless.


    This thin piece of paper certainly carried a lot of weight.


    "I thought for a long time, but I couldn''t figure out what you might still need This mall has a prettyplete selection of stores. Now it''s yours, so you can just go pick out whatever you want."


    Bet swirled his wine, his tone casual, as if he hadn''t just given away a mall


    worth hundreds of millions, but a trivial toy.


    Yvonne shook her head with a smile,


    half-joking and half-serious.


    "Bet you''re so good to me feel


    like I''d have to give you eight or ten kids just to repay you."


    Bet couldn''t help butugh. "That won''t be necessary. One is enough. A boy or


    a girl, it doesn''t matter, as long as they''re like you or me."


    Yvonne teased, "Your standards are that low?"


    "Mm," Bet nodded. "Pregnancy and childbirth are difficult. I don''t want to see you go through too much hardship."


    "Oh." Yvonne raised her ss, using the motion of sipping her wine to hide the tears welling up in her eyes.


    Bet''s indulgence of Yvonne knew no bounds. His only demand of her was that she stay by his side, letting him love and protect her.


    In truth, they didn''t have to have children. But when two people were in love, it felt like something would be missing without a child to show for it.


    After finishing their steak and wine at the restaurant, Yvonne and Bet went for a walk along the riverbank, arm in arm.


    The summer evenings were pleasantly warm. A gentle breeze lifted Yvonne''s long hair, making it dance around them.


    They walked hand in hand, the light from the streemps behind them stretching their shadows long before them.


    Because Yvonne was a celebrity, she always wore a mask in public.


    As they stopped beneath a streemp, Bet leaned in and kissed her through her mask.


    It was a beautiful and romantic scene, but halfway through the kiss, it was interrupted by the abrupt buzzing of a phone.