A Kiss And Many Lies

"Hubby, kiss me. I miss you so much. When are you coming home?"

Out of nowhere, I received a text. The sender was none other than Veronica Starling, our cold, untouchable CEO, the same woman who was currently berating us in a meeting.

What stunned me even more was the time stamp on the message.

It was sent five years in the future.

…

In the company conference room, Veronica stood at the front in a tailored business suit, her hair pulled into a high ponytail. She looked aloof and restrained as she spoke, using the meeting to "educate" us.

Her ruthlessness was legendary within the company. Anyone who dared disobey her orders usually had only one outcome: pack up and leave immediately.

The conference room was dead silent.

Right in the middle of that silence, my phone chimed.

"Hubby, kiss me. I miss you so much. When are you coming home?"

The instant I saw the message, my mind went completely blank. That was because the contact name on my phone for the CEO, Veronica Starling, was saved as "Evil CEO".

In my day-to-day work, she targeted me more than enough. She constantly assigned me the toughest, most thankless tasks. If I failed to do them well, what followed was a merciless round of criticism.

I immediately raised a hand and rubbed my eyes. My head felt as if it had been hollowed out in an instant.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

I had to be seeing things.

At that very moment, Veronica was assigning this year's targets and distributing KPIs to each department. She looked every bit like someone standing high above everyone else, commanding the room and pointing out the direction of the battlefield.

There was no way she would send me a message like that.

Being criticized by Veronica already had me in a foul mood. This had to be some kind of prank.

Then another message came in.

"Both the baby and I miss you. Can you come home early tonight to keep us company? I made roast chicken for you."

That message instantly ignited my anger.

Sitting through this kind of meeting was irritating enough. Now someone was deliberately messing with me on top of that.

I could not swallow this at all. I was just about to fire back a reply and curse at whoever this was when I suddenly noticed something off.

The timestamp on the messages looked wrong.

The time displayed was "March 3, 2030."

I quickly switched back to my home screen and opened the calendar. The date clearly showed March 3, 2025.

This message was sent from 2030? That meant it came from five years in the future.

No. Something was not right. This had to be a hallucination caused by too much work stress lately.

I took a deep breath and opened the message thread again.

The timestamp still read March 3, 2030.

Five years.

Was this really a message sent from five years later? And the sender was still our company's cold, untouchable CEO, Veronica Starling? Could my phone be broken?

I immediately restarted it. After it powered back on, another message came through from her.

"Dear hubby, why are you not replying to me…"

I looked at the message. Then I looked at the time again. It still showed March 3, 2030.

My heart started racing uncontrollably. I quickly replied, "You… who are you?"

Even though the contact name clearly said Evil CEO, I could not stop myself from asking.

"Hubby, you finally replied. Are you playing some kind of game with me, asking that?

"Dear Andy, I am your wife, Veronica Starling. You always call me your dear Ronnie…"

When I saw that, my entire worldview collapsed.

Five years from now, I had married the evil CEO, Veronica Starling? We even had a child?

This was way too unbelievable.