Chapter 2The Second Time You Chose Her

My father’s face darkened.

“Our families have worked together for thirty years. You would jeopardize that partnership over this?”

“I want Celeste,” Julian said. “If that means remaining single, I will.”

Celeste touched his arm.

“Please consider Evelyn’s feelings. She was badly injured saving you. Even now, cold weather still brings back the pain.”

She watched me while he covered her hand with his.

Julian and I had grown up together. At seventeen, he had taken his family’s sailboat out without permission and invited me along. The weather turned on our way back, and a broken line dragged him overboard.

I jumped after him, secured a life jacket around his chest, and pushed him toward the approaching rescue boat. A wave swept me away before the crew could reach me.

I spent three weeks in the hospital.

Celeste had answered a call at the marina and passed the message to his family’s house manager. By the time I came home, she had allowed him to believe that she had discovered we were missing and organized the rescue.

“Of course I remember,” Julian told her. “You sent people after us. I’d be dead without you.”

Then he looked at me.

“I appreciate what you did, Evelyn. But you can’t keep using it to interfere with my life.”

“I haven’t mentioned it.”

“You chose me in front of our families. What am I supposed to think?”

“That I answered a question.”

Celeste tightened her fingers around his sleeve.

“She probably remembered how close you used to be.”

I looked at the engagement folder in her other hand.

“You’ve accepted Adrian’s proposal, and you still want Julian. Perhaps the three of you should settle that before discussing me.”

Her smile faltered.

“How does speaking to me like that help you? If they both choose me, who will you marry?”

“What if I choose neither of them?”

I rose slowly, my voice calm.

Both men turned to look at me.

Julian’s expression was openly mocking, as if the idea that I could reject him was absurd.

Adrian’s gaze sharpened, as though he were trying to see what had changed in me.

I looked away.

I wanted nothing to do with the man who had watched me die in my first life.

My father slammed his glass onto the table.

“Enough! You are a daughter of this family. Your duty is to marry for its interests. What makes you think you have the right to refuse?”

I met his eyes without flinching.

“The Lisbon hotel division has been losing money for three months. Its operating partner has withdrawn, and the lenders are demanding answers.”

I paused.

“Send me. I worked on the acquisition. Give me three months, and I’ll secure a new operating agreement.”

In my first life, my father had also claimed that the family needed my help.

He took everything my mother had left me in the name of saving the business.

Later, I learned that much of it had gone to Celeste. She used my inheritance to buy an apartment overseas and live like royalty.

Meanwhile, I lived with Adrian in a damp basement apartment, working myself sick to pay for his treatment.

When his doctor demanded another fifty thousand dollars for surgery, I went to Celeste.

I waited outside her apartment for hours, begging her to return even a fraction of my mother’s money.

She laughed and had security drag me outside.

I sold the last of my mother’s jewelry to pay the bill.

Yet Adrian never thanked me.

Instead, he asked why I had humiliated Celeste over money.

He could have told me the truth at any time.

He simply chose not to.

I had been given another chance at life.

This time, I would not waste it on either of them.