From Broken to Beloved-Chapter 194- surprise

Only when she’d said it did Catherine realize she’d completely dug a hole for herself. She’d been so focused on echoing his words that she’d forgotten how shameless he could be. And now—well, this was the result.

Sure enough, his eyes immediately narrowed, a dangerous glint flashing through them.

"Mm. A thank-you shouldn’t just be said with words," he drawled. "It should be shown through action to be truly sincere. Tonight, I’ll make sure to thank you properly."

He deliberately emphasized the word thank, and Catherine pulled a pitiful face, hurriedly begging for mercy.

"I was wrong, I was wrong—can you just behave yourself for a bit?"

This was his mother’s apartment, after all. And she was already a little tired.

Bert paid absolutely no attention to her pleas. He scooped her up in his arms and headed straight for the bed. Everything that followed was something Catherine could only endure passively.

The next day, Bert planned to go to the company to deal with some work. He regularly came to the U.S. to oversee business matters anyway, so this trip was the perfect chance to drop by.

Originally, Bert wanted to take Catherine with him—there wasn’t much for her to do at home on her own. However, his mother said instead,

"Since you’re busy with work, why don’t Cici stay with me and go shopping?"

Bert’s brows instantly knit together.

"Shopping?"

That wasn’t part of Bert’s plan at all. Catherine going shopping and having tea with his mother wasn’t something he’d ever envisioned, nor could he picture what that scene would even look like. In his mind, bringing Catherine to meet his mother once was enough—just a formality. Anything beyond that had never been planned or considered.

He was also worried that if Catherine spent too much time alone with his mother, she might suddenly lose her temper and make things difficult for Catherine again, souring their relationship even further. As things stood now felt just right to him, so Bert was rather resistant to the idea.

So he said,

"What’s there to shop for? Your health isn’t great. You should just rest at home. If you need anything, I’ll buy it for you."

Catherine, however, thought his mother’s suggestion was a good one. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Oh, it’s fine. We don’t really have anything to do anyway. I’m not interested in visiting your company, so I might as well go shopping with Auntie."

Bert’s mother shot him a look, clearly displeased that he was trying to stop Catherine from going with her.

"What, do you think I’m going to abduct your wife and sell her off?"

With both of them happy to go, Bert lost his right to object.

The reason Catherine agreed was also because she wanted to spend more time with his mother—to help ease the relationship between her and Bert. After all, that was his mother. No one doesn’t long to be close to their own mother.

After getting ready, the three of them went out together. Bert drove the two women to the mall, then headed off to the company.

While Catherine was shopping with his mother, she received at least three phone calls and several messages from Bert, all asking the same thing—whether his mother was making things difficult for her. Catherine was nearly speechless.

Hadn’t he told her to trust him—and to trust herself? Yet now he was the one constantly worried his mother would give her a hard time. And even if she did, so what? They only came to the U.S. a few times a year. Surely she could manage to make his mother happy for that short while. Besides, his mother wasn’t giving her any trouble at all.

She even bought clothes for Catherine.

Catherine tried to refuse, saying she didn’t need any—she already had plenty at home that Bert had designed for her, more than she could ever wear. But his mother insisted, saying that what she bought was hers, and what Bert designed was his—there was no conflict between the two.

So by the time Bert came to pick them up, they were carrying bag after bag, their shopping haul impressively abundant.

Bert was well aware of his mother’s shopping prowess and often gave her plenty of money to spend freely. But Catherine wasn’t the type to splurge recklessly—so why were all those shopping bags from young women’s brands?

Noticing his confusion, Catherine took the initiative to explain,

"These were all bought by Auntie... for me."

Bert glanced at his mother in surprise. Clearly, he hadn’t expected her to be this generous toward Catherine.

"Just think of it as a first-meeting gift,"

his mother replied lightly before getting into the car.

Bert and Catherine exchanged a look, then each got into the car as well.

They stayed in the United States for about a week, living at Bert’s mother’s place the entire time. Whenever Bert went to the company to handle business, Catherine stayed with his mother. To his surprise, the two of them got along quite harmoniously.

Bert had never imagined that one day his relationship with his mother would gradually soften like this—no longer tense and confrontational, nor cold and distant, but filled instead with a warmth he had never experienced before.

And of course, he knew exactly whom he had to thank for it.

Because he had met Catherine, he was willing to communicate more with his mother.

Because of Catherine’s gentleness and kindness, his mother had come to accept her as well. Beyond family background or status, it was a young woman’s quiet, inner grace that truly won people over.

When it was time to leave, Bert’s mother showed a hint of reluctance. At the airport, as she saw them off, she took out a bank card and pressed it into Catherine’s hand.

"This is your wedding gift from me. I won’t be attending the wedding, but I hope the two of you will live well together."

Logically speaking, Bert and Catherine’s wedding should have been an important occasion for his mother. However, because Daniel would be there—and because Daniel’s two children would certainly attend as well—she chose not to go, in order to avoid unnecessary hurt or misunderstandings.

Bert frowned slightly and asked,

"Why won’t you come?"

"My health isn’t good. Long-distance flights aren’t suitable for me,"

his mother replied, then urged them on,

"Hurry and go check in. I’ll head back now."

Before they could even properly say goodbye, she turned and walked out of the airport terminal.

Catherine was still holding the bank card in her hand. Bert looked in silence toward the direction where his mother had disappeared, a sense of relief settling in his heart.

Maybe it was for the best. At least it would spare them any potential trouble.

As long as he could feel her blessing for him and Catherine, that was enough.

Beside him, Catherine asked softly,

"What should we do with this card?"

Bert lowered his gaze.

"Keep it," he said calmly. "It’s all my money anyway."

They landed at Burg Eltz, and from that point on, Bert officially began preparing for the wedding. There was hardly anything Catherine needed to do.

Bert took care of the wedding dress. As for the ring, Catherine said there was no need to make a new one—she would use the one he had proposed with, since that ring had been designed by her herself.

She still had no idea when he’d stolen her design sketch.

After the proposal, when she finally saw the ring, she’d grilled him about it. He admitted that he’d seen the design on her desk and secretly taken a photo of it.

It made Catherine furious. He really was sly and calculating—he’d only taken a picture instead of stealing the actual drawing, so she’d never noticed anything was missing.

That said, she had to admit it.

She truly loved that surprise.

When something you once saw only in your dreams is perfectly recreated in reality, how could you not be amazed?

Bert even recreated the wedding itself according to the scenes she’d drawn on paper. The ceremony wouldn’t be held back home—there simply wasn’t a castle like the one in her sketches. Instead, Bert chose Germany, a country filled with ancient castles.

There would only ever be one wedding in a lifetime. He was determined to give her the most perfect and unforgettable one.

The two of them decided not to make it a grand affair. They would simply invite a small circle of close friends and family to Germany. After all, everyone at Burg Eltz already knew about their relationship.

After returning home, Catherine officially joined the Channing Group. The work was still a bit bumpy at first, but fortunately Bert had already arranged for Uncle Carry to help her, so she managed well enough.

Catherine also still had to finish the ring she’d promised to design for Leonardo, so she could only work on it at night.

This made Bert deeply dissatisfied.

Every evening after dinner, she would shut herself away in the study, completely absorbed in sketching and revising designs—all for Leonardo’s ring.

Designing a ring for Leonardo put enormous pressure on Catherine. Leonardo was a superstar at the height of his fame. Once he revealed the ring, his fans would inevitably dissect and judge it from every angle. Leonardo had told her before that he planned to unveil the ring—and his confession—at his final concert before the New Year.

This trapped Catherine in a vicious cycle.

The moment she thought about the ring being revealed to the public, she instinctively imagined waves of negative comments. With Leonardo’s massive fanbase, if too many people were dissatisfied, she feared she’d be torn apart by his fans. Even worse, she was terrified of ruining something as important as Leonardo’s confession.

In short, she was utterly distressed.

Even when she designed something she genuinely loved, she would immediately switch into the role of a critic—finding fault here, dissatisfaction there—then scrap it and start over.

Over and over again.

And because of that, she made no real progress at all.