The Second Time You Chose Her

I had spent my entire life in the shadow of my sister, Celeste—the woman every wealthy heir in our circle had adored since childhood. She did not know I had been reborn. Just as she had in my first life, she smiled sweetly and offered to let me choose a husband first, making herself look generous and considerate. But this time, I refused to play along. In my first life, I had been foolish enough to believe she meant well. I chose Adrian Vale, the heir who had supposedly lost the use of his legs in a car accident. I gave up my career and spent five years caring for him. I became his caregiver, his assistant, and the only person he claimed could ease his loneliness. But no matter how much warmth I gave him, I could never make him love me. The truth came out on the night of Celeste’s pregnancy celebration. As we left the hotel, one of Hart Group’s former competitors drove a black SUV through the security barrier and sped straight toward Celeste. Adrian—the man who had relied on a wheelchair and my help for five years—rose to his feet without hesitation. Then he shoved me into its path. The SUV struck me hard enough to throw me beneath its wheels. As I lay on the pavement with my pelvis shattered and blood pouring from my body, I watched Adrian pull Celeste into his arms and shield her behind a concrete pillar. Only then did I understand. He had never been unable to walk. His family had never abandoned him, either. He had pretended because Celeste had chosen Julian, and he would rather live as a helpless man than admit he had been forced to marry her sister. “I’m sorry, Evelyn,” he whispered as my blood spread across the pavement. “I lied to you. But I couldn’t let Celeste lose her baby.” “I’ll repay you in our next life.” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my father asked us to choose our husbands. This time, I would choose neither man. One day, they would both beg for the love they had thrown away. Chapter 1 “Let Evelyn choose first. She needs a powerful husband to protect her more than I do.” Celeste glanced at Julian as she spoke. He took her hand beneath the table, apparently unconcerned that everyone could see. My father looked at me. “Adrian Vale or Julian Crest. Which one do you want to marry?” “Julian.” Celeste’s smile disappeared. Before she could speak, my father stood and slapped me. “You know he loves your sister!” I pressed my tongue against the cut inside my cheek. “Then why ask me to choose?” “Celeste was considerate enough to let you speak first. How could you use that to take the man she loves?” “You should have announced the engagements. It would have saved us all some time.” He raised his hand again, but Celeste stepped between us. “Dad, please. I offered to let her choose.” She turned toward me. “I always thought you wanted Adrian. If you had feelings for Julian, why didn’t you tell me?” “Well, now you know.” Across the room, Adrian gripped the armrest of his wheelchair. In my first life, I had chosen him. I had spent five years helping him dress, accompanying him to treatment, and working to pay for rehabilitation his family supposedly refused to fund. Then, when the SUV came toward Celeste, he had stood without assistance and pushed me into its path. I could still remember his hands on my shoulders. Julian interrupted before the memory could carry me further. “Evelyn, both people have to agree to a marriage.” “Then you can refuse. You asked for my choice, and I gave it to you.” My father pointed at me. “Hart Group needs both alliances. You don’t get to destroy our plans because you’re jealous of your sister.” Since my mother’s death, Celeste had represented the family at receptions while I worked through the investments my father needed someone to salvage. Now he expected me to accept the marriage she had refused. “Adrian will have professional caregivers,” he continued. “You’ll want for nothing as his wife.” “We need to reconsider that arrangement.” Adrian placed both feet on the floor and rose from his wheelchair. My father stopped speaking. Adrian walked to the table without help. Celeste watched him cross the room, her hand slipping out of Julian’s. “You can walk?” my father asked. “I’ve recovered.” He picked up the financing documents. “Hart Group needs fifty million dollars before next month. Vale Industries is prepared to provide it.” My father glanced at the wheelchair, then back at him. “What are your terms?” “I want to marry Celeste.” For five years, I had watched him struggle through exercises that exhausted me more than they seemed to exhaust him. I had learned how to help him into bed without hurting him, how to fold his wheelchair, how to fit another appointment around my work. Now he stood in front of us because he wanted my sister. “Adrian,” Celeste said, “why didn’t you tell me?” “I wanted you to hear it from me.” He looked at my swollen cheek. “Evelyn, nothing has been finalized. We can still change the arrangement.” His recovery, his sudden proposal, the way he avoided my eyes afterward: I began to suspect that he remembered our marriage, too. “So you’re certain you want Celeste?” “Yes.” “And your parents?” “I’ll speak to them.” I pushed the Vale marriage proposal toward my sister. “Then I hope you get what you want.” Adrian watched my hand withdraw from the folder. My father had already turned to the financing offer. “When can the money arrive?” “As soon as the review and agreements are complete.” “And the medical center project?” “Hart Construction can submit its proposal.” My father nodded, the slap apparently forgotten. “Celeste and Adrian have known each other for years. It’s an excellent match.” Celeste looked toward Julian. “But what about…” “Our partnership with the Crests will continue,” my father said. “Evelyn will marry Julian.” Julian stood so abruptly that his chair scraped the floor. “I never agreed to that.” “I’ll discuss the terms with your father.” “You can discuss business with him. I decide whom I marry.” My father looked at Celeste, expecting her to fix it. She approached Julian with the Vale proposal still in her hand. “We all have to consider our families. Evelyn chose you. You should at least give her a chance.” He stared at her. “You want me to marry her?” “I want everyone to be happy.” Julian studied her for a moment, then turned to me. “Listen carefully, Evelyn. I don’t care how much money, property, or influence your family offers. I will never marry you.” Chapter 2 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. Chapter 3 With Julian’s support, my father finally agreed to send me to Lisbon. I deleted Adrian’s number and boarded the next flight. The Lisbon division barely acknowledged me when I arrived. To them, I was still nothing more than Celeste’s less impressive younger sister. I did not care. I would let my results speak for me. In my first life, I had spent all my time orbiting Adrian. I had never realized how good I was at the negotiating table. Within three weeks, I revived an operating agreement that had been stalled for nearly a year. I separated the hotel’s old maintenance debts from its future expenses, renegotiated the payment schedule, and brought the operating partner back to the table. When the agreement was signed, the division director placed the next quarter’s budget in front of me. “What do you think we should do?” It was the first time anyone in the family business had asked for my opinion before asking for Celeste’s. After that, the partners began contacting me directly. Even the senior executives started looking at me with respect. My name was finally beginning to carry weight. Soon, everyone would understand that I was no longer Celeste’s shadow. My father, who had almost forgotten I existed, finally called. The moment I answered, he began shouting. “How long do you plan to ignore this family? The anniversary of your mother’s death is approaching. Are you not coming home?” My mother was the only person in that family I still cared about. “I already booked my flight.” “Come home first. We have things to discuss.” He hung up without mentioning the agreement I had saved. On the anniversary of my mother’s death, Celeste was waiting for me at the cemetery. Adrian stood beside her. Celeste smiled warmly, but the jealousy in her eyes was impossible to hide. “You’ve worked very hard in Lisbon,” she said. “But a respectable woman shouldn’t be spending her time with criminals and private military contractors.” She held out several photographs. They showed me leaving a restaurant with one of our operating partners. His wife had been walking beside us, but Celeste had conveniently cropped her out. “People are saying you used your body to secure those contracts,” she continued. “You’ve embarrassed Dad and damaged the family’s reputation.” “Show them the full photographs.” Her smile stiffened. Then she glanced at Adrian and pretended to understand. “Oh. I see. You worked so hard because you wanted men to notice you.” She took a printed email from her bag. “Dad has arranged a more suitable marriage for you. The Whitmores’ eldest son.” He had been in a coma since a skiing accident three years earlier. “Starting tomorrow, you’re no longer in charge of Lisbon,” Celeste added. “I’ll take over. Give my assistant your contacts and files before you leave.” I stared at her, strangely calm. “I earned those contracts. You wouldn’t understand half the terms in them, yet you expect me to hand everything over to you?” “Evelyn, Dad has already decided.” “You accused me of sleeping with someone to save the project. Now you want to take credit for everything I accomplished.” Her face paled. I stepped closer. “Does losing your shadow frighten you that much? You’ve taken enough from me, Celeste. You’re not taking this.” Shock flashed across her face. Then her eyes filled with tears. “I’m only trying to help you. Why do you always assume I want to hurt you?” She turned helplessly toward Adrian. “I know she’s always resented me for being better than her, but I never wanted her to work herself to exhaustion.” I had no interest in listening to the rest. I turned to leave. Adrian grabbed my wrist and shoved me against the cemetery wall. “You’ve gone too far.” The stone struck my shoulder. For a moment, I remembered those same hands pushing me in front of the SUV. “Apologize to Celeste,” he ordered. He caught my chin, trying to force me to look at him as he always had. I pulled his fingers away one by one. “Stop pretending to be a hero.” I pulled his fingers away from my chin one by one and stepped back. “Stop pretending to be a hero, Adrian. Not here. Not in front of my mother’s grave. You make me sick.” Adrian’s hand remained frozen in midair. My calm, almost indifferent resistance had caught him completely off guard. Perhaps it had never occurred to him that I would one day look at him without love, anger, or even disappointment. There was nothing left in my eyes but numbness, as if the man standing before me had become a complete stranger. “Evelyn…” His voice came out so hoarse that the single word was barely recognizable. He stared at me, stunned, but I gave him no chance to continue. I turned away, returned to the hotel, packed my luggage, and booked a flight back to Lisbon that same evening. Yet before I could board the plane, Julian and Adrian blocked my way. Julian strode toward me and closed one hand around my throat. His eyes were bloodshot, and the rage twisting his face made him look almost deranged. “This is all your fault!” he roared. “Celeste went to a warehouse alone last night because she wanted to negotiate a major arms deal and prove that she could manage Lisbon without you. But the entire deal was a trap. They forced her to sign an enormous debt, and now they’re threatening to harvest her organs and sell them as payment.” His fingers tightened around my throat until I could barely breathe. “She’s being held inside that warehouse right now. Until we bring her back safely, you’re not going anywhere!” Chapter 4 On the way to the warehouse, Adrian let out a quiet sigh. “I know you came back, too.” A bitter smile touched my lips. “What difference does that make? Does knowing what happened in our first life make you any more willing to choose me?” “I’m sorry,” he said softly. I shook my head, no longer knowing what else there was to say. “Two lives, Adrian. And those are still the only words you have for me.” Without warning, he leaned across the seat and kissed me hard. I shoved him away, but he caught the back of my neck and pressed his forehead against mine. “Evelyn, this is the last time I’ll ever ask you to endure something for me. We’re only going to the warehouse to pay what they’re demanding and bring Celeste home. Nothing will happen to you.” His voice dropped into the solemn tone he always used when making promises he had no intention of keeping. “After this, I’ll speak to both families. I’ll marry you, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for everything I did.” My lips moved, but my voice came out hoarse. “I only have one question left for you. Can’t you see that Celeste did this deliberately? She went there alone because she wanted everyone’s attention. She knew you and Julian would rush in to save her.” Adrian fell silent and turned toward the window. “I don’t know.” I stared at his reflection in the glass. Did he truly not know, or did he know and prefer to pretend otherwise? It was almost laughable. They both understood Celeste’s games, yet when she created another disaster, they still chose to push me into danger to protect her. The warehouse office was dimly lit, its heavy steel doors shutting out every sound from the road. Debt notices and copied contracts covered the long table in the center of the room. Celeste had been tied to a chair near the loading bay. Her makeup was streaked with tears, and the moment she saw us, panic and pleading flooded her eyes. Julian rushed toward her. “Celeste, are you hurt?” “Not another step.” The man behind the table snapped his fingers, and two armed guards immediately blocked Julian’s path. “We’re not interested in your family reunion,” the manager said. “You either repay her debt before dawn, or we put her in that sedan and send it into the flooded quarry. By the time anyone finds the wreckage, it will look like an accident.” Adrian’s hands curled into fists. “How much does she owe?” The manager pushed one of the documents across the table. “Eighty million dollars. She signed her family’s name to every page, so we expect every dollar.” “Eighty million?” Julian stared at Celeste in disbelief. Neither family could produce that much available cash in a matter of hours. Julian looked from the debt documents to Celeste. Then his gaze slowly shifted toward me, and something frantic and cruel began to take shape in his eyes. “Evelyn is a Hart, too,” he said. “Keep her instead.” For a moment, I thought I had misheard him. Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward me. Adrian’s voice dropped dangerously low. “What did you just say?” Julian gave a cold laugh, as though his suggestion were perfectly reasonable. “Celeste only came here because Evelyn humiliated her and refused to hand over the Lisbon division. Celeste wanted to prove herself. None of this would have happened otherwise.” He pointed at me. “Keep Evelyn as collateral. We’ll take Celeste home, raise the money, and return before dawn.” The manager studied me with open interest. “She controls the Lisbon assets, doesn’t she? In that case, she may be worth more to us than your fiancée.” “No,” Adrian said immediately. Celeste suddenly began sobbing so violently that her entire body shook. “Adrian, please help me. I don’t want to die in that car. Please take me home.” The certainty in Adrian’s expression wavered. His fists tightened as his gaze moved between Celeste and me. Finally, he stepped closer and spoke in the careful, gentle voice he always used when asking me to sacrifice something for her. “Evelyn, I know you don’t truly want Celeste to be hurt. Stay here for a few hours while we arrange the money. I’ll come back for you before they can do anything.” The blood in my body seemed to freeze. I looked at him and forced a smile that felt uglier than tears. “Did I hear you correctly? You want to leave me here so you can take her home?” Guilt and conflict filled his eyes, but neither emotion was strong enough to make him change his mind. “I’ll come back for you,” he said. “I swear.” Julian frowned impatiently. “They’re only asking you to wait while we raise the money. Celeste has already been trapped here for hours. Why can’t you do the same for her?” Because Celeste could be certain that they would return for her. What could I expect them to return for me with? Before the guards could drag me toward the chair, I used all my strength to catch Adrian’s wrist. “Are you really going to leave me beside another car?” His entire body stiffened. I tightened my fingers around him and forced him to look at me. “You remember our first life. You remember pushing me in front of that SUV and watching me die. Are you really going to do it again?” Adrian lifted his other hand as though he meant to pull me away from the guards. Before he could touch me, Celeste threw herself against him. She tore my fingers from his wrist and clung desperately to his arm. “I’m terrified, Adrian. Please take me home. I can’t stay here for another second.” The struggle in his eyes disappeared as he looked down at her. He put an arm around Celeste and turned to me. “I know this is unfair, but Celeste can’t die here. She’s always dreamed of having a family and children of her own.” A bitter laugh escaped me. “So you’re asking me to die in her place.” “You won’t die.” He spoke quickly, as though he were afraid he might change his mind if he hesitated. “I’ll start raising the money as soon as we leave. Once I bring you home, we’ll get married immediately. I’ll make everything right.” The guards restrained my arms while Julian untied Celeste. She rushed into Adrian’s embrace, and he held her as though she were the only person in the room who needed protection. As they walked toward the exit, Adrian looked back at me one last time. “Wait for me, Evelyn.” The steel door slammed shut behind them. The warehouse fell silent. The fear vanished from my face. The guards immediately released me, while the manager swept the debt documents from the table and replaced them with two glasses of champagne. I slowly straightened my coat and looked toward the closed door through which Adrian had abandoned me for the second time. Then I raised one hand. “Continue with the plan.” The men who had been posing as guards lowered their weapons and bowed. One of my family’s soldiers stepped forward, and I handed him the Hart signet ring containing the chip that monitored my vital signs. He placed it on the concrete floor and crushed it beneath his boot. Within minutes, every member of the Hart family would receive the same message: Evelyn Hart was dead. The warehouse manager lifted his glass to me, an amused smile appearing on his face. “To your new life.” I picked up the second glass. From that moment on, Evelyn Hart was dead. The woman reborn in her place would make every last one of them live in terror.