Jin Liwei was taken aback by his wife's unexpected reaction. Did she not feel the same impression of destiny between the two of them after discovering that they had already met years ago when she was still Evelina Vetrova?

He glanced down at the two clear red handprints on his naked chest. The smack didn't really hurt. It just sounded loud because her hands hit his flesh directly. However, his wife hitting his chest and getting mad at him for such an odd reason sent him into confusion. Now he felt a bit uncertain on how to deal with his fuming wife, so he chose to do what he believed to be the safest option whenever she was angry.

"Sorry for being a rude jerk to you that time, Evelina. If I only knew back then that you'd eventually become my wife, I would never have dared to be so impolite with you. I would've chased you right there and then and made you my wife sooner."

Iris tried maintaining her angry glare but her heart was already softening as soon as she saw the redness on her husband's chest where she smacked him. And of course, his sincere words of apology were like a gentle spray of tender feelings that finally extinguished the dying embers of her anger.

The truth of the matter was that she wasn't really mad at his rude behaviour during their surprising encounter years ago. What made her angry was how he deliberately teased her while telling her about the encounter, causing her to misunderstand his attraction to an unknown woman.

An intense feeling of possessiveness for her husband flooded through her, overwhelming her so much that she could barely control her volatile emotions. She even wanted to fight with the unknown woman and pull all her hair out, only to discover that the woman was actually her!

Now she felt a little stupid. How dare he make her jealous of herself?!

Too evil!

She almost dragged her sinful husband to the bed and pushed him down under her in order to punish—ehem ehem—to "demonstrate" to him how he would never find another woman like her in the world. How dare he fancy another woman and talk about his crush to his pregnant wife?

But since he already apologized, she no longer had the heart to stay mad at him especially for such a petty reason as feeling jealous of herself. She sighed and started caressing her husband's chest, feeling a little guilty for hitting him during the heat of the moment.

"It's fine now," she said in a much gentler voice. "No need to apologize for what happened years ago. If you didn't remind me of it, I wouldn't even remember. Besides, we were total strangers back then."

He caught her hand on his chest and lifted it to his lips before turning it over to kiss her soft palm. "Not strangers."

She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean 'not strangers'? We didn't know each other at all back then so we were complete strangers, Liwei."

"We might not know each other that time, but the fact that we've met before even if it was only for a brief moment proves that we have fate together. That's what I believe. Don't you think so, too?"

Her heart trembled, touched by the conviction in his voice. When he put it that way, she also wanted to believe that maybe the two of them were really fated to be together.

However, there was a skeptical part of her thinking that it might only be a coincidence. Although she thought that this might be the case, she held her tongue and didn't say it out loud especially after looking at her husband's passionate and "enlightened" expression. Sighing, she couldn't help but admit to herself that she was still far from reaching her husband's level of romantic sensibility.

"You said that if you knew back then that I would eventually become your wife, that you'd never have dared to be so rude with me," she said, redirecting the subject away from the talk of fate. "And that you would've chased after me and married me."

"En." He showered another bunch of light kisses on her hand that he was holding.

"I'm glad that we didn't fall in love back then."

He frowned. "Why?"

"Liwei, have you already forgotten my identity at that time? If we fell in love when I was still Evelina Vetrova, then that would be the definition of true tragedy."

His eyes widened in realization. Then he pulled her into his embrace, rubbing her back again to soothe her.

"It would've been almost close to impossible for us to be together that time because I was a Vetrov daughter. For one thing, I don't think my brother would've approved of you because you don't belong to the criminal underworld. And I also wouldn't want you to be embroiled in such a dangerous world where you can't even fall asleep peacefully at night because enemies might assassinate you. You'll have to watch out for every little suspicious thing whenever you go somewhere because you might get attacked if you become careless for even just a moment. It's a life that makes you paranoid all the time. You can't trust anybody, not even your own family members.

"And the only way to survive was to be more brutal, more merciless, and more inhuman than all your enemies. That was the reason why the Vetrovs had reigned supreme in the international criminal underworld for several generations. The Vetrovs had been the most brutal, most merciless, and most inhuman among all the criminal organizations in the world.

"So you see, Liwei? If we really ended up together back then, I wouldn't hesitate to leave you in a heartbeat even if it would cause me a lifetime of pain because it would be for the sake of your safety. I would rather sacrifice my own happiness than bring harm to a person that I love."

Jin Liwei lifted her and then placed her on his lap. The towel wrapped around his waist loosened a little. She felt his thing under the towel start to harden as soon as she sat on it, but his touches remained gentle and nonsexual. He was focused on comforting her and not on seduction.

"You're right," he murmured while kissing her forehead. "Meeting and falling in love back then would've been extremely difficult for the two of us. It wasn't the right time. You didn't have the sense of freedom and security to do anything you wanted when you were still Evelina. I wasn't the same Jin Liwei back then either. I was too busy studying and training myself to succeed my father's position as the next head of the clan and Jin Corporation. If I fell in love before achieving my goals, then I wouldn't be the same Jin Liwei that I am now.

"I would've also made a difficult choice like you. Either abandon my clan and Jin Corporation so that I could fight to be with you, Evelina Vetrova, or force myself to forget you and continue pursuing my original goals. If I abandoned the clan and the company to be with you, then I would be reduced to an average man with no power or connections to protect someone like you. But if I forget about you, then I'm sure that it would be the greatest regret of my life.

"That's why even though you had to experience something so tragic in your past life, I'm still glad to have met you after you've been reborn as Long Xiulan. You now have the freedom to do whatever you want in life, chase after your own happiness, and fall in love with me."

She nodded, her eyes watering.

He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Our first encounter at my university in Boston wasn't the right time for us. But our meeting in that hotel lobby when I saw you reading a Russian book—that was the right time for us."

"Yes."

"You might not be in your own body anymore and no longer using your original name, but I hope that you know that I fell in love with you and not Long Xiulan. I fell in love with the person inside this body. It's you, Evelina. Only you."

She sniffed and blinked back the tears threatening to fall down her eyes. "Y-yes."

He smiled at her, looking straight into her eyes. "I love you, Evelina. So much."

"I love you too, Liwei."

They stayed embracing each other on the chaise longue. The sound of flowing water from the wall-mounted waterfall fountain in their bedroom gradually relaxed them from their emotional conversation.

In a much better mood, Iris began talking about her own memory of the day when they encountered each other in Boston.

"I performed with a street piano. It was the first time that I performed in front of a crowd and it felt amazing!"

Jin Liwei's eyes narrowed. "Did you perhaps sing 'We Will Rock You'"?

She gasped.

"Ah. So it was you."

"Did you watch me?"

"Unfortunately, I didn't make it in time. You already left when I arrived. But I remember my friends raving about you."

She looked a little disappointed.

"They wanted to show me the photos and videos they took of you during your street performance but for some reason…." His voice trailed and his eyes widened upon realizing something. "Ah, right. You were already a hacker back then."

She grinned. "Yes, I deleted all records of my street performance that day." Then she sighed. "I didn't want to but I had to do it."

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