Raffles, Singapore, 2028
Jessie -
Polished. Professional. CEO. Wife. Mother. A seemingly perfect life built on facade and pretense, molded and crafted by two men I loved in entirely different ways. One who shaped me into who I could be, one who saw who I already was. Maintaining a balance that prioritized everyone I loved. But where did that leave me? My needs. My desires. My wants.
The woman in the mirror wore carefully curated armor—designer suits, perfect makeup, and hair styled to project authority without threatening it. James had orchestrated every detail of this transformation, turning a brilliant but unpolished physician-scientist into someone who could command a room. His love was conditional, delivered with a manual—a set of expectations I’d once been desperate to meet.
But beneath this polished exterior, another woman was emerging. One who made billion-dollar decisions without seeking approval. One whose ambitions had outgrown careful constraints. One who had learned that real power didn’t come from fitting into spaces others created, but from daring to create your own.
That was MJ’s gift—not the mentoring or the funding or the professional connections, though he’d given all those freely. His gift was space. Space to think beyond boundaries. Space to want more than I’d been taught to. Space to become someone who surprised even myself.
James loved who I used to be. MJ loved who I was becoming.
The difference was destroying everything.
Standing in my hotel room in Singapore, watching rain blur the city lights, I felt the weight of these competing loves like gravity. The life I’d built with James—our children, our company, our carefully crafted image—sat on one side of an invisible scale. On the other side: the intoxicating freedom of MJ—of being truly seen, truly known, truly challenged to expand beyond safe boundaries.
What do you do when you’ve outgrown one life but can’t fully step into another? When duty and desire collide—not just in your heart but in your soul? When the facades you’ve so carefully constructed begin to fracture, exposing truths you’re not ready to face?
My phone sat dark on the desk, its silence louder than the rain. Soon it would light up with his name, and the walls I’d worked so hard to build would begin to crumble. I’d proven I could resist temptation, had spent years perfecting the art of professional distance. But I’d never learned how to resist the invitation to become more fully myself.
That was the real danger of loving MJ. Not the physical attraction, though that was undeniable enough. Not even the intellectual connection, though his mind challenged and excited mine in ways I’d never known were possible. No, the real danger was how his love gave me space—space to exist as every version of myself: the polished professional and the passionate woman, the devoted mother and the ruthless CEO, the good wife and the rebel dreamer.
James had given me a script to follow. MJ handed me blank pages and dared me to write my own story.
How do you choose between a life you’ve perfected and a life that could perfect you? Between duty and desire? Between who you are and who you want to be?
I was about to find out.