I Said Divorce When He Sent Me Red Roses Chapter 03

I Said Divorce When He Sent Me Red Roses Chapter 03

Once I finished my meal, I wandered slowly home on foot.

Months upon months locked away in the laboratory had cut me off almost entirely from the world outside those lab walls.

Streetlights glowing along the sidewalk, laughter drifting from passing strangers, the sweet aroma wafting out of a neighborhood coffee shop—all these small sights and smells filled me with a rare sense of grounded reality I hadn’t felt in ages.

When I reached a familiar stretch of road, I suddenly froze mid-step.

The tiny garage workspace Callum and I had rented to launch our company all those years ago had long since been torn down.

The tiny sandwich shop we’d visited every single day to save a handful of dollars had transformed into an elegant artisanal bakery.

It hit me then that the phrase nothing stays the same wasn’t just some sappy poetic line.

Even the precious memories I’d clung to so fiercely once had slowly worn thin and faded away under the passage of time.

My phone began to ring, displaying Professor Whitaker’s contact name.

His voice carried a note of hesitant uncertainty through the line. “Annelise, your application to join Project 707 received official approval from the oversight board yesterday.”

“I do need to run one final confirmation by you, though.”

“This assignment requires a minimum five-year commitment. Once you enter the research facility, your exact location will remain classified, your personal communications will face strict limitations, and you won’t be permitted to leave freely for an extended period.”

“Without your lead research oversight, Rourke Biotech will almost certainly struggle to push forward with its ongoing pipeline of drug trials.”

“Will Callum agree to let you take this position?”

I lifted my feet and walked past that stretch of road filled with old memories, my tone steady and unshakable. “Professor, I’m filing for divorce.”

A long stretch of silence settled over the other end of the phone line.

Eventually, Professor Whitaker let out a quiet, weary sigh. “Very well. I’ll send a team member to collect you tomorrow morning.”

Project 707 was set to launch imminently.

I ached to escape this suffocating, repulsive place as quickly as possible.

…

After hanging up the call, all desire to continue my evening walk vanished. I hailed a rideshare car straight back to our shared house.

The living room lights burned bright. Callum sat on the leather sofa, hunched over his phone typing out text messages.

The second he caught sight of me walking through the front door, the deep furrow between his brows smoothed out instantly. He stood and crossed the room in quick strides, grabbing hold of my wrist to fire off an accusatory question. “Why didn’t you wait for me at the restaurant?”

“I showed up and found the entire table empty. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was?”

I blinked once in mild surprise.

I hadn’t expected him to actually follow through and head to the restaurant after all.

Yet watching his self-righteous, indignant expression, a faint bitter laugh bubbled up inside my chest.

It shouldn’t have shocked me.

He’d grown fully accustomed to me standing by patiently, waiting for him no matter how long he kept me hanging.

I pulled my wrist free from his tight grip.

“I finished my dinner. What reason did I have to stick around?”

Callum stiffened where he stood.

It seemed he’d finally registered how unreasonable his complaint sounded. He forced his irritation back down and held out a neatly wrapped gift box toward me.

“I picked this out just for you today.”

“Go ahead and open it.”

I felt no real shock at the gesture.

After missing our dinner plans entirely, he needed some shallow gift to serve as a half-hearted peace offering.

Callum had always operated this exact way.

Every time he hurt my feelings deeply, he’d present me with some small luxury afterward to smooth everything over.

Once upon a time, I’d wait for those gifts with a tangled mix of nervousness and quiet hope.

I took the gift box from his outstretched hands and set it casually down on the sofa cushion beside me.

“You really don’t need to go out of your way for gestures like this,” I replied in a polite, distant tone.

The soft smile on Callum’s face froze solid.

This marked the first time he’d picked up on my blatant dismissal of his attempts to make amends.

A flicker of panic crossed his dark eyes, and he reached out again, ready to take hold of my hand once more.

At that exact moment, Maris’s voice floated down from the upstairs landing.

“Callum, perhaps I ought to head home after all. I’d hate for Annelise to walk in and misunderstand our arrangement.”

She stepped out from the top of the staircase. When her gaze landed on me, she rapidly concealed the triumphant glint in her eyes, pressed a hand to her mouth, and feigned a look of stunned surprise.

Callum rushed to offer me a rushed explanation. “Maris re-injured her twisted ankle yesterday, so I took her to a follow-up doctor’s appointment this afternoon—that’s why I arrived late to our dinner reservation.”

“She can barely walk comfortably right now, so I told her she could spend the night in the guest bedroom.”

Once he finished speaking, he fixed his gaze hard on my face, seemingly terrified I would erupt into an angry outburst.

I nodded my head, my voice completely devoid of care. “Then I’ll book a room at a hotel for the night.”

“I have no intention of sharing a roof with her under these circumstances.”

Callum’s jaw dropped open in shock. He’d clearly never anticipated such a calm, unyielding response from me.

“If the thought of Maris staying here upsets you this badly, I can drive her back to her place right—”

His sentence cut off mid-thought as Maris suddenly lost her balance and tumbled down several wooden steps of the staircase.

She clutched her swollen ankle tight against her body, her face draining pale with sharp pain as hot tears spilled down her cheeks in an instant.

Callum’s features twisted with alarm, and he sprinted across the living room to catch her before she could slide further down the stairs.

“Maris!”

He lifted her carefully and guided her back into the guest bedroom, then knelt beside her bed to inspect her bruised ankle.

I climbed the stairs to our master suite, packed a handful of my essential clothing items, and tucked my divorce papers and personal identification documents into my rolling suitcase.

By the time I dragged my luggage toward the front door to leave, Callum emerged from the guest bedroom.

He stood dead center of the living room, lips pressed into a thin tight line, and snatched my hand in a firm grip, refusing to let me pull away.

Visible guilt clouded every inch of his expression, growing heavier by the second.

Finally, as Maris’s repeated calls for his help echoed from the guest room, he forced out a strained promise. “Tomorrow, I’ll drive you to your mother’s grave.”

“We’ll talk everything through properly, standing right in front of her headstone.”

I pulled my hand away from his grasp without a single trace of emotion on my face, turned toward the front door, and hauled my suitcase outside.

Talk it out?

He can hold those conversations with my legal representative instead.

The second Maris stepped foot inside this house, I’d lost all willingness to negotiate our divorce settlement face-to-face with him at all.