Rebirth: The New Bride Wants A Divorce-Chapter 454: Will you forgive me?

"So you weren’t pretending to be okay with whatever I said... just to make me feel better?" Anna asked, narrowing her eyes slightly, searching his face for any hint of uncertainty.

Daniel didn’t even hesitate.

"I never pretend when it comes to you," he said quietly. "So when you said you were reborn, I never once thought you were lying."

There was something unshakably sincere in his voice—no defensiveness, no need to prove himself. Just truth.

Daniel had never been the kind of man to take Anna’s words lightly. From the day she had walked into his life, he’d felt it—an inexplicable pull, a familiarity that made no logical sense. As if she wasn’t someone new, but someone remembered. Someone he had always known, even before he had actually met her.

Anna, on the other hand, was still searching his eyes, waiting to catch even the smallest crack. Some sign that this was just another romantic line.

But she found nothing.

Only quiet certainty.

She inhaled slowly, her shoulders rising and falling as the weight of the moment settled on her.

"Why would you even want to know?" she asked at last, her voice softer now, almost cautious. "About... before."

Daniel tilted his head slightly, his thumb still resting against her cheek.

"Because it feels like there’s a part of you I don’t fully understand yet," he admitted. "And I don’t like not understanding you."

That made her heart twist.

She looked away for a second, blinking, suddenly unsure. Talking about the past—about who he was, about what he had done—wouldn’t just reopen old memories. It would leave him drowning in guilt. Guilt for things he had never even consciously done in this life.

She knew that.

"I don’t think you’d like the answer," she murmured.

"Try me." 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Anna let out a breathy laugh, but there was nothing amused about it.

"Let’s not talk about it," she said, already trying to shift away from him, trying to slip out of the heaviness that had suddenly settled between them.

But Daniel didn’t let her.

His arm tightened around her waist, firm but gentle, holding her in place as if he could sense she was about to run—not physically, but somewhere deeper.

"Did I hurt you back then?"

The moment the words left his mouth, Anna’s entire body went rigid.

It was subtle. Anyone else might have missed it. But Daniel felt it instantly—the way her muscles tensed, the way her breathing stuttered for half a second before she forced it steady again.

And that alone told him more than any answer could.

Anna stared at nothing, her eyes unfocused, pulled somewhere far away. Somewhere she didn’t want to go.

This was the one thing she had promised herself she wouldn’t revisit. Not now. Not when this life had finally given her something different. Something softer. Something that didn’t hurt.

She still didn’t fully understand why she remembered fragments of the past, or why he didn’t. But she knew one thing for certain—remembering him as he used to be made her chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with love.

Back then, Daniel hadn’t been gentle. He hadn’t been patient.

He had been a stranger wearing the face of someone she loved.

A jerk, if she was being honest. Cold. Distant. So wrapped up in himself that he never noticed how small she was becoming beside him.

The memory made her heart squeeze.

"I did."

His voice snapped her back to the present.

Anna blinked, startled. "What?"

"I hurt you," Daniel repeated quietly, his grip loosening just enough for her to turn and face him. "You didn’t even have to say it. I saw it on your face."

She shook her head immediately. "Daniel, you’re not—"

"Don’t," he cut in softly. "Don’t protect me from something I asked to know."

Her lips parted, but no words came out.

Because the truth was complicated.

Because the man standing in front of her wasn’t the same man from her memories. This Daniel was warm, attentive, emotionally present. This Daniel listened. He cared. He held her like she mattered.

The other one had loved her too. But he had loved her wrong.

"Will you forgive me?" he whispered, his voice breaking despite his effort to hold it steady.

Tears stung Daniel’s eyes, blurring his vision, but he didn’t look away from her. He didn’t want to miss even the smallest change in her expression, didn’t want to hide from the answer—whatever it might be.

Daniel wasn’t lying when he said he believed her.

When Anna spoke about rebirth, about memories that didn’t belong to this life, something inside him had recognized it. As if a part of his soul already knew the story. As if somewhere deep within him, beyond logic and time, he remembered a version of himself who had lost her.

Not to fate. Not to tragedy. But to his own negligence.

Because he knew the visions he saw were not just dreams, but a reflection of his previous life.

"I keep getting this feeling," he said quietly, his voice thick, "like I’ve already failed you once. Like this isn’t my first chance... just my last."

Anna’s heart clenched at his words.

She lifted her hand slowly, brushing away the tear that had escaped the corner of his eye. "Daniel..."

"I don’t remember the details," he continued, his gaze dropping to the floor for a moment before returning to her. "But I remember the weight. The regret. The emptiness of knowing I had something priceless and treated it like it would always be there."

His breath hitched.

"And the scariest part?" he admitted. "Is that I think losing you back then is the reason I love you this hard now. Like my soul refuses to make the same mistake twice."

Anna felt her own eyes sting. But what was more to see in them was shock.

’Does it confirms Daniel too....had a rebirth’ the second the realization hit her, her mind spiraled.