Chapter 1045:

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Andrew’s gaze flickered. Back then, his heart had still belonged to Kestrel.

Cathryn’s throat tightened painfully. Not yet loving her was one thing. Loving someone else at the time was something entirely different.

“After I fell for you, I stopped thinking about her,” Andrew said quietly. “I stopped looking. I promise you that.”

“If Kyla hadn’t changed — if it came down to her or me — who would you choose?”

The question landed like a blade.

Andrew hesitated. If fate had not pushed him and Cathryn together, he would have chosen Kestrel without hesitation. But life had taken a turn he never anticipated. He had met Cathryn, and his heart had chosen her. That was the whole truth of it.

But Cathryn had already read the pause in his eyes.

“If we hadn’t married, you would have chosen her,” she said, her voice hollow.

Andrew looked at her, pain evident across his face. “Cathryn, that isn’t a fair question to ask.” The truth was straightforward: Kyla had changed, he had met Cathryn, and he had fallen in love with her. That was the sequence of it, and nothing else mattered.

S𝗵𝘢𝗋e 𝘆о𝘶r 𝗍𝗁𝘰u𝗀h𝘵𝘴 𝗈𝗻 𝗴а𝘭ոо𝘷𝖾𝗹𝘴.𝗰о𝗺

Cathryn couldn’t fully explain why she suddenly felt so unsteady. Perhaps it was because she had always believed she was only competing with one woman from his past — an unnamed, faceless figure. Now there was another, and she was his first love. It was a different kind of wound.

“You had two women before me,” Cathryn said. “Your first love, and whoever you were with before me. How do I know there isn’t a third you’ve never mentioned?”

Andrew’s expression tightened. “The person you’re referring to — the first time — that was you.”

Cathryn’s eyes flashed. “And you’re still lying, even now?”

“I’m not lying,” Andrew said, his voice firm with conviction. “Before you, there was no one. That night at the Olekgan Hotel — it was my first time too.”

Cathryn let out a sharp, disbelieving sound. “Amanda told me otherwise. And you’re still going to stand there and tell me it isn’t true?”

Andrew’s brows pulled together sharply. Why would Amanda have told her that?

Then the memory surfaced. After Amanda had returned from Hakal, they had spoken — and she had fretted that he might hold Cathryn’s past marriage against her. He had reassured her that although Cathryn had been married before, she had come to him untouched. Amanda had laughed then, teasing him gently, asking whether the two of them had been each other’s first.

His pride had made him deflect the question rather than answer it plainly. He had left things vague — and Amanda must have interpreted his evasiveness as confirmation that he had been with someone before Cathryn. And then she had passed that assumption along to Cathryn as fact.

Andrew pressed a hand to his forehead, cursing Amanda silently. Was she really his grandmother? How had she managed to create this kind of damage from a single misread conversation?

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