She Rolled The Dice On Our Marriage And He Let Her Win Chapter 01

She Rolled The Dice On Our Marriage And He Let Her Win Chapter 01

Callum Rourke’s foster sister had turned our marriage into a dice game. This was the tenth round.

Odd meant divorce.

Even meant we stayed married.

The die stopped on five.

Bria Wren leaned against Callum’s shoulder and burst into delighted giggles.

I bit down on my lip and signed the divorce papers with practiced ease.

Afterward, Callum came to coax me like always.

“Come on, Maren. You know how Bria is.”

Bria was twenty, but everyone said her mind had regressed to that of a six-year-old. She was childish, volatile, and had to be humored in everything.

“In a few days, it’s our anniversary,” Callum said. “I’ll make it up to you.”

When that day came, he blindfolded me and led me to the courthouse.

“Bria’s not easy to fool,” he said, taking my hand with a lazy smile. “Let’s make the divorce official.”

His friends stood around us, laughing and recording on their phones.

“Callum really knows how to surprise a woman. A divorce decree for his anniversary gift?”

“Look at Maren. Her eyes are all red. Is she seriously about to cry? Get it on video. Bria’s gonna love this.”

What they didn’t know was that I had made a promise to my grandfather.

Once this divorce was finalized, I had to leave.

And I could never see Callum Rourke again.

***

When we walked out of the courthouse, my face was streaked with tears.

The divorce decree was clenched in my hand.

The sky hung low and gray. My mind felt numb, like I was moving underwater.

Someone muttered, “Callum, you really divorced Maren just to make Bria happy? Aren’t you scared she’ll leave you?”

A few others laughed at once.

“Please. Maren’s not going anywhere. She’s too obsessed with him.”

“Exactly. She has no family, no backup plan. Without Callum, what does she even have?”

Callum, who had been standing off to the side answering work messages, finally looked up.

His brow tightened.

“That’s enough. Bria’s happy now.”

“We’re done here.”

The men who had been circling me with their phones exchanged awkward looks. Then they laughed it off and drifted away.

Callum reached for me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

Then he repeated the same explanation I had heard for five years.

Bria’s older brother had been his colleague during a medical relief mission overseas. He had died saving Callum’s life. Bria’s trauma from that loss had supposedly left her emotionally regressed.

So I was expected to accept it when my marriage became a toy used to keep her entertained.

If she was happy, I could come home.

If she was upset, I had to leave.

Five years. Again and again.

Maybe in Callum’s eyes, Bria had always mattered more than I did.

“Why are you crying so hard?”

His thumb brushed the corner of my eye.

I wasn’t someone who cried easily. The first time I cried after moving back to Briarwick with him was when Bria first suggested this little game.

Back then, I thought it was absurd. I didn’t take it seriously at all.

But the next morning, divorce papers were shoved into my hands.

“Don’t be difficult. How far do you want to push Bria before you’re satisfied?”

“Sign them. Stay somewhere else for a while.”

“When Bria feels better, I’ll bring you home.”

I swallowed my tears and nodded. But my patience had only bought me nine more rounds of humiliation.

I pressed my hand against Callum’s chest, trying to pull out of his arms.

As our clothes shifted, a flash of color appeared near his collar.

Callum instinctively moved to cover it. When he saw me staring, he hesitated, then loosened his hand and showed me.

Several childish doodles had been drawn over the ugly scar on his shoulder.

“Bria drew those,” he said. “She said if she colored it in, it wouldn’t hurt anymore.”

“She’s just like a kid. Ridiculously innocent.”

His words sounded like a complaint, but his expression was unbearably gentle.

I felt as if I had been dropped into ice water.

The scar on his left shoulder dated back six years, to his time as a field surgeon with Doctors Without Borders.

He hated anyone mentioning it. He hated anyone seeing it even more.

On our wedding night, he refused to take off his shirt. But at some point, the fabric shifted, and the scar showed.

I had been dizzy with love then. I wanted to kiss it.

Before my lips could touch him, Callum’s face changed. He got out of bed and left without a word. The only thing he gave me was a look of disgust.

I sat there with the blanket clutched around me, frozen and humiliated.

For the next month, I apologized over and over before he finally came home.

By then, the story had spread through his circle, and I had become another joke they told behind my back.

I was still frozen in place when Callum led me to the passenger seat.

The dashboard was covered in Bria’s plush toys and stickers.

Once, I had wanted to put a small keepsake there, something that belonged to us. He had called it childish and refused.

The car started. Neither of us spoke.

Then Bria’s special ringtone rang through the silence.

Whatever she said on the other end made Callum slam on the brakes. The seat belt dug hard into my lower stomach. Pain shot through me, sharp enough to make cold sweat bead across my forehead.

Callum’s voice softened as he comforted the girl on the phone.

“Don’t cry, Bria. I’m coming home right now.”

Then he turned to me, his tone suddenly cold.

“I need to go home. You can go to dinner by yourself.”

The restaurant I had booked a month ago for our fifth wedding anniversary.

He wanted me to sit there alone.

The anticipation I had carried for an entire month vanished in an instant.

“I’m not going,” I said. “I’m going home too.”

Callum frowned.

“No. If Bria sees you, she’ll—”

“I’m going back to pack my things,” I cut in. “I won’t ride with you.”

He paused, startled.

I unbuckled my seat belt and placed one hand over my still-flat stomach. Then I opened the door and got out.

No complaints.

No questions.

Because there was only one reason.

Bria didn’t like me. It didn’t matter how kind I was to her. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to get along with her.

Callum never once stood on my side.

Through the car window, I looked at him.

Maybe my obedience finally pricked what little conscience he had left.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel.

“When Bria gets better,” he promised, “we’ll live properly. Just you and me.”

I pulled the corner of my mouth into something almost like a smile.

“Callum,” I said, “what if I can’t wait that long?”