The day my husband brought his assistant to her OB-GYN appointment, his eighteen-year-old self had me pinned against the wall, kissing me senseless. “How are you still so sweet, so damn kissable at thirty, baby? I love you so much.” He pulled back for a breath, his eyes sparkling. “Speaking of which, where’s the thirty-year-old me? Why isn’t he here to pick you up from work?” I sighed, gently pushing him away just as my thirty-year-old husband, Jackson, fixed his cold, hard gaze on me from across the hall. “Already got yourself a boy toy, have we? And you still can’t bear to sign the divorce papers?” He sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “Seraphina, you’re more pathetic than I thought.” As I watched him wrap an arm around his young assistant and walk away, the eighteen-year-old Jack started thrashing in my arms again. “Who does that asshole think he is, talking to my wife like that?” he fumed. “I swear, I’ll bite my tongue off and make him disappear from existence!” 1 The eighteen-year-old Jackson was just as I remembered him: proud, possessive, and nearly impossible to calm down once he was worked up. It wasn't until I pulled out the old Nintendo I’d kept tucked away in a drawer that he finally settled down, his eyes glued to the screen. I locked him in my office and went downstairs to grab us some dinner. I’d just stepped into the diner when a chilling voice sounded behind me. “Twenty-eight minutes.” I froze, turning to meet the icy stare of the thirty-year-old Jackson. “What are you still doing here? I thought you’d be with Penelope.” He ignored my question, his eyes scanning me with a cold appraisal. “Don’t play dumb. You were in your office with that kid, alone, for a full twenty-eight minutes.” He practically spat out the last few words. A cruel smirk played on his lips. “He looks young. Guess the kid doesn't have much stamina, huh? At his age, I could go for at least forty minutes, easy.” It took a special kind of venomous wit to come up with a line like that. I shot him a weary look, not bothering to tell him that the "kid" was literally a younger version of himself. I turned back to the counter to order. “A spicy beef chili, no cilantro. A side of steamed greens and a mushroom omelet. And a slice of cherry pie.” Hearing my order, he let out another cold laugh from behind me. “Seraphina, that’s everything I like to eat. Not even trying to cater to your new boy toy’s tastes? Or is he just a temporary distraction, not a permanent replacement?” His barbed words were starting to get under my skin. “Jackson,” I said, my voice tight with frustration, “not everyone is like you, lining up a replacement before the marriage is even over.” That shut him up. He opened his mouth, a reflexive denial on his lips. “I told you, I’m not…” “You used my name to book her appointment. Don’t tell me that wasn’t deliberate.” I cut him off, my voice turning to ice as I picked up the takeout bags. “Congratulations. You’ve managed to disgust me yet again.” “I’ll agree to the divorce. See you at the courthouse next Monday. Don’t be late.” I didn’t wait for his reaction. I brushed past him and walked out of the diner. The moment I stepped outside, the bitter winter wind hit my tear-streaked face like a razor blade. As I fumbled blindly for a tissue, a warm cup was pressed into my hands. It was the hot chocolate I used to love as a teenager. “Silly girl,” a soft voice murmured. “Still so clueless. You’re crying from the cold and you didn’t even think to wear a coat.” Eighteen-year-old Jack gently wiped my tears, then shrugged off his own heavy coat and draped it over my shoulders. The familiar, comforting scent of pine and his body heat wrapped around me, and for a moment, I was completely lost in the past. 2 “So, you’re telling me that even though the thirty-year-old me got his dream of marrying you, he didn’t cherish you at all,” eighteen-year-old Jack said, his eyes wide with horror, a grain of rice still stuck to the corner of his mouth. “Not only did he knock up his assistant, but he’s been pushing you to get a divorce?!” He looked genuinely terrified. “How could I do something so stupid? Did I get swapped with an alien? Or maybe I was in a car crash and got amnesia, totally fried my brain?” I stared down into my coffee, slowly stirring it as a bitter smile touched my lips. “No. There was no accident. You’re perfectly healthy.” “We got married right after graduation,” I continued, my voice hollow. “Things were perfect at first. We were inseparable, just as in love as we’d been for the past decade. But everything changed when Penelope showed up.” Penelope was hired five years into Jackson’s company. It was also the year we hit our seventh anniversary, the infamous seven-year itch. I was on the cusp of a promotion to become the youngest attending physician at the hospital, and Jackson’s business was exploding. The corporate dinners became endless, the meetings ran late into the night. After I turned down his requests to accompany him to a few events, he blew up at me for the first time. “Everyone else has their partner with them, and I’m the only one who looks like a lonely bachelor, even though I’m married!” he had yelled. “My partners are starting to mock me, asking if I’m whipped or if I’m just not making enough money to convince my own wife to support my career!” It was the first time he’d ever spoken to me that way. I was stunned, hurt. He had always treated me like a princess, never raising his voice. But even though I loved him, I couldn't abandon the medical career I had spent more than a decade building. Neither of us would apologize, and so began the cold war. He moved out of our home and into a luxury penthouse overlooking the river, closer to his office. In a year, I could count the number of times he came home on one hand. Once, on his birthday, I missed him so much that I went to his penthouse unannounced. When I knocked, the door was opened by Penelope, wearing nothing but a slinky slip dress. “Mr. Archer had a bit too much to drink tonight,” she said, looking down shyly. A constellation of faint red marks bloomed on her neck, just visible beneath her hair. “He’s not really available for guests.” She didn’t seem to recognize me. “Can I take a message? I’ll pass it along when he wakes up.” I fought back the tears stinging my eyes and pushed the gift bag into her hands. “I’m Seraphina,” I said, each word a shard of glass. “Tell him to call me the second he wakes up. It’s important.” Penelope nodded sweetly, wished me a good night, and closed the door. I waited for two weeks. He never called. Hearing this, eighteen-year-old Jack slammed a glass on the table, shattering it. “That’s impossible! I would never cheat on you with another woman! It’s not true! There has to be a misunderstanding!” I wiped a tear from my cheek and shook my head silently. No one wished it was a misunderstanding more than I did. But soon after, Penelope got pregnant. Jackson doted on her, both in public and in private. He even brought her to my hospital for a check-up. No matter how much I tried to lie to myself, I couldn’t deny the truth anymore. The eighteen-year-old Jack was clearly having an even harder time accepting it than I was. He chugged down glass after glass of whiskey, curling up on the sofa like a wounded puppy, his face wet with tears. “How could I, Sera? How could I ever hurt you…?” he sobbed. I sighed and draped a blanket over him. Before I could straighten up, the front door opened. I turned, and my eyes met the gaze of the thirty-year-old Jackson. 3 “Seraphina, you just keep surprising me, don’t you?” Seeing me hovering over the younger Jack, my husband’s face contorted into a mask of fury I’d never seen before. “Messing around in your office wasn’t enough? You had to bring him into our home?” His voice rose, cracking with an emotion I couldn’t place. “So inseparable. No wonder you’re in such a hurry to divorce me.” The raw volume of his voice made me flinch. “Keep it down,” I whispered, glancing at the sleeping figure on the couch. “You’ll wake him.” Given the boy’s explosive temper, the last thing I needed was a confrontation between the two of them. I was just trying to avoid more drama, but in Jackson’s ears, my words sounded like something else entirely. He let out a choked, bitter laugh. A glint of moisture appeared in his eyes. “Do I need to remind you, Seraphina, that this is our home? You’re telling me to be quiet in my own house for the sake of your little homewrecker? What do you take me for?” Seeing the boy on the couch begin to stir, I acted on instinct. I grabbed Jackson’s hand and pulled him toward the door. “Not here. Let’s go. We can talk at the coffee shop downstairs.” I held his hand tightly, afraid he would pull away. But he didn’t. Instead, his fingers instinctively curled around mine. He didn’t let go, not even as we stepped out of the elevator. I felt a pang of awkwardness and tried to gently pull my hand back, but he only tightened his grip. “What’s the matter? He can touch you, but I can’t?” he said, his voice laced with acid. “You had no problem betraying me, Seraphina, but you’re saving your fidelity for him?” I couldn’t stand his sarcasm. I ripped my hand from his grasp. “Don’t you dare project your own filthy behavior onto me. Especially when you’re the one who isn’t clean!” He stumbled back a step, a wounded look flashing across his face. Before he could say anything else, his phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, his expression shifting, and turned away to answer it. I didn’t need to guess. It was Penelope. I tried not to listen, but in the dead quiet of the late-night courtyard, his voice carried clearly. “What’s wrong? … You’re bleeding?! Okay, don’t cry, just lie down on the sofa and stay still. I’m on my way!” He hung up and started to leave, but after a few paces, he spun around, grabbed my arm, and started pulling me with him. “You’re coming with me!” Caught off guard, I stumbled along, trying and failing to break free. “Jackson, are you insane? Why would I go with you?” “Because you’re the best damn OB-GYN at Metropolitan General! The youngest attending physician they’ve ever had!” He forced me into his Maybach, strapping the seatbelt across me himself. “It’s a life-or-death situation, Seraphina. You wouldn’t want to violate your Hippocratic Oath, would you?” As the car sped off, all I could think was that I would rather be in a car crash than deliver my husband’s mistress’s baby. The Maybach didn’t head toward his penthouse, but to a chic apartment building in the next district. After a moment of surprise, I understood. With his company about to go public, he couldn’t risk a scandal. His little mistress would have to be kept hidden away for now. As I suspected, from the moment we parked to navigating the elevator to the correct apartment number, Jackson moved with a fluid ease that spoke of countless previous visits. He even pulled out a key and unlocked the door himself, rushing inside. A moment later, a soft, coquettish voice drifted out. “Jax, you’re finally here! I was so scared…”
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