Chapter 2

I had barely survived, and I pressed a gentle kiss to my son's head. From that day forward, I was going to keep the child and cut the father loose.

I was extremely weak after giving birth. I was forcing myself out of bed through the pain when my mother-in-law, Nancy York, pushed the door open.

"Where's Jasper?" she asked in that passive-aggressive tone of hers. "How could you not tell him about something as important as the birth of the baby?"

A cold smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Jasper said he traveled through time. He's gone."

Her expression soured. She knew perfectly well it was just another one of his excuses, but somehow, the blame still landed on me. "Honestly, you can't even keep your own husband in line. What good are you?"

In the very next breath, she turned to the bassinet beside me and broke into a grin. "Oh, my grandson is so handsome. He looks just like his daddy."

I was long past the point of being bothered by her jabs.

My grandfather and Jasper's grandfather were brothers in arms. Both of my parents had died in the line of duty, so on his deathbed, my grandfather entrusted me to the Wynn family.

That was the only reason they had agreed to the marriage. For years, I stayed out of respect for Jasper's grandfather and the promise I had made to give the Wynns an heir.

Now that I had fulfilled that promise, I would leave the Wynn family for good on the day of the baby's one-month celebration.

Nancy took one more satisfied look at the baby and left me alone in the hospital to take care of the child by myself.

I went without sleep for the entire stay. Jasper never showed up, not even on the day I was discharged. Photo after photo of him and Fiona arrived on my phone, each one more intimate than the last.

When I got home, Nancy had already dismissed the housekeepers.

"A mother should raise her own child," she said with a smile. "That's how you build a real bond."

Between my recovery and round-the-clock feedings, my body was completely hollowed out.

The baby cried nonstop, and my hair came out in clumps. For an entire month, I teetered on the edge of a breakdown.

Fiona even sent taunting messages.

[Tessa, so what if you married Jasper? The one he really loves has always been me.]

She had attached a video of the two of them tangled together. The video was filled with his heavy breathing and her soft moans. The sounds were unmistakable.

Late at night, I watched my son sleeping peacefully and let the grief wash over me in silence.

My social media feed was flooded with photos Fiona had posted of her and Jasper traveling the world. Every new destination came with another photo. I scrolled through hundreds of them in a kind of masochistic daze, unable to stop myself.

The comments section was full of their friends chiming in.

[Living it up, huh? Your wife's at home having a baby and you're out globetrotting.]

[Seriously, what was the excuse this time?]

Jasper had replied underneath: [I told her a once-in-77-years planetary alignment opened a time portal and I got sucked through.]

[Man, only you could come up with something like that. Aren't you worried she'll lose it?]

[She's put up with it for three years. This time's no different. She'll be at home waiting for me like she always is.]

Three years of patience and forgiveness, and all of it had become a running joke between him and his friends.

Not this time. I was done.

I cried alone through the rest of the night until a series of sharp knocks rattled the front door at dawn.

"Babe, I'm back! I brought something for our son."

When I opened the door, Fiona was standing right next to him, dressed to the nines. She gave me a sweet, condescending smile. "Oh, honey, you look terrible. A woman really should learn to take better care of herself."

I was standing there in a shapeless house dress, the front still stained with dried breast milk.

Fiona wrinkled her nose, pulled a perfume bottle from her bag, and spritzed herself. "What is that sour smell? God, it's awful."