I Traveled Back Ten Years, Only to Witness His Love for Another Chapter 01

I Traveled Back Ten Years, Only to Witness His Love for Another Chapter 01

I went back ten years and found Ethan Shaw at eighteen.

I thought I’d get to feel a younger version of him, but instead he shoved me away.

“You crazy woman, what are you talking about? Future wife? How could I ever marry anyone but Lily?”

His voice was absolute, his eyes full of contempt.

It shouldn’t have been like this.

Ethan from the future had promised me:

“Who told you I used to like Lily Vance? She’s just a childhood friend, like a little sister. I’ve only ever loved my wife. How could I have thought of marrying anyone else?”

…

I stumbled back a step, the shock of it nearly swallowing me whole.

I was angry, so I threw down a threat: “Ethan Shaw, you’re going to regret this someday!”

When I got back, I’d make twenty-eight-year-old Ethan explain everything and apologize.

If he didn’t apologize properly, I’d never speak to him again.

But the young man in front of me just curled his lips into a smirk.

“Really? I’ll regret it?”

Ethan’s best friend, Marcus Quinn, laughed along.

“Where’d you dig up that line, lady—some trashy romance novel? If you’re trying to hit on Ethan, you could at least come up with a better excuse.”

“Yeah, everyone knows Ethan’s got Lily’s name tattooed on his back. He’s only ever going to marry Lily.”

But the tattoo on Ethan’s back was a rose.

I’d asked him about it once, and he’d told me, very seriously: “Maybe there are five thousand roses in the world, and you the same flower, but only you are my unique rose.”

He’d called me his rose so many times, but this eighteen-year-old version of him seemed to have a different rose in his heart.

Marcus was still at it: “Ethan’s been waiting on Lily for years. The second she says yes, he’s marrying her. You think a pheasant like you can turn into a phoenix?”

I looked at this younger Ethan, that face I knew so intimately now wearing an expression I didn’t recognize.

It hit me then—I’d come into Ethan’s life far too late.

I met Ethan when I was twenty-one and he was twenty-five.

He was a business associate of my brother Leo.

He saw me once in Leo’s office and started pursuing me relentlessly.

He was mature, steady, tall, and handsome.

Everything he did, he did well.

Everyone said, “Ethan Shaw is the kind of man you can trust with your life.”

Including Leo.

I believed them.

Ethan chased me for less than a month before I said yes.

Two years together, one year married.

Only now, caught in this accidental time slip, did I realize Ethan had once loved someone else—deeply, fiercely.

He’d lied to me.

The hurt flooded my chest.

I couldn’t keep the defiance out of my voice: “Who can say what the future holds?”

Ethan looked annoyed and lit a cigarette.

“No one can. But it’s sure as hell not your place to tell me.”

Through the curling smoke, he looked at me like I was a joke.

So many words crowded my mind, but what came out was:

“Ethan, you are going to marry me one day! I know so many things about you—you don’t like spicy food, you prefer mild flavors, you sneak sugar-free butter lattes sometimes, you’re allergic to peanuts and shellfish. And you hate fish—not because it smells, but because your mother forced you to eat it when you were little, so you can’t stand it…”

But my outburst didn’t convince him.

His expression turned strange.

“Crazy woman, do you even realize you just described all of Lily’s habits?”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut.

I was completely at a loss.

Ethan laughed, a little helplessly, probably convinced I was completely unhinged.

He waved me off and started to leave.

I went after him, but Marcus blocked me.

“Don’t bother. Everyone knows Ethan can’t get enough spice—he only does those mild French places because that’s what Lily likes. Though I gotta say, pinning Lily’s tastes on him? That’s a new one. And look—even if you are telling the truth, even if you’re his future wife—he doesn’t know you right now, and you’ve got zero proof. What’s the point of coming here and making a scene?”

Marcus was right.

I just felt so wronged, so suddenly.

But I was stuck in this impossible moment—a moment where I had no standing to demand anything from Ethan.

To ask him why he’d hidden everything about Lily from me.

Was he afraid I’d be angry? Or afraid I’d find out?

In the end, all I could do was slink away.

But I still caught Marcus muttering: “Ethan would never change his mind. Unless Lily married someone else.”

That’s when it hit me—I met Ethan right after Lily got married.

I hadn’t made it to her wedding.

Seven months into our relationship, Ethan and I went together to her baby’s christening.

Ethan gave the child a solid gold rattle, engraved with “Peace, Joy, and Everlasting Prosperity.”

I’d teased him at the time—”Why such an expensive gift?”—but I’d nearly forgotten about it.

Now, it was seared into my mind, impossibly vivid.

And in that moment, I noticed all the details I’d overlooked before.

The flash of loneliness in Ethan’s eyes back then.

His flimsy excuse: “Our families are close—it’s only proper to be generous.”

But in all the years since, that was the only time he’d ever given a gift that lavish.