When I was seven years old, the whole neighborhood knew that I was the most stubborn girl on the street.

So stubborn that one Sunday afternoon, in the middle of the village where everyone knew everyone else’s life, I stood planted in the backyard with tears streaming down my face, pointed straight at my neighbor, ten years older than me, and shouted in front of all the adults:

“When I grow up, I’m going to marry Gabriel!” I’m not going to marry anyone else!

The whole street burst into laughter.

My mother, dead of embarrassment, came running and pulled me by the ear into the house.

And Gabriel… He turned red up to the tips of his ears, completely unsure of where to stick his face.

“It’s just a child, she doesn’t even know what she’s saying!” The adults said, between laughter and jokes.

But I remember one thing perfectly.

That day, Gabriel bent down before me, lightly ruffled my hair and said in a calm voice, one of those that made any fear of mine diminish:

“When you grow up, we’ll talk again. For now, try to study law, okay?

I shook my head right away.

And since that day, I have a very clear goal: to grow, to study hard… and marry Gabriel.

My Neighbor

Gabriel was the kind of person who made anyone like him.

Tall, educated, intelligent. She had a calm manner, but she carried in her eyes a maturity that I, even as a child, felt without understanding. His parents had died when he was still young, and he lived with his grandmother in a simple house down the street. When I was in first grade, he was already in college.

Every afternoon, he would sit on the balcony stairs with a book in his hands, while he watched me play as if, in some silent way, he was always making sure that nothing bad happened to me.

If I fell off the bike, it was Gabriel who cleaned my scraped knee and put on a bandage.

If I got a bad grade, it was Gabriel who made me repeat the multiplication table until I got everything right.

If I cried because someone had made fun of me at school, it was Gabriel who would take me to the corner bakery and buy ice cream to see me smile again.

In my little world, he was a superhero.

When I turned twelve… He left.

There was no farewell to a movie, no solemn promise, no soap opera hug.

On an ordinary morning, I went out with my backpack on my back and saw his house closed.

His grandmother had passed away.

And, a short time later, Gabriel left the neighborhood.

I stood in front of the gate, hugging my backpack, crying as if they had ripped off a whole piece of my childhood.

From that day on… I never saw him again.

Fifteen years later

I grew up.

She was no longer the seven-year-old girl who cried demanding marriage in the middle of the yard.

I studied a lot. I went to a good university in São Paulo. I graduated with honors in Finance. Everyone said I had a promising future.

But deep in my heart… there was always a space saved for Gabriel.

I didn’t know where he was.

I didn’t know what kind of life I was leading.

I didn’t even know if he still remembered me.

But every time I felt tired, frustrated, or afraid that I wasn’t good enough, I remembered his words:

“First, study law.”

And he moved on.

On the day I entered the headquarters of the Almeida Brasil Group, one of the largest corporations in the country, located in the heart of Avenida Faria Lima, I took a deep breath and said to myself:

I just want them to hire me. I’m not asking for anything else.

The Interview That Changed Everything

The interview room was large, elegant and cold.

Glass, steel, silence and expensive perfume.

I sat with my spine upright, answered the committee’s questions confidently, and did my best to hide my nervousness. Everything seemed to be going well… until the door opened.

A man entered.

Everyone in the room stood up immediately.

“The CEO,” someone whispered.

My heart missed a beat.

He was taller than I remembered. The impeccable suit, the firm look, the presence of someone who was used to commanding and being obeyed without having to raise his voice.

But the face…

The face was eerily familiar.

His eyes scanned the room until they stopped on me.

And they stayed.

For too long.

Enough time for my chest to tighten.

Then he smiled.

And that single expression made something inside me tremble in an old, almost forgotten way.

With a deep voice and a slight tone of provocation, he asked:

“You came to apply… to be the wife of the CEO?

PART 2

The silence in the meeting room of the Almeida Brasil Group became so heavy that it seemed possible to touch it.

The other three interviewers exchanged terrified looks, as if they did not know if the CEO had gone crazy for good or had just blatantly flirted with the most brilliant candidate in the selection.

I felt as if the chair disappeared from under me.

The air conditioning, which had previously seemed icy, suddenly became insufficient.

“Sir,” stammered the director of Human Resources, “Miss Helena has an impeccable resume in Finance. We…

“I know,” he interrupted, without taking his eyes off me.

Then he began to walk slowly around the glass table, until he stopped less than a meter from my chair.

His smell hit me before anything else.

It was sophisticated now, more masculine, more discreet… But there was some note there that threw me straight back to my school days, to the afternoons when he helped me with math on the porch stairs.

“I know she graduated with honors,” he continued. “I know you’re the best candidate. Because she always keeps the promises she makes.

I stood up, legs trembling and head empty of any corporate protocol.

“Gabriel?” I would whisper.

His smile widened.

He was no longer the boy in the house down the street. He was a man with power, money, influence and that almost dangerous security of someone who built an empire with his own hands.

But, in the eyes… There was still the same quiet glow of the boy who bought me ice cream when I cried.

“I told you we’d talk again when you grew up,” he replied, in a low voice, just to me. “It’s been fifteen years, Helena. Are you still stubborn as before?

The Private Meeting

Gabriel asked the other members of the committee to leave the room “to discuss the specific terms of the contract.”

As soon as the door closed, the weight of the entire company seemed to disappear.

It was just the two of us.

I was still trying to breathe properly.

“You looked for me,” I said, feeling my eyes sting with tears held back for years. “You knew I would come today.

Gabriel leaned against the dark wooden table and stared at me with a calm that only left me even more shaken.

“I didn’t go after you directly, Helena. But I followed his path.

My heart raced.

“What?”

“I heard about your grades in high school. I knew when you passed the university. He found out when he got an internship. I saw his every step from afar. A thousand times I wanted to show up. A thousand times I wanted to knock on his door and say that I still remembered everything. But I made a promise to myself: I would only come back when you could come to me on your own merits.

I swallowed.

“What if I had never come to this company?”

He didn’t even blink.

“Then I would have bought the company that hired you.”

I laughed and cried at the same time.

Because the answer was absurd.

Arrogant.

Exaggerated.

And yet… with Gabriel, I knew it was no joke.

The New Position

He walked to the huge window that revealed the entire São Paulo spread out in buildings, traffic and lights.

For a few seconds, he was silent, as if he were choosing his words carefully.

“That afternoon in the backyard, when you pointed at me and said in front of everyone you were going to marry me, I got the biggest scare of my life,” he confessed. “I was seventeen, I was trying to survive the grief, the lack of money, the fear of the future… and a seven-year-old girl looked at me as if the world was simple. As if it were still possible to believe in something beautiful.

He turned his face in my direction.

His expression had lost all the mask of an executive.

There, in front of me, was not only the powerful man of Faria Lima.

The boy was alone who one day also needed hope.

“The night I left, after my grandmother died, I had almost nothing. But I took one thing with me.

Gabriel opened the drawer of the table and took out a small piece of paper, folded carefully.

It was already yellowed by time.

The worn edges.

He put it in my hand.

My chest froze.

It was a note written in childish, crooked handwriting, full of errors and erasures.

“Gabriel, don’t leave. Today I studied a lot. I like you.”

My vision instantly blurred.

“You left it under my door the morning I left,” he said. “I carried this note with me for fifteen years. In every important meeting. In every failure. In every victory. When I thought I wouldn’t make it, I looked at him and remembered that, somewhere in the world, there was a girl who believed in me without demanding anything in return.

I put my hand to my mouth, unable to stop the tears.

“I thought you had forgotten me…

Gabriel took a step forward.

“I could forget my own name before I forget you.”

The Final Proposal

He stood before me and held my hand.

His fingers were warm. Firm. Real.

– So, Dr. Helena… The position of financial director is yours, because you have earned it with every night of study, every test, every resignation and every step you took alone.

My heart felt too small for what I was feeling.

He shook my hand lightly and continued:

“But there is another position… the one you offered in the backyard of the village, so many years ago. This one remains vague. And the CEO is an extremely demanding man. He only accepts a single candidate.

I laughed through tears, wiping my face with my other hand.

Then I lifted my chin, regaining the old stubbornness that had defined me at the age of seven.

“Well, Mr. CEO… I hope the benefits package is really good, because I’m a difficult employee to keep.

Gabriel smiled in that way that always dismantled all my defenses.

“The contract is for life.

And before I could answer anything, he shortened the distance between us and sealed with a soft kiss the promise that time could never erase.

At that moment, I understood something with absolute clarity:

I hadn’t gone to that interview just to get a job.

I had gone, unknowingly, to get back the most beautiful part of my childhood.

And Gabriel…

Gabriel had been waiting for me for fifteen years.