PROLOGUE
Every great love story was supposed to begin beautifully.
A stolen glance across a crowded room.
A hand reaching for another hand.
A song written for someone before they even knew they were the inspiration.
Maybe some did.
But theirs began with spilled coffee, a broken umbrella, terrible timing, and two people who had absolutely no idea that one ordinary night was about to rearrange the rest of their lives.
At the time, neither of them knew there would be children.
There would be music.
There would be arguments over baby names and bedtime.
There would be a miniature sports car drifting around a driveway.
There would be livestream disasters, viral toddlers, wedding chaos, and enough family group-chat messages to qualify as a national emergency.
There would be a little girl whose first word would somehow become a battle cry.
There would be an entire family whose collective aura could probably be detected from space.
But before there was an empire—
there were just two strangers.
And a rainy night in Cebu.
