To Be By My Side

Episode 1

Ten years ago, Aurora Miller waited for a pen pal she called Seahawk—a navy man she'd written to for two years and never once seen. He never came. The cruel irony? The ice cream shop and the cheap ring were, as her tormentor sneered, classic player moves. Aurora refused to believe it. "Seahawk would never lie to me," she insisted, still clutching the gift he'd sent. But as the hours stretched on, the truth began to settle in. The man she'd given her heart to was a ghost. That night, something in her hardened—and her faith in love died a quiet death.

Episode 2

Somewhere far away, Seahawk's world looks nothing like a romance. Jacob briefs him: local officials and business representatives are waiting, leaving him barely thirty minutes to meet his pen pal. "Not my pen pal girlfriend," he corrects—yet even Jacob marvels that a US Navy SEAL admiral would fall so hard for a girl he's never met. Before he can leave, a crisis erupts in the Gulf of Aiden: merchant ships hijacked. Duty calls, and it calls now. Whatever future he imagined at that ice cream shop, the navy has other plans. He heads back to base without a word to the girl still waiting.

Episode 3

The mission is brutal, and the warning is plain: he may not come back alive. Jacob urges him to leave a message for his girlfriend—she waits for no one—but he refuses. "If I make it back alive, I'll explain everything in person." He doesn't make it back in time. Back home, Aurora finally understands: Aurora Miller was right. The cheap ring, the ice cream shop, the two years of letters—all of it was a game. Humiliated, she's mocked for dreaming of a navy romance. "You're trash, just like your mother," Aurora Miller spits. Something breaks and hardens in Aurora. "I will become a doctor," she vows. "I will walk out of hell alone."

Episode 4

Years later, Aurora is a medical student fighting for her mother's life. When her mother collapses, there's no pulse—Aurora rushes in to help. The diagnosis is devastating: without a suitable heart transplant, her mother has only three months left. Her one regret is not seeing Aurora married. Meanwhile, Damien Hawke's grandmother Margaret pressures him relentlessly: the Hawke family has built international shipping for over a century, and he must marry and provide an heir. When Margaret names the girl—Aurora Miller, her friend's daughter—something flickers. Ten years. Has Damien forgotten everything they had? He agrees to meet her.

Episode 5

At the hospital, Aurora Miller's cruelty escalates. She corners Aurora, threatening to expose her as a "slut" and humiliate her online, sneering that nobody gets a perfect score without sleeping with the boss. Aurora stands her ground—she earned her score—but Aurora Miller won't stop, mocking her and demanding she strip. The harassment is relentless and public. Yet help arrives from an unexpected direction. Someone steps in, calling Aurora Miller out for toxic behavior in a place meant for healing. Aurora Miller sneers at the stranger as a broke nobody playing hero—unaware that this "nobody" is about to make a single phone call that changes everything.

Episode 6

Aurora Miller's arrogance collapses in real time. One phone call—a quiet complaint about a bullying employee named Aurora Miller—and she's suspended. "You can't touch me," she'd boasted. Then: "I'm actually suspended?" The stranger who intervened is none other than Damien Hawke, and when he turns to Aurora, the recognition lands: "Aurora Miller. Yes, you're my fiancée." Neither of them knows the full truth yet—that they've met before, in letters, a decade ago. But fate has quietly closed the circle. Aurora, still bruised from Aurora Miller's attack, now faces the man her mother hoped she'd marry.

Episode 7

Damien and Aurora lay out their terms with brutal honesty. She warns him not to expect a wife—she's devoted to her career. He fires back that he's no Prince Charming and advises her not to fall in love with him either. They agree to stay out of each other's way, and when he floats an open marriage, she declines. At the ceremony, they play the part of a couple for the cameras, even enduring a staged kiss. Then Damien asks where her home is and offers to help her move. "We just got married. Isn't it tradition to live together?" The contract is sealed—but the distance between them is the whole point.

Episode 8

Aurora moves in with Damien—not for romance, but because her mother's treatment costs a fortune and sharing bills could save her. Damien's grandmother Margaret welcomes her warmly, then drops a pointed surprise: she's hoping for great-grandchildren soon. The pressure is immediate and awkward. Meanwhile, Damien guards a secret he can't afford to reveal: he's a retired navy admiral, and his real identity is too classified to share. He can't risk Aurora finding out. So the two of them settle into a strange, careful coexistence—strangers sharing a home, each hiding something, neither suspecting that the person across the table is the one they've been missing for ten years.

Episode 9

The newlyweds face the first night in their shared home—one bed, two people determined to keep their distance. When Margaret lingers outside the door, listening, Damien and Aurora are forced into an awkward performance, loudly pretending passion to satisfy his grandmother. It's mortifying and strangely funny, two near-strangers acting out a marriage that exists only on paper. When the coast finally clears, the act drops. The tension between them is real, but so is the wall they've both agreed to keep up. Neither wants to admit that the performance felt a little too easy—or that the person beside them might be more familiar than they know.

Episode 10

With Margaret gone, the pretense evaporates. Damien apologizes for the charade; Aurora says she's fine. He promises he would never touch her without consent, then takes the floor so she can have the bed. Alone, he makes a call—and learns the painful truth: his subordinate has tried everything but still can't find his pen pal. "An unbreakable bond. That was the promise I made to her." Meanwhile, Aurora confides in Emily that her marriage is a sham—they haven't even slept together. Then Emily asks the question that cuts deepest: is she still hung up on that navy guy who stood her up? Aurora doesn't answer.