Joyce, still reeling, felt Nephtali's hand on her arm, steadying her as she pushed herself upright. The world around her, which had been a blur of worry and illness, now seemed to be spinning from a different kind of shock.
"Don't tell me," she whispered, her voice barely a breath. "You scared the whole town?"
Nephtali's smile was a slow, dangerous curve. "Not just the town, my dear. The whole province. From now on, you have nothing to fear. No one will ever dare to harm us again. They try, and I will be the one to destroy them." He paused, his gaze softening as he looked at her. "I told you I wouldn't involve anyone, that I didn't want you dragged into their schemes against me. But I never expected this. I never expected the entire province to stand with me for your sake."
"I told you," Joyce said, her heart swelling with an emotion she couldn't name. "You are good, Nephtali. You have a clean conscience. They can't possibly speak ill of you. You've done so much for others, for your family, for this entire province. You have nothing to be afraid of."
"You were the first to truly believe in me, Joyce," he said, his voice husky with emotion. "You never hesitated to trust me. Thank you. You've changed my life."
"I should be the one thanking you," she countered, her voice catching. "You always make me so happy, even when so many others tried to tear me down, even when I felt like I was bringing you nothing but trouble."
He brushed a strand of hair from her face. "You don't need to thank me. Seeing you happy is enough."
They shared a look, a silent moment that stretched between them, an entire conversation passing without a single word.
"Where is my family, anyway?" Joyce asked, breaking the spell. "Why are we the only ones here?"
"Your parents are at work, and your siblings are at a party," he explained, his smile returning. "They're waiting for us. Can you walk, or shall I carry you?"
"I can walk," she insisted, taking a tentative step toward the door. "I'm not that hurt."
But as she reached for the doorknob, her legs gave out, and she instinctively grabbed Nephtali's arm. Without a word, he swept her into his arms and carried her out into the street. She felt a blush creep up her cheeks, embarrassed by the people they passed, but every face they met was one of warmth and respect.
"I fall asleep for a few days, and you change the entire province," Joyce mused, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You're truly unlike any friend I've ever had, Boss."
A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest. "I apologize that your friend isn't a normal citizen."
They shared a laugh, the sound of it echoing between them, a world all their own.
***
Meanwhile, at the Nolasco residence, a grand party was in full swing. Prominent figures from across the province mingled with influential families. Cedric Morales stood beside his parents, his eyes scanning the crowd with an almost desperate ambition.
"Mommy, everyone important is here," he said, trying to keep the awe out of his voice. "Even the Governor arrived, and his brother, the new Chief of Police. You know them, right? Do you think I'll finally get a position at the Provincial Office this year?"
Mrs. Morales clutched her handbag tighter. "Don't be so impatient. We're still waiting for the right opportunity. This is an enormous celebration for just the Nolasco children. I thought it was going to be a children's party."
"I heard the staff talking earlier," Mr. Morales chimed in. "They said the children's party was over. This is a special event, they said. A very important person is coming."
"Could it be Mr. Gonzaga?" Mrs. Morales wondered aloud. "He's the only one with such a name in this province who's a close friend of the Nolascos."
"Mr. Gonzaga? He's too influential to come back here for a party like this," Cedric scoffed. "I've never even seen him in person. Is he old?"
"Sir Nephtali is the sole heir of the Gonzagas, but he's a ghost," Mr. Morales said with a shake of his head. "No one truly knows who he is. He could have walked right past us and we wouldn't have even noticed."
Cedric froze. His gaze had landed on Jona, who looked stunning in her dress, walking beside Dave Nolasco's wife. He stared, wide-eyed, his mouth falling open.
"Jona?"
Jona's eyes met his, filled with a cold, cutting fury. She ignored him and continued on. Cedric followed, trying to push through the crowd toward the grand dining hall, but a security guard's hand on his chest stopped him.
The hall fell silent as Nephtali Gonzaga entered, gently guiding a young woman with him. All eyes turned to Joyce, whose hand he held as they walked to the large dining table. The men in the room rose as one. Nephtali helped Joyce into the central seat, a position of honor.
"Please," he said, his voice a low command that filled the room. "Have a seat, gentlemen."
Cedric watched, stunned, as Jona took her place among the elite, while his own family remained outside. The girl in the center, Joyce, had been in his arms just days ago. Now she was being treated like royalty.
"Cedric, we can't be here," Mr. Morales hissed.
"Dad, why are Jona and her sister inside?" Cedric stammered, pointing.
Mr. Morales looked to the siblings. Joyce caught his eye and saw him, too, prompting Nephtali to turn his gaze toward the father and son standing outside the hall.
"My apologies for our late arrival," Nephtali announced, his voice carrying effortlessly. "Joyce just got out of the hospital. Her body is still weak, and she gets sick easily. Even with her medication, she's still in recovery from her leukemia. She is my princess, whom I cherish and protect. She is important to me because she taught me to live again. So if anyone dares to make her cry or hurt her, I will drag them back into the mud where they belong."
The threat hung in the air, heavy and sharp. Mr. Morales, terrified, grabbed Cedric to pull him away, but they were stopped by two security guards.
"What's going on?" Mrs. Morales demanded, suddenly appearing beside them. "Cedric, what did you do?"
"The Governor invites you to the dining hall," one of the guards said.
"Thank you, but we must be leaving now," Mr. Morales said, trying to push past him.
Ignoring his father, Cedric rushed into the hall and faced Jona.
"Jona, please forgive me!" he pleaded, his voice cracking. "I couldn't defend you! I didn't know what to do because of my parents! They threatened to cut me off from my inheritance if I married you!"
Jona's eyes narrowed into slits. "You were afraid of losing your inheritance, so you couldn't defend me to your parents? My parents were right all along. I should have listened to them. Then my sister wouldn't have been hurt because of me!"
"Hold on, girl!" Mrs. Morales shrieked, storming past Cedric. "Don't you talk to my son like that! I told you to stay away from him! What happened to your sister is your own fault, not my son's!"
Joyce, still seated at the table, spoke with a chilling calm. "You flaunted your money at my parents, and because of you, my unborn niece was almost harmed. It's one thing to hurt me, but you will not disrespect my family. Or you will kneel before me."
Mrs. Morales' eyes widened, finally seeing the girl at the center of the table. "You?! What are you doing here?"
Mr. Morales, his bravado gone, began to plead. "Please, have mercy on us. We didn't know who you were. We just found out about you. This will never happen again. I'm willing to let them get married, as long as we forget all of this."
"What are you saying?!" Mrs. Morales exclaimed.
Nephtali looked at the Morales family, a flicker of something cold in his eyes. "You have harmed my princess. Now, I will settle the score. Governor Vasquez and Colonel Vasquez have told me about your scam, taking payments for land that I own myself."
"Mr. Gonzaga doesn't charge rent on those lands, due to an agreement between his family and the government that prohibits payment for anyone building a house, with the exception of businesses," Rafael explained, stepping forward. "You can be sued for fraud and for claiming land that is not yours."
"We have many witnesses to what you have done," Dranreb added, his voice like stone. "So if Mr. Gonzaga sues you, you'll be locked up any time now."
"Before, what you did was meaningless to me," Nephtali said, his voice quiet but full of steel. "But my princess woke me up, and now you will see how a Gonzaga gets angry."
"Mr. Gonzaga, please forgive us," Mrs. Morales begged. "We didn't know. We thought you wouldn't come back here. We didn't mean to do those things. We just did it for our son."
Nephtali glanced at his watch, taking a glass of water that Mike handed him, along with Joyce's medicine. "I will give the decision to Joyce's sister. This started with her, so she should be the one to decide."
He handed the pills to Joyce, who swallowed them, then looked to her sister, whose face was still a mask of bitter anger.
"I will never forgive them for what they did to my sister!" Jona declared.
With a cry, Mrs. Morales fainted. Cedric watched, disbelieving, as Jona sealed his family's fate. The police arrived, leading his parents away. Cedric, in a last desperate attempt, knelt before Jona.
"Jona, don't do this to my family! Have mercy! What will happen to me?"
"Your problems are no longer my problems," Jona said, her voice hard. "Get away from me! From now on, I don't know you, and the father of my child is dead!"
"No! Jona, don't do this to me! I love you!" Cedric screamed, but the security guards were already dragging him, kicking and yelling, out of the dining hall.
Jona turned to Joyce and rushed to her side, her face crumbling. "Forgive me, Joyce. I never meant to hurt you. I wasn't thinking about you or Mom and Dad. I was only thinking about myself. I will listen to our parents now, and I will work hard for my child."
Joyce smiled at her sister, reaching up to take her hand as tears streamed down Jona's face. "We're always here for you, Ate."
Jona hugged her tight, and Joyce gently wiped her tears away.
"Jona, let's go now," Mina said softly. "They have things to discuss."
As Mina and Jona left, Joyce looked at Nephtali, who stood beside her. "Boss, I'll go with them. You have things to talk about."
"You should get used to facing these men," he said, his voice dropping to a serious tone. "Because you're the one who will take my place when I'm gone. From now on, I'm giving you all the rights of the Gonzaga family."
Joyce was speechless. "But I'm not your wife. We're not even married. Why are you giving this to me? Boss, are you sure you're not getting ahead of yourself?"
"Of all the women who have passed through my life, not a single one saw the real me. Only you," he said, his voice raw. "You brought out the real me from the moment we met. Forgive me if I can no longer follow what we had agreed upon."
"What do you mean?" she asked, her heart pounding.
Nephtali took his necklace from her and placed a ring—the Gonzaga family heirloom—on her middle finger. "Can you accept me into your life, Joyce?"
Joyce looked at him, her mind a whirlwind of confusion and emotion. "First, answer my question. Why did you sacrifice so much for me? Why did you do all of this?"
He took her hands in his, his gaze intense. "Do you remember the day we first met at the church? From the moment I saw your smile, I couldn't get you out of my head. I never expected to talk to you that day, just because you lost your bracelet. It was one of the most important days of my life. But what I can never forget is that you accepted me as your friend and trusted me despite all the bad things they said about me. I've stopped myself many times because you're so young and our age gap is so big, but I can't stop my heart.
Tears welled in his eyes, and he couldn't stop them from falling. Joyce's own tears began to fall in response. "I told them how I feel about you," he continued, his voice choked with emotion. "I promised them I wouldn't talk to you or even get close, because I didn't want you to be caught up in the lies people spread about me. But you were always getting hurt and crying. I hated it. So I decided to do this. You're the first woman who softened my stone heart. You're the one I've been waiting for my entire life, and I'm ready to wait for you. I've loved you since the first day I saw you, and I love you even more today."
Joyce was silent, overcome. She reached out and touched his cheek, and he looked at her.
"You don't know," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I fell for you the first day I saw you playing the piano. I'm so happy when I talk to you, especially when you hug me. Boss, I've loved you for a long time, but I didn't have the courage to tell you. I never even thought about our age gap. I was more worried about our social standing. I didn't know if I deserved to be in your life. I'm poor, and I'm always sick. But you're always in my heart and in my thoughts, sometimes to the point where I feel like I'm going crazy."
She sobbed, and Nephtali gently wiped her tears away. "It doesn't matter to me where you came from or your condition," he said, his voice full of love. "All that matters is seeing you happy and safe. I'm ready to take care of you and love you for the rest of my life. Because I love you very much, Joyce."
"I love you very much too, Boss."
He pulled her into his arms, and the room erupted in applause.
"They really do love each other," Jona said, her own eyes teary, as she and Mina watched from the sidelines. "You can see it. Their age gap doesn't matter. What matters is that they are in love, and their feelings are true. That's why our parents trusted Sir Nephtali right away."
"Your sister is so lucky," Mina said, a soft smile on her face. "Even though many women have been in the Boss's life, Joyce is the only one he has trusted and given the rights to his family. From now on, your sister will carry the Boss's name."
"They're not even married yet, are they?" Jona asked.
"Not yet," Mina confirmed. "But the Boss has just introduced your sister to everyone as the woman he will marry when the time is right."
Joyce looked at the ring on her finger, still in a state of disbelief.
"Are you okay?" Nephtali asked, a concerned look on his face. "You look tired. Just tell me."
"You're the one who has been standing all this time," she said, her voice filled with tenderness. "Aren't you tired? I told you I could wait outside and you could sit down."
"You need to know what we're talking about," he said. "So you'll know what to do when I'm not here."
"Boss, I don't know anything about your business ventures," she said, shaking her head. "I'll just be a burden in your meeting."
"Are you sure you don't know?" he challenged. "Why did you know what to do in Mrs. Miranda's case and how to answer the Morales family? Joyce, I was gone for so many years, and I never used my influence until now. They thought there were no more Gonzagas in the world."
"Why are you so scary when you're angry, Boss?" she asked, a small smile playing on her lips.
He leaned in closer. "You're the only one who can put me in my place, so my anger disappears when I'm with you."
Just then, a woman burst into the room, being held back by security guards.
"Jerry! Let me in! My boyfriend is in there! What's wrong with you?!"
They all turned to look at the screaming woman. The bodyguards stepped forward to stop her.
"Looks like another scene is about to happen," Ram muttered under his breath.