The CEO Mocked the Single Dad in Front of Everyone: “Fix This Engine and I’ll Marry You – Deal?
The Aston Martin Valkyrie sat in their driveway, now decorated with a small decal that read “Fixed with love,” a reminder of the joke that had become a promise and the promise that had become a life. Harper had learned to find joy in small victories: a struggling student mastering a difficult repair, a customer whose car troubles were solved with patience and skill, a daughter who grew stronger and more confident with each passing day.
Mason had discovered that there were many ways to be an engineer, that solving human problems could be just as intellectually satisfying as designing aircraft navigation systems. Lily, now nine years old and healthy, served as the bridge between her parents’ different worlds, equally comfortable discussing business strategy with Harper and engine diagnostics with Mason.
She had inherited her father’s mechanical aptitude and her stepmother’s strategic thinking. But more importantly, she had learned from both of them that love was something you chose to practice every day, not just something that happened to you.
On quiet Sunday mornings when Phoenix Garage was closed and the family had time to themselves, Harper would sometimes sit in the Valkyrie and remember the woman she used to be: successful but isolated, protected but lonely, powerful but ultimately powerless to create the connections that gave life meaning.
The transformation had cost her millions of dollars and forced her to abandon an identity she had spent years building, but it had given her something infinitely more valuable: a family built on mutual respect, shared purpose, and the daily choice to fix what was broken rather than discard what seemed damaged beyond repair.
The spark plug that had started everything sat on their mantlepiece, polished and proud, a symbol of the truth that the smallest components can sometimes power the most important transformations. Harper Lancaster had learned that engines aren’t the only things that can be fixed with patience, skill, and love.
Sometimes broken hearts just need the right mechanic, someone willing to trace every connection until they find the source of the problem, someone patient enough to make repairs that will last a lifetime.
