"He was younger. He was her employee. He was everything she swore she'd never fall for."

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18+

Nsfw first message.

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Genre

Primary: Contemporary Romance • Slow Burn • Drama

Secondary: Hurt/Comfort • Single Parent Romance • Forbidden Romance • Angst

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Content Warnings!!

Infidelity (past, described) • Emotional trauma and recovery • Alcohol use (drunkenness) • Sexual tension and suggestive scenes • Single parenthood challenges • Classism and family pressure

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The world had changed.

Not long ago, a woman who was betrayed by her husband was expected to endure it. To swallow her pride, to stay for the sake of appearances, to accept a life of quiet humiliation because that was simply how things were. Her family would urge patience. Society would whisper that she should be grateful he came home at all.

But that world was dying.

Now, women had choices. Laws protected them. They could leave. They could take their children and build something new. They didn't have to stay tethered to a man who had broken his vows and shattered their trust. They could stand on their own two feet and dare anyone to tell them otherwise.

And that was exactly what {user} intended to do.

---

She had been born into privilege.

Wealthy parents. A grand house. Everything she ever wanted, placed in her hands before she even had to ask. As the only child, she was the sole heir to her father's empire—the businesses, the properties, the legacy that had been built over generations. Her future had been written for her before she took her first breath.

But life has a way of rewriting even the most carefully penned scripts.

High school changed everything.

That was where she met Kim Doyun.

At first, she didn't like him. He was ordinary. Unremarkable. He didn't move in her circles, didn't come from money, didn't carry himself with the quiet confidence of boys who had never known struggle. He was just... there. A face in the crowd.

But then something shifted.

She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it happened. Perhaps it was the way he remembered small details she mentioned in passing. Perhaps it was his persistence—the way he showed up, again and again, with that easy smile and those earnest eyes. Perhaps it was simply that she was young, and he was the first boy who made her feel seen for something other than her family's name.

She fell.

Hard.

The problem was simple: he was middle class, and she was not. In the eyes of her parents, that was an unforgivable gap. When they discovered their precious daughter was entangled with a boy who had nothing to offer but his heart, they tried everything to stop it.

They pleaded. They reasoned. They threatened.

But {user} was stubborn—a trait she had inherited from them. She stood her ground with the kind of defiance that only comes from youth and first love. She told them, in no uncertain terms, that it was him or no one. She threatened her own life if they tried to separate them.

And so, they relented.

The relationship continued through the remaining years of high school and beyond. Four years of laughter, of late-night phone calls, of dreams spoken aloud beneath the stars. She believed in him. She believed in them.

And then he proposed.

She said yes.

---

The wedding was beautiful.

Her parents spared no expense. If their daughter was going to marry beneath her station, then they would at least ensure the world knew she was still a woman of means. White flowers cascaded from every surface. Chandeliers glittered. Guests smiled and clapped and wished them well.

What they didn't know—what she didn't know—was that the groom was smiling for different reasons entirely.

Doyun had never loved her.

Not really.

He had loved her money.

He had loved the lifestyle she could provide, the doors her name could open, the life of comfort he could steal by standing at her side. Every kiss, every whispered promise, every tender moment—they had all been transactions. Investments toward a future payoff.

She was simply too blinded by love to see it.

One year after the wedding, her father transferred the business to her. Property papers followed. The empire was now in her name, and by extension, within his reach.

Two years into the marriage, she became pregnant.

He was overjoyed—or at least, he performed joy convincingly enough. He held her hand at appointments. He rubbed her feet after long days. He talked about the future with a warmth that almost felt real. And {user}? She was ecstatic. Finally, she would have the family she had always dreamed of. A husband who adored her. A child to love.

She was three months along when the illusion shattered.

She had come home early that day. A doctor's appointment had been canceled or rescheduled—the details blurred in her memory now. What she remembered with painful clarity was the ultrasound photograph clutched in her hand, evidence of the life growing inside her, a gift she couldn't wait to share with the man she loved.

The house was quiet when she entered.

Too quiet.

She climbed the stairs, her footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. The bedroom door was slightly ajar—just enough to see inside.

And inside, she saw everything.

Her husband. Her secretary. Her bed.

Their bodies tangled together in unmistakable intimacy. The sounds. The movement. The betrayal laid bare before her eyes.

She didn't scream.

She didn't cry.

She simply stood there, frozen, her hand drifting down to rest on the gentle curve of her belly as if to protect the child within from what she was witnessing.

She stumbled back.

Her hand reached out blindly for something—anything—to steady herself. Instead, her fingers caught the edge of a vase perched on the hallway table, and it crashed to the floor with a sound like breaking glass.

Because it was.

The noise snapped them apart.

Her husband's head whipped toward the door, his eyes wide with the kind of panic that only comes from being caught. He scrambled for clothes, for words, for excuses.

The secretary cowered.

And {user} just... stood there.

He tried to approach her. Tried to touch her arm. Tried to spew apologies that meant nothing, that were nothing. She flinched away from his hand as though it were a weapon.

Because it was.

The man she had given everything to—her heart, her trust, her family's legacy, her body, her future—had taken all of it and wiped his feet on it.

She called her parents.

They came.

Doyun was arrested. The secretary too. Charges were filed. Legal proceedings began. Her father stepped in to manage the business because she couldn't. She couldn't do anything. She could barely breathe.

She moved back into her childhood home, into the room that had once held her teenage dreams. She cried every night. Sometimes until her throat was raw, sometimes until she couldn't breathe, sometimes until the sobs simply exhausted themselves and left her hollow.

She tried to accept it. Tried to tell herself that he had never been worth it, that she had been a fool, that she should have known better.

But acceptance wouldn't come.

Not when she could feel the baby kick.

Not when she carried his child inside her.

---

The pregnancy was difficult.

The heartbreak wrecked her body. The morning sickness lingered longer than it should have. The prenatal vitamins came back up as often as they went down. She struggled to eat. Struggled to sleep. Struggled to find any reason to keep going beyond the tiny life that depended entirely on her.

But she held on.

She had to.

Because this baby—this innocent, blameless child—deserved a chance. Deserved a life. Deserved a mother who would fight for it even when fighting felt impossible.

She decided she would give her child that life.

She would raise it alone if she had to.

She would prove to herself, to her parents, to him, and to the world that she could.

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Six more months passed.

She was taken to the hospital on a cold morning. The labor was long. Exhausting. Terrifying. But at the end of it, she held a small, squirming bundle in her arms.

A boy.

She named him { you can decide}.

And as she stared down at his tiny face, exhausted and aching and still bleeding from the birth, she made herself a promise.

She would grow strong for him.

She would become someone he could be proud of.

She would not let a man define her life or her worth. Doyun was a mistake. A chapter she would close. A lesson she had learned the hardest way possible.

But he would not be her ending.

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Three months later, she moved into her own apartment.

Her parents had offered to let her stay. They had offered to hire help, to do whatever she needed. But {user} needed to stand on her own. She needed to prove something to herself.

The apartment was modest compared to what she had grown up with, but it was hers. Her name on the lease. Her furniture. Her rules.

Her son.

But there was a problem.

The business needed her. Her father was aging, and while he had stepped in during her recovery, the responsibility ultimately fell to her. She couldn't abandon it. Couldn't let her family's legacy crumble just because her own life had fallen apart.

But she couldn't leave her son alone either.

A friend suggested it first: Hire a nanny.

{user} hesitated. The idea of trusting a stranger with her child—her world—made her stomach churn. But she couldn't be in two places at once. And she couldn't keep relying on her parents forever.

So she posted ads.

Multiple platforms. Campus boards. Social media groups. An ad seeking a responsible, trustworthy nanny for a three-month-old baby. Part-time. Flexible hours. Good pay.

The applications came in waves.

Most were university students looking for supplemental income. Some were older women with years of experience. A few were men—which surprised her, though she supposed it shouldn't have. The world was changing, after all.

She interviewed dozens.

They filtered through her living room like ghosts. One girl seemed more interested in her phone than the baby. Another admitted she had never changed a diaper. A third showed up looking like she hadn't slept in days—how could she possibly care for an infant when she couldn't care for herself?

{user} rejected them all.

But then one profile caught her eye.

Jeon Jungkook.

Younger than her. University student. Interested in babysitting.

She clicked on his profile and studied it. No prior experience listed. No references. But there was something about the way he had written his introduction—simple, earnest, genuine.

She hesitated.

Then she called him for an interview.

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What happens when a divorced woman—still healing, still hurting, still learning to trust—comes face to face with a university boy who is younger, unassuming, and entirely unexpected?

Will they find in each other what has been missing from their lives?

Or will this end before it even begins?

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🔉I choosed the boy gender because Jungkook is male and I thought it would be better if the baby is boy.