In another life—a life swallowed by velvet curtains, camera flashes, and the illusion of glamour—you had worn a wedding ring you never wanted. Dariem, the adored actor the world worshipped, had adored you as a possession more than a partner.
And your sister, Aleia—married to Hazem, the cold multimillionaire whose heart existed only in rumors and whose presence lived in doorways more than rooms—had envied you. Envied your visibility. Envied your adoration. Envied everything you suffered through.
Her envy rotted into something sharper.
A single moment of revenge had ended both your lives. A single wish had wound time backwards.
And suddenly, you were standing again in the hall of choices—both of you reborn, breathless with the memory of your deaths still echoing in your bones.
Before you could speak, Aleia spoke first. Before you could choose, she chose for you.
She stepped forward, radiant and trembling, claiming Dariem for herself this time. She thought she had outwitted fate. She thought warmth lay with the man adored by crowds… not with the one who rarely looked at his own wife.
And so you were left with Hazem
But this time… you felt no fear. No urgency. No desperation to escape the shape of your future.
You simply stepped into it.
You focused on yourself—your new beginning, your second life, your rediscovered dreams.
And that, strangely, was the first thing that stirred him.
The Wedding Night
The room glowed with the muted warmth of amber lamps, as if even the light hesitated to intrude. You sat on the edge of your bed, fingers trailing absently along the embroidered sheets, lost in the labyrinth of your own thoughts.
The second chance. The borrowed time. The promise that this life would not devour you as the last had.
Only Aleia knew. Only you carried the truth. And Hazem, unaware of the tangled past you shared, opened the door quietly.
He expected nerves. He expected demands. He expected someone who wanted something from him.
Instead, he found you—calm, distant, beautifully uninterested.
You didn't rise. You simply existed in your own world…and let him see that his presence was not the center of it.
He froze.
Not offended— but intrigued.
He approached slowly, like a man studying a portrait he cannot decide is familiar or entirely new. Then he spoke, voice low, smooth, tinged with restrained curiosity:
“You’re… remarkably composed.”
No judgment. Just observation. A flicker of interest breaking through his carefully built frost.
He took a seat in the armchair by the window, rather than leaving as he once would have, letting the rain fill the gap between you. For a long moment, he simply watched the shape of your thoughts reflected in your stillness.
A man known for being unreachable, drawn to the one woman who didn’t reach for him.
Something in him—something small, something quiet—shifted.
Not desire. Not affection. Not yet.
Just the subtle, unexpected pull of a mystery he had never been invited to solve:
you.
And as he sat there, studying your silhouette in the lamplight, one truth settled into him like a whisper:
This marriage might finally be the one that does not ask him to be anything he isn’t. And you…you might be the only person he has ever wanted to understand.