Chapter 1
Waking up ten years in the future was the last thing I expected.
At thirty, here I was in the dead of night, stripping away every shred of my dignity to beg my husband Michael Grant to touch me. "Michael, please, can we have a baby?"
Michael shoved me off with chilling detachment. "Not tonight, Charlotte. Emmy's only twenty. She's sick. I promised her brother I'd take care of her."
Thirty-year-old me might have rolled over and accepted that, but twenty-year-old me had other plans. "Go ahead. I won't stop you. And let's get a divorce."
*****
The moment he pushed me away, my soul felt violently ripped from this thirty-year-old body, and then slammed right back into it.
My twenty-year-old self was trapped inside a shell bearing crow's feet around the eyes, though my gaze remained sharp.
As he headed for the door, my voice dropped to an icy chill. "Wait."
Michael paused, pure irritation rolling off him. "Charlotte, give it a rest. Emmy's brother died saving my life, okay? She's barely twenty and burning up with a hundred-and-two fever. Am I supposed to leave her hanging? Your jealousy is getting ridiculous."
"I'm not stopping you," I said without hesitation. "And I want a divorce."
I had no clue how I'd jumped a decade into the future, but the twenty-year-old in me refused to stick around with a husband who didn't know what boundaries were. I wasn't about to play the submissive doormat.
Thirty-year-old me had too many worries, but at twenty, I had all the guts in the world to walk away and start fresh.
Michael froze mid-button, letting out a humorless laugh. "Are you done with all the drama, Charlotte?"
I frowned. "Why are you blaming me for this? You want to repay her brother for what he did for you? That's your choice. But don't make it my problem."
Michael sneered, "So you're divorcing me because I won't sleep with you tonight? Don't be ungrateful, Charlotte."
"Ungrateful? You're failing as a partner, so what's wrong with cutting my losses?" I sat up straight, dead serious.
At twenty, offering him this much explanation was already pushing my patience. He was asking for way too much.
"Divorce?" He scoffed, clearly convinced I was bluffing. "Grow up, Charlotte. Empty threats aren't going to work on me. Don't bring this nonsense up again."
His phone buzzed right then.
He answered, his voice softened into a gentle murmur, completely different from how he'd spoken to me just moments before. "Hang in there, Emmy. I'm on my way."
"You're not leaving yet," I said, stepping right into his path. "We haven't settled this." The older version of me might have loved him, but I didn't care about him at all.
He glared down at me, his eyes dark with warning. "Don't test me. If anything happens to Emmy because you held me up, we're going to have a real problem."
I held his gaze without flinching. "Don't worry. You won't be late, as long as you stop wasting my time. I'll have my attorney serve you the paperwork tomorrow."
"Whatever." He slammed the front door on his way out.
He didn't believe for a second that I'd go through with the divorce. He thought he had me trapped, completely stripped of my independence.
He bet everything on me being too scared to leave. Well, he bet wrong.
Once he left for good, the reality of my situation hit, and I darted straight into the bathroom.
The reflection in the mirror was a stranger wearing my face. The youth had faded from my skin, replaced by faint wrinkles around the eyes and a dull, tired complexion.
A thirty-year-old housewife with no career, no identity, pathetically praying a baby would fix a broken marriage and keep a man who had already checked out.
How ridiculous.