Sebastian’s hand was still around my wrist.

—Don’t go.

Isabella heard him.

So did I.

Her fingers slowly slid from the car window.

—Sebastian… what do you mean?

He did not answer her.

His eyes stayed on me.

That was the first mistake he made in front of Isabella.

The second was opening my door himself.

—You have an appointment.

His voice had changed.

No longer cold.

No longer controlled.

Almost anxious.

Isabella stared at him.

—You came here with her?

I stepped out.

—We were already on the way before you arrived.

She looked at my belly again.

—How far along?

I answered calmly.

—Enough that your information was clearly incomplete.

Sebastian’s jaw tightened.

—Evelyn.

I smiled.

—Was I supposed to protect your lie?

Isabella’s face went white.

Then she turned toward him.

—You told me you never had a real marriage.

Sebastian finally looked at her.

—I said things were complicated.

—No.

Her voice shook.

—You said she was only there because the families arranged it.

I almost laughed.

Three years.

Three birthdays.

Three anniversaries.

Three winters waiting for him to come home.

Apparently all of that had been reduced to a sentence convenient enough for his first love to believe.

I walked toward the clinic entrance.

Sebastian followed.

Isabella followed him.

That was when I understood something even more important.

He had divorced me for her.

But the moment I truly stepped away, he could not stop following me.

Inside, I checked in alone.

Sebastian tried to come with me.

I stopped him.

—We are divorced.

His expression hardened.

—The child is mine.

—Biologically, yes.

I looked at him.

—That does not make us married again.

He stood outside the consultation room for nearly an hour.

Isabella waited too.

When I came out, they were no longer standing together.

She was crying quietly by the window.

Sebastian was ten steps away.

I walked past both.

He caught up.

—What did the doctor say?

—Everything is stable.

His shoulders loosened visibly.

Then:

—And your decision?

I stopped.

—About the pregnancy?

His eyes darkened.

—Yes.

I looked at him for a long time.

—Why do you care?

He seemed offended.

—She is my daughter.

—Yesterday, when you signed the divorce agreement, you didn’t even remember I had nausea.

That hit him harder than shouting would have.

He said quietly:

—I was wrong.

I nodded.

—Yes.

Then I left.

That night, Sebastian came to the villa.

Technically it was already mine.

He stood outside for almost twenty minutes before I opened the door.

He was holding our marriage certificate.

I stared at it.

—What do you want?

—To talk.

—About Isabella?

His expression changed.

—I ended things with her.

I almost smiled.

—There were things to end?

Silence.

That answered enough.

He stepped closer.

—I thought I owed her something.

—For the past.

—For leaving when we were young.

—I thought if she returned, maybe—

He stopped.

I finished for him.

—Maybe you had chosen the wrong woman.

His face tightened.

I continued:

—So you divorced me to test the possibility.

—Evelyn—

—And now that I’m actually leaving, you suddenly discovered attachment.

He had no defense.

That was the strange thing about Sebastian.

He could defeat entire boards with three sentences.

But when confronted with his own contradictions, he became almost speechless.

I pointed toward the door.

—Go home.

He looked around.

—This is home.

—Not anymore.

His eyes moved to me.

Then to the marriage certificate.

He finally left.

The next morning, Isabella came.

Alone.

No umbrella this time.

No pale, fragile expression.

She looked angry.

—You planned this.

I opened the door only halfway.

—Planned what?

—Getting pregnant.

I stared at her.

Then laughed.

That seemed to infuriate her more.

—You knew Sebastian would never abandon his child.

—Interesting.

I tilted my head.

—Because two days ago, apparently you were told there was no child at all.

She froze.

I continued:

—Your problem is not that I planned something.

—Your problem is that Sebastian lied to both of us in different ways.

She lowered her voice.

—He loved me first.

—Then you should ask why he married me.

Her face hardened.

—You were convenient.

I nodded.

—Maybe.

That surprised her.

I continued:

—But if the only thing holding a man to you is being “first,” then you don’t have much either.

She left furious.

Two weeks later, the real reason for Isabella’s return became clear.

Her family company was collapsing.

She needed financing.

And the fastest way to recover credibility with investors was reconnecting herself publicly to Sebastian Song.

He had known part of the situation.

Not all of it.

When his finance team discovered that Isabella’s family had already used his name in private negotiations, Sebastian finally understood that their reunion had never been as romantic as he imagined.

He came to me that night.

I was packing.

The villa transfer was complete.

The shares were transferred.

The divorce settlement was finalized.

Everything he had generously given me now belonged to me legally.

I was leaving anyway.

—Where are you going?

—Another city.

—For how long?

—I don’t know.

His face went pale.

—And the baby?

—With me.

He closed his eyes.

—Evelyn, don’t disappear.

I looked at him.

—You divorced me.

—You do not get to divorce me and still decide where I live.

He whispered:

—I want to reverse it.

—I don’t.

That was the first time I saw Sebastian truly lose hope.

Not anger.

Hope.

He sat down.

—What do I have to do?

I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

—Nothing.

—There must be something.

—There isn’t.

I closed the suitcase.

—You had three years to decide whether this marriage mattered.

—You made your decision when Isabella called.

He looked at my stomach.

—And my daughter?

I sighed.

—You may be part of her life if you can learn to be her father without trying to own her mother.

He looked at me sharply.

That sentence frightened him more than divorce.

Because Sebastian Song had always understood love as possession disguised as protection.

Months passed.

Our daughter, Emma, was born healthy.

Sebastian was there.

Not beside me.

Outside.

Exactly where I chose.

Afterward, I allowed him to meet her.

He held her awkwardly, as if frightened that even breathing too hard might make her disappear.

For the first time in my life, I saw Sebastian cry.

Quietly.

He whispered:

—I almost lost this.

I answered:

—You almost chose not to know it existed.

He never argued about that again.

Our relationship became something strange but manageable.

He visited Emma.

He learned feeding schedules.

He changed meetings for pediatric appointments.

He stopped sending expensive gifts to me after I returned every one.

Instead, he started arriving on time.

That was more valuable.

Isabella left the city before the year ended.

Her family company was restructured without Song Group money.

Sebastian never resumed contact with her.

But that did not bring me back.

People around him expected it would.

They said:

—He chose you in the end.

I corrected them.

—No.

He chose differently after losing me.

That is not the same thing.

Three years later, Sebastian asked me once more.

We were standing outside Emma’s preschool.

—If I had never answered Isabella’s call, would we still be married?

I looked at him.

—Probably.

His face changed.

Then I added:

—But that isn’t the life we have.

He nodded slowly.

By then, he had learned not to ask for imaginary versions of the past.

Emma ran toward us carrying a paper crown.

Sebastian crouched to pick her up.

She laughed and put the crown on his head.

I watched them.

There was no jealousy.

No regret.

Only an unexpected peace.

The day Sebastian divorced me, he believed he was choosing his first love over a marriage that had become ordinary.

Then I calmly accepted the villa, the shares, the settlement—and walked away.

Only afterward did he understand what he had actually abandoned.

He thought the dangerous sentence was when I said I might not continue the pregnancy.

It wasn’t.

The sentence that truly ended our marriage came earlier, when he placed the divorce agreement in front of me and assumed I would fight to remain his wife.

I didn’t.

And by the time Sebastian decided he wanted our family back,

I had already learned that being chosen after another woman disappoints a man is not the same thing as being loved first.