My Future Billionaire Husband

Hubby, why aren't you home with our kid? What are you doing here?

I said it to the sullen scholarship kid whose hand I'd just grabbed.

The private room went dead silent.

My childhood best friend slammed his glass down. My two-faced friend's jaw came unhinged.

Three seconds earlier, they had shoved me at this boy and dared me to confess to the loneliest scholarship kid in school.

They wanted a show.

They didn't know I'd just come back from six years in the future.

And this broke kid, busing tables while they laughed at him, was my future husband. The richest man in the country.

Six years from now, this boy will lose the hearing in one ear.

And I wouldn't learn until the very end that he lost it for me.

Chapter 1

Everything had changed.

Before the jump I kissed my husband and my daughter goodbye, then went out and drank myself blind.

The noise pressed in from all sides. Someone leaned against my ear.

"Cecily, you lost. Truth or dare."

"Go tell Nathaniel Jiang you like him. Don't be a baby about it."

"Oh my God, that's the scholarship kid from our department. Total freak. Sending Cecily is going to be amazing."

I looked around, blank.

Low lights in the private room. Glasses everywhere. A crowd of faces both strange and familiar.

Preston Zheng sat at the head of the table, spinning a glass with one hand, watching me like this was already funny. I hadn't seen him in years.

"Go on, then."

"Cecily. Don't tell me you're secretly in love with me. Can't bring yourself to do it?"

The room howled.

"Absolutely not." Vanessa Lin was laughing so hard she tipped into Preston's shoulder, and her voice came out sweet and scolding. "She gets through me first. Wouldn't want her corrupting the poor boy."

My face was empty. My brain turned over, slow and stuck.

I was about to say something when the door opened and a tall waiter came in.

Somebody was already making faces. "Nate's here."

"Cecily, what are you waiting for?"

Hands shoved me forward, into the scholarship kid.

He lifted his eyes.

Pale face. Eyes like a pond nothing lives in.

It was the face I'd slept beside for years.

I closed my hand around his cold fingers, and it came out on its own.

"Hubby, why aren't you home with our daughter? What are you doing here?"

The air stopped moving.

His dead eyes went huge. He didn't say a word.

That was when I remembered his right ear. I went up on my toes and got close to the other one. "Where's our daughter?"

"And what is this cosplay thing you've got going on?"

His face went red. All the way to the tips of his ears.

He pushed me back, careful about it. "You should... you shouldn't do that. People are watching."

We'd been married for years.

And what is he blushing about.

I looked left. I looked right.

Where was my perfect, round-cheeked little girl?

A snicker slid in. "Wow. Cecily really commits."

Vanessa. Fingers over her mouth, smiling at me.

The shock on everyone else's faces was melting into something else. Oh. I get it now. One of them threw me a thumbs-up.

"That's our girl. She goes all in."

The mood lights cut. The room went bright as noon.

They were my old trust-fund friends. Rounder faces. Softer. Nineteen, twenty at most.

In the middle of the table sat the sheet cake.

Happy 19th, Preston.

The cake blurred.

I had gone back.

And I had landed in the middle of Preston Zheng's birthday party.

I turned my head, stiff.

Preston's face had gone dark. He leaned back in his chair, studying me the way you study a bill you didn't expect.

"Cecily. You don't have to take it this far. Hubby? Really?"

"You barely know him. Do you?"

Chapter 2

Not yet, anyway.

At this point Nate and I were nothing to each other. Two strangers passing in a hallway.

I was polished. Rich, and it showed on me.

He was here pouring drinks, keeping himself alive.

He heard all of it, obviously. He kept his eyes down and finished the pour.

Like the treatment was old news.

The first time I lived this night, they ran the same joke, and he took it in silence.

I was the one who felt the shame. I blinked hard and walked out.

People laughed about that for months.

Not this time.

This time I stayed exactly where I was.

The only thought in my head was that my husband's teenage body was unfairly, painfully young.

I wanted another look.

So I went after him.

Behind me, Preston's voice, holding something down. "Cecily."

I found him with his back curved. The floor manager was still going.

"What is wrong with you? You don't make rich kids angry. That's the whole job."

"I hired you because I felt sorry for you. College boy. Please. Two hundred bucks docked per complaint."

I was already walking.

There was no counting how many looks like that he'd swallowed.

"Hey. Buddy."

"I'm pulling the complaint. Whatever it costs, I'll cover it. Don't talk to him again."

The manager's eyes flicked over my clothes. The smile arrived instantly.

"Ms. Xu, of course. It's only that the complaint came out of Mr. Zheng's room, so you see..."

Then I remembered. The club belonged to the Zhengs.

I swallowed it down and reached for Nate's hand.

"Then we're done here. Come on."

I pulled. Two steps.

He didn't move.

Six foot one, looking down at me. Something complicated behind his face. His mouth stayed shut.

I thought about it, then leaned in toward his left ear. "I said, I'm taking you out of here. This place is bad for you."

He turned his head on instinct.

The shell of his ear dragged across my lips. He went still for half a second.

"Ms. Xu." His voice came out low and scraped. Long lashes down over whatever was in his eyes.

"I don't want to play your game. I just need the job."

That stopped me.

Right. He doesn't know me yet.

He thinks this is the dare.

I panicked and threw my right hand up like I was being sworn in.

"Hubby. I'm serious. Believe me."

He could barely get the words out. "Could you not. Call me that."

"Okay, hubby. Understood, hubby."

He turned his head. We stared at each other from three inches apart.

I was still hanging off his shoulder. This close I could see the fine down on his cheek.

"You're standing... too close."

"Wait. Aren't you..."

I pointed at my own ear. "You can hear out of both of them?"

He had no idea what I meant. He made a small sound anyway. Yes.

Yes.

All at once the trip back had a point.

"I'm taking care of you from now on. Quit. Go pack. Move in with me."

Nate said no.

I settled for his number.

That night I lay flat on my bed with the phone pressed to my chest.

My thoughts drifted off.

Tonight I spoke into his left ear.

Because in the life I remember, the right one stopped working a long time ago.

But he said he could hear out of both.

So it hasn't happened yet.

Chapter 3

I married Nathaniel Jiang the year I graduated. My family was days from going under, and he was the one who came to us with the merger marriage.

By then his right ear was gone. Sharp suits, a different life, and still, whenever he looked at me, his eyes went down first.

He'd just been claimed by the Kangs, the wealthiest family in the country, and everyone within ten feet of him was working an angle. Nobody could work out why he'd want a family circling the drain.

My world had always turned around Preston, so it took meeting Nate again for it to land. It was him. The scholarship kid everyone said kept to himself. Something under it all that he never said out loud.

Much later. Our daughter asleep beside us.

He put his face in my neck and asked me something.

"Does a person know when someone loves them from a distance?"

"Probably. You know that line people post. How could you stand next to a bonfire and not feel the warmth."

He set his teeth lightly against my skin. When he spoke he sounded like he'd lost something.

"Right. My fire just wasn't burning hot enough."

That was how I learned his crush had run the whole length of college.

I was the slow one. I can't name a single time I caught him looking.

I rolled myself up in the blanket and kicked my feet.

My phone finally buzzed.

I stuck my head out.

Why is it Preston.

My jaw set. I frowned at the screen.

Preston: [What the hell was that today?]

Preston: [Are you mad? Cecily, seriously? You can't take a joke now? Or is this still about last month?]

Years had gone by.

It took me a while to dig up what he meant.

Preston was the boy next door. When we were small I chased him, and he stood between me and everything else.

Then college happened and he got his rebellious phase about five years late.

He got tired of the goody-two-shoes act. He liked girls like Vanessa, loud, unbothered. They'd hang off each other's shoulders and call each other bro.

Closer to her than to me, and I'd known him since I could walk.

Why else would he have left me on that mountain last month.

It was supposed to be the two of us. Vanessa pushed herself in and made it three.

They started racing to the summit before we'd left the trailhead.

Neither of them can stand losing. Within an hour they were specks up the ridge, still chasing each other.

Vanessa pushed too hard and rolled her ankle.

Preston carried her down the other side of the mountain.

I didn't know any of it. I climbed the rest of the way alone.

I waited at the top for a long time. Nobody came. Whatever I'd felt up there leaked out of me a little at a time.

Texts, unanswered. Calls, unanswered.

The light was going, so I started down alone, shaking, and my leg gave out. I tore up my shin.

I got myself into a car and got myself to the hospital, and that's where I found Preston.

He had a hand under Vanessa's elbow, his head bent, telling her something.

He looked up and saw me and blanked.

"What are you doing here?"

I was checking myself in at the desk, one leg held off the floor, a mess. I didn't want to open my mouth.

He tried again. "You're hurt. Why didn't you tell me?"

It came out anyway. "You didn't answer."

His phone was in Vanessa's bag.

He heard that, and his voice went awkward.

"Oh. I had it on silent. Didn't notice."

"I'm sorry, okay?"

I didn't look up.

In the life before this one, I believed that sorry.

Right up until the day the rain came, and the hillside came down with it.

Chapter 4

Everything I'd been swallowing came up at once, and the tears came with it.

"What good is sorry?"

"When something happens, could you not just tell me first?"

"Do you know how long I stood up there waiting."

I was pushing, and I kept pushing.

His face closed. He cut me off.

"You clearly made it to the hospital by yourself, so what's the performance for? Vanessa's on her period on top of everything, she actually needs somebody. Can you stop?"

"Cecily, I don't have it in me to fight with you today."

"You're the one who has to be stuck to me all the time."

"You brought this on yourself."

I rubbed the goosebumps off my arms.

Didn't answer him.

The screen went dark, then lit again. This time it was Nate accepting my request.

Me: [Hubby, where will you be tomorrow? I'll come find you.]

Nate: [...]

Nate: [Why do you keep calling me that?]

Me: [You mean hubby? You don't like it? But you like me, don't you?]

Caught out with no warning, he went quiet. The typing dots came and went and came back. Five minutes for a reply.

Nate: [...]

More of those dots, which can mean anything and commit to nothing.

I typed with a completely straight face.

Me: [Okay so I'm from the future. Four years from now you come find me and marry me, and we're happy, and we have a daughter, and she's perfect.]

It sounded insane. To help my case I added one more line.

Me: [You have a long scar across your lower back. Right?]

He answered in a second.

Nate: [No.]

Wait.

It stopped me, and then it didn't. Same as the ear. At this point on the timeline it hasn't happened.

Nothing has happened yet. All of it can still be pulled back.

I laughed into my pillow.

Then I got scared he thought I was making it up, and I called him.

"Listen to me."

Even, careful breathing through the speaker. His voice was very quiet. "Okay. Go ahead."

"I'm not lying. You have a mole on your left cheek. The lower one. And another on your right hip."

"Two back dimples. Faint ones."

"Also, down there, the length is about"

"Cecily." He cut me off.

His breathing came through the phone, ragged and out of order. It caught on something and never came back clean.

I said nothing. I let the silence sit there and cook him.

Then, slowly, he spoke.

"What you said. Are you serious?"

"Obviously. Where do you think our daughter came from?"

"...I wasn't asking about that."

He seemed to take a breath and hold it. "You're really from the future?"

"Yes."

The air went quiet for a while.

He said, "Is this a new kind of prank?"

"If this is what you want, then I can. Try to accept it."

So he still doesn't believe me.

I hung up.

I lay back with my face screwed up.

He's raw, he's worth nothing in his own head, and no part of him is going to believe this.

Preston stared at the message thread.

Cecily hadn't answered.

His mouth thinned. The irritation was starting to show.

Vanessa sat next to him, smoking, and glanced over without much interest. She laughed.

"Aw. She's upset."

"On purpose, though. Back off, make him come to you, playing hard to get. It's all the same playbook."

She was extremely pleased with herself.

"I'd bet money she's in love with you. Think about it. You get with the good girl, and every time you come out with us after that, she's got one more reason to keep you on a leash."

Chapter 5

"So you take the high ground. Sand the edges off her. Then she's wrapped around your finger and it doesn't matter what you do, she'd never dare get angry at you."

Preston tossed his phone away and pulled out a cigarette, restless with it.

Vanessa leaned in and lit it for him.

Very little air between them.

He laughed, cold. "She likes me. Doesn't mean I'd say yes."

"Ten years trailing after me. I got tired of it a long time ago."

Vanessa's eyes narrowed, and her smile went somewhere I didn't like.

She kept the pleasure off her face, mostly. "And if the day actually came? You'd have the heart to turn her down?"

He didn't answer right away. Smoke moved between them, and something in his expression went slowly flat.

Then, finally, a small sound in his throat.

"Depends how she behaves."

I'm confessing.

Nate wouldn't come out no matter how I asked.

I tried sending him money. He wouldn't take it.

My kid's father and his miserable pride.

So I went to the club where he worked, and before his shift, I quietly booked the best VIP room in the building.

The package came with setup service.

The floor manager practically fell over himself getting to me, asking what I wanted done with the room.

Looking around the room, I nodded like I knew what I was doing.

"Set it up for a confession. I'm confessing to somebody I like today. You understand?"

It had to be an occasion.

He bent over his little notepad. "And what flowers does the other party prefer?"

That got me.

As far as I could remember, whatever I liked, Nate liked. He never had preferences of his own, only mine.

I thought about it.

"Gardenias. Do gardenias."

I've loved the way they smell since I was a kid.

After we married, Nate planted a whole yard of them and tended them himself. Every morning he'd cut a few stems and leave them by my pillow. Pretty, and they filled the room.

"Right away."

The manager scurried off.

In a corner where I couldn't see him, he held the phone to his mouth and sent it.

Manager: [Mr. Zheng, Ms. Xu says she's confessing to you today. It's VIP 8.]

Manager: [Same flower as that cologne you always wear, sir.]

Manager: [Of course, of course. I'll be waiting for you.]

I took another look around and backed up a few steps.

"Oh. One more thing."

"Nate's about to clock in, isn't he. This room, I want him serving it. Nobody else comes through that door."

"You got it, Ms. Xu."

They did the room in champagne and soft gold.

Orange light coming down. Petals from the door to the head of the table, laying a path. The smell of it everywhere. Nobody could have called it anything but romantic.

I backed up two steps and looked at all of it.

They brought in the bouquet, gardenias stacked half my height. I got my arms around it and lifted, testing the weight.

The door opened.

A tall shadow stretched across the floor and stopped at my feet.

"You're here."

White petals blocked most of my view, which was convenient, because they also covered how red my face had gone.

Okay. Okay.

No going back now. I was nervous.

It came out crooked. "These are for you."

"There was a little misunderstanding before. I hope you can let it go. But everything I told you is true. I like you. We're going to get married, and have a kid, and be happy. All of it."

"Stop pushing me away. Try. Be with me."

I finished.

The room was very quiet.

I breathed in the flowers and waited for him to say something.

He couldn't turn me down. Could he?

He was the one who said he liked me.

What I got was a laugh. Short.

Then somebody took the bouquet out of my arms.

My view opened up.

The smile froze on my face.

Chapter 6

Vanessa was leaning against the wall with an expression I couldn't read.

"What did I tell you? Back off and make him come to you. And look at her, dying to prove herself."

Preston held my flowers. He looked down at them. He looked at me. The corner of his mouth went up.

He was in an excellent mood. "Cecily. You really put in the work."

"Fine. I'm not angry with you."

"But if you're serious about being with me, you listen to me. You settle down. You stop trying to manage my life."

My arms were still shaped around the flowers.

There was nothing in them.

Something cold went through me and I whipped around, and there was Nate, some distance off, pushing a cart of bottles, watching all of it. Quietly.

No telling how long he'd been standing there.

Whatever had just happened, he'd seen every second of it.

Our eyes met.

He dropped his head. His fingers tightened on the cart handle. Something moved across his mouth, a smile turned inward on himself