A Second Chance at Forever

Chapter 1445

if Zephyr had never shown up, Katharine might have managed to suppress her longing for another year. But he did appear, like a raindrop falling into still waters, sending ripples across the surface and stirring a tempest in the calm. Content bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.

Everyone tried to convince her that he was not Caleb. Caleb didn’t have a mole in his eyes, he despised vegetables, shunned casual wear, and had no interest in scripture. Zephyr was not Caleb, their preferences were entirely different.

Yet Katharine was adamant that he was Caleb, just Caleb with no memory of her. She believed that Caleb had returned in another form to see her, and she clung to Zephyr, pulling the would-be ascetic from his spiritual pedestal.

The day Zephyr stepped down from his sanctuary and approached Katharine, she was still kneeling on her meditation cushion, thanking the heavens for returning Caleb to her. But before she could finish her prayers, her chin was lifted by a slender finger, tilting her face upward.

Looking into Zephyr’s eyes, she could see that mole, yet she chose to ignore it. Her heart, full of unresolved tenderness, focused solely on the face that resembled Caleb’s so closely.

She heard Zephyr ask her, “You’ve stirred my heart, yet you constantly yearn for another. I refuse to be a mere stand-in. If there’s a place for me in your heart, I’ll stay. If not, I’ll leave.”

Katharine’s reply was, “Caleb, you’re my fiancé, the father of my late child. How could you ever be a stand-in?”

She saw the light in Zephyr’s eyes dim with her words. After a silent departure that lasted some time, Katharine, in her desperation, couldn’t find him and turned to Robin for help, weeping.

Robin didn’t bare to see Katharine to lose her mind, and he knew that Zephyr indeed wasn’t Caleb. Why ruin the life Zephyr was meant to lead? Yet Zephyr’s presence had given Katharine the will to live, and in his selfishness, Robin indulged her.

Robin delved into Zephyr’s background, learning he was from a prominent Southeast Asian family. He even exhumed Caleb’s grave for a DNA test, confirming a blood relation between the two. Given their striking resemblance, Robin suspected they were twins.

The circumstances of Zephyr’s family were intricate. His father had two wives. His junior wife, threatened by the senior wife’s twins, conspired with a doctor to switch a living baby with a stillborn on the night of a difficult birth. The living child was then cast adrift on a ship, left to chart his own destiny across the seas.

Had Caleb not been found by Xavier Penrod on that chi

infancy. And without Bernard, he might’ve perished in the grueling training that followed. His seemingly bright but troubled life was sustained by the charity of others, which is why Caleb dedicated his wandering life to repaying that kindness.

Once Robin understood the connection between Zephyr and Caleb, he found Zephyr’s whereabouts. He saw him in a temple, watering petals beneath the Buddha with a grace that mirrored Caleb’s, save for one thing-Caleb’s hands had been stained with blood, while Zephyr’s were untouched by the secular world.

Robin approached Zephyr, telling him about Caleb’s existence and asking if he would replace Caleb and love Katharine Zephyr, kind-hearted as he was, cried knowing his brother’s lonely fate and tragic end, but he refused to replace Caleb in loving the woman his brother adored.

Robin didn’t press the matter and left. In the days that followed, he consoled Katharine, telling her not to chase after a man who wasn’t meant to be hers. She didn’t respond but asked him one night, leaning on the doorframe, “Robin, don’t I deserve happiness?”

Robin himself knew the pain of unrequited love. He reflected that his parents’ misdeeds would have to be repaid by someone, and he only hoped it would be him, not his sister who had already lost her lover and child.

Katharine no longer pursued Zephyr. She continued her devotions, believing that her focus. would bring Caleb back to her.

t was during a Mardi Gras parade, amidst the festivities, that Zephyr’s path crossed with Katharine’s again. Their eyes met, and it was like the first time, his heart struck with an resistible beat, like a dragon entwining around him.

Inable to sleep that night, Zephyr opened the temple doors and walked into the

af-strewn courtyard, gazing up at the stars. Whether it was the chill or something else, ephyr dreamed of a man identical to him, who spoke many words. The most vivid was a lea, “Zeph, I’m asking you, take care of my fiancée for me.”