He Turned Our Wedding Into a Bet So I Married Another Man Chapter 01

He Turned Our Wedding Into a Bet So I Married Another Man Chapter 01

The night before the wedding.

Out of nowhere, my best friend Lena Frost decided to make a “big bet” with my fiancé, Chase Wilder.

“I bet I know how many candies you have in your hand.”

“If I’m right, you have to do whatever I ask, no matter what it is.”

“If I’m wrong, I’ll finish the rest of the drinks.”

“I’m guessing… five.”

Chase opened his right hand. Three.

Lena tipped her head back to down the bottle.

But then Chase added. “You win.”

He pulled his left hand from his pocket.

“There are two more here.”

Lena smiled at him, but her eyes glistened with something that looked like tears.

She unfolded a note she’d written earlier.

“Sorry about this. I didn’t expect to guess right on the first try.”

“My request is that you postpone your wedding for three years.”

The room went dead silent.

Chase, though, just kept smiling.

“We’ve been betting since college. None of us has ever been a sore loser, right?”

“A bet’s a bet.”

It wasn’t the first time Chase had put me on the line.

But this time, I looked up at the clock, just past midnight.

My phone buzzed.

[Happy Birthday.]

[That bet about marrying me if you’re still single at twenty-seven, does it still stand?]

I replied:

[A bet’s a bet.]

***

For a split second, no one moved. Then the living room exploded.

“That’s way too far!”

“A wedding isn’t a game!”

“Quinn hand-wrote five hundred invitations, do you know how exhausting that was? Every relative got one. Calling it off now is insane.”

The room erupted. Voices overlapped, growing louder and more frantic, until all heads swiveled toward Lena.

“You’re Quinn’s best friend, say something! It was just a joke, right? Not a real bet.”

Lena sat in the corner, swirling a glass of wine. She didn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

“I wasn’t joking.”

“You all know I never bluff when it comes to a bet.”

“Just bad luck.”

The moment those two words left her mouth, the air in the room turned icy.

Everyone realized at once: the wedding was truly off.

Because, aside from me—I work at a gallery—the rest of them, Chase included, were in the “betting” business.

Jewelry. Gemstones.

Every month, they’d head to the border for rough stone auctions. Their start-up capital had come from the very same thing back in college—betting on raw gems.

A bet was a bet. That was their iron rule.

No one spoke anymore.

I lowered my gaze and poured myself a drink.

“What do you say, Chase?”

Chase looked at me, his eyes slightly glassy from the wine. He reached over and squeezed my hand out of habit.

“Quinn, we can still have the wedding in three years. We’ve got time.”

“But ruining everyone’s luck over a ceremony date? That’s not worth it.”

“You understand, right?”

Exactly what I expected.

I dropped my head and swallowed the bitterness.

When I looked up, I’d pasted on a smile again.

“I don’t get it, but I’ll go along with it.”