Gabriel did not answer immediately.

He looked at me as though he were trying to determine whether I was serious or simply wounded by another argument with Julian.

Finally, he stood.

“I can wait.”

Those three words almost broke me.

Because Gabriel had already waited four years.

And in my previous life, he would wait another five until death.

This time, I refused to waste even one more day.

“Then start with dinner tomorrow.”

His eyes widened slightly.

“With me?”

I smiled.

“No. With my father.”

My father coughed to hide his laughter.

Gabriel’s ears actually turned red.

That was the first thing I learned about him in this life.

The terrifying Gabriel Blackwood, who could silence an entire boardroom with one glance, became strangely helpless whenever I approached him first.

The second thing I learned was worse.

Almost everything I had remembered as Julian’s kindness…

had actually come from Gabriel.

The medicine delivered anonymously when I was sick at university.

Gabriel.

The investor who saved my first design project after a client withdrew.

Gabriel.

The limited-edition book Julian claimed he had searched three countries to find for my birthday?

Gabriel had sent it through him after Julian offered to “help deliver it.”

I discovered that one accidentally.

Gabriel and I were having coffee when I mentioned the book.

His hand stopped.

“You liked it?”

I stared at him.

“How did you know which book?”

Silence.

Then he realized.

I leaned forward.

“Gabriel.”

He looked almost guilty.

“I bought it.”

My chest tightened.

“And Julian?”

“I asked him to give it to you.”

“Why?”

“You were dating him.”

That answer made me furious.

Not at Gabriel.

At myself.

For nine years, I had taken love from one man and thanked another.

That evening Julian finally found me.

He waited outside the Hart residence with an expression full of certainty.

“Are you finished throwing your tantrum?”

I stopped.

Gabriel was beside me.

Julian’s eyes immediately darkened.

“So this is why.”

I laughed.

“You really believe I need another man to leave you?”

“Camille, Vivian has been crying for two days because of what you said.”

“Then comfort her.”

His face stiffened.

“You used to be more understanding.”

“Yes.”

I nodded.

“That was my mistake.”

He took a step closer.

“You’re going to regret throwing away nine years because you’re jealous of a widow.”

I remembered the little girl who would someday call him Dad.

The secret family.

The proposal he would eventually give me only because his mother pressured him.

I felt nothing.

“Julian, answer one question.”

He frowned.

“If Vivian fell in love with someone else tomorrow, would you be happy for her?”

He went silent.

That silence told him more than I ever could.

I smiled.

“Goodbye.”

He grabbed my wrist.

Gabriel moved instantly.

“Let her go.”

Julian looked at him.

“This has nothing to do with you.”

Gabriel’s voice remained calm.

“It does if she asks me to stay.”

I looked at Gabriel.

“I’m asking.”

Julian released me.

For the first time, uncertainty appeared on his face.

He had spent nine years believing I would always return.

Just like in my previous life.

But this time, I walked into the house beside Gabriel.

And never looked back.

Three months later, we became engaged.

Not because our families required it.

Because I asked Gabriel whether he still wanted the marriage.

His answer was immediate.

“Yes.”

I laughed.

“You could pretend to think about it.”

“I’ve thought about it for four years.”

Fair enough.

But as our wedding approached, another memory began haunting me.

Gabriel’s death.

In my previous life, he died five years after our marriage.

A highway accident during a business trip.

At least, that was what everyone told me.

His diary had mentioned almost nothing about it.

Except one strange sentence written three weeks before he died:

“I finally found who has been leaking Blackwood shipping information. If I’m right, this could become dangerous.”

I had barely noticed it the first time.

Now I remembered every word.

So I began investigating.

Quietly.

Gabriel noticed.

“You’ve been reading logistics reports for three nights.”

I looked up.

“Your company’s southern shipping division is losing money.”

His eyebrows rose.

“You understand logistics?”

“No.”

I turned the laptop toward him.

“But I understand when numbers repeat.”

Three supposedly unrelated subcontractors were receiving payments on identical dates.

Gabriel’s expression slowly changed.

He immediately called his finance director.

The investigation lasted two weeks.

The person behind it was Marcus Blackwood.

Gabriel’s cousin.

In my previous life, Marcus had inherited control of several divisions after Gabriel’s death.

Suddenly, the accident no longer felt accidental.

Gabriel returned home after midnight the day the evidence was confirmed.

He found me sitting in the living room.

“Camille.”

I stood.

“Did you find him?”

He stared at me.

“How did you know there was someone to find?”

I had prepared lies.

None came out.

So I told him the truth.

Not everything.

Not the impossible part.

But enough.

“I had a dream.”

He frowned.

“A very long dream.”

I walked toward him.

“In it, I married you without loving you.”

His expression went still.

“I treated you terribly.”

“Camille—”

“You died.”

His face changed.

“And afterward, I found your diary.”

I was crying by then.

“I discovered everything too late.”

Gabriel didn’t interrupt.

I told him about Julian.

Vivian.

The child.

The diary.

The highway accident.

When I finished, Gabriel stood in silence.

Then he asked:

“In that life… did I make you unhappy?”

Of all the questions he could have asked, that was his first.

I almost laughed through my tears.

“You died loving a woman who never gave you anything back.”

His expression softened.

“That doesn’t answer me.”

“No.”

I shook my head.

“You never hurt me.”

He wiped my tears.

“Then stop crying for a man who doesn’t exist anymore.”

I froze.

Gabriel placed my hand over his heartbeat.

“I’m here.”

That night, we changed everything.

Gabriel canceled the trip he had originally been scheduled to take.

Security turned evidence against Marcus over to the authorities.

Investigators later discovered that he had been planning to sabotage a company vehicle to prevent Gabriel from exposing the fraud.

The date?

Exactly the date Gabriel had died in my previous life.

When I saw it written in the report, my knees weakened.

Gabriel caught me.

“You saved me.”

I buried my face against his chest.

“No.”

I whispered.

“You saved me first.”

The wedding happened six months later.

Small.

No business press.

No social spectacle.

When Gabriel slipped the ring onto my finger, his hands trembled exactly as they had the day I asked whether he still wanted to marry me.

At the reception, my father approached with an amused expression.

“Blackwood.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You’ve stared at my daughter for three hours.”

Gabriel looked completely serious.

“I’ve waited years. I’m making up for lost time.”

I almost choked on my champagne.

That was when someone entered the garden.

Julian.

Alone.

His face looked exhausted.

“Camille.”

Gabriel immediately moved beside me.

I touched his hand.

“It’s fine.”

Julian looked at my wedding dress.

Then at Gabriel.

“I heard you were getting married.”

“A little late.”

His eyes reddened.

“Vivian is pregnant.”

I already knew what came next.

“She says the baby might be mine.”

There it was.

Four years earlier than in my previous life.

Without me constantly occupying Julian’s attention, he and Vivian had crossed their boundary much sooner.

Strangely, I felt relieved.

The future I had feared was simply revealing itself faster.

Julian looked at me desperately.

“I think I ruined everything.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

He stared at me.

“You chose what you wanted.”

“But I lost you.”

“You never had me in the way you think.”

His face twisted.

“I loved you.”

“Perhaps.”

I looked toward Vivian standing far beyond the garden gate, one hand resting on her stomach.

“But you always chose her first.”

This time, Julian couldn’t deny it.

He left without another word.

Years passed.

Gabriel never died on that highway.

The diary from my previous life never existed.

Instead, he developed an irritating habit of leaving short notes everywhere.

Inside my books.

Beside my coffee.

In my suitcase before business trips.

On our seventh anniversary, I found one beneath my pillow.

“I loved you for four years before you looked at me. I would have waited longer.”

I walked into his study holding the note.

“You’re still writing dramatic things?”

Gabriel looked up.

“You keep saving them.”

“I need evidence.”

“Of what?”

“That the terrifying Gabriel Blackwood is embarrassingly sentimental.”

He pulled me onto the chair beside him.

“Only with my wife.”

By then we had two children.

A daughter who had inherited Gabriel’s seriousness.

And a son who had inherited my inability to stay quiet.

Sometimes, late at night, I still remembered the other life.

The diary.

The funeral.

The unbearable realization that I had discovered Gabriel’s love only after there was no one left to receive mine.

But those memories no longer hurt in the same way.

Because this time, when Gabriel reached for me in his sleep, his hand found mine.

Alive.

Warm.

Here.

In my first life, I spent nine years chasing a man who kept asking me to wait while he chose someone else.

And I overlooked the man who had quietly chosen me every single day.

When fate gave me another chance, I thought I had returned to save Gabriel Blackwood from death.

Only years later did I understand the truth.

I hadn’t gone back merely to save the husband who died loving me.

I had gone back to save myself from wasting another lifetime begging the wrong man to choose me.

And this time, when Gabriel chose me…

I chose him back.