The Dice Said Divorce, but He Thought I’d Stay Chapter 02

The Dice Said Divorce, but He Thought I’d Stay Chapter 02

“What?” He looked like he hadn’t heard me.

I opened my mouth to say it again. The car tore away, and a gust of wind hit me full in the face, swallowing the rest of my sentence.

Of course. He couldn’t keep Chloe waiting.

The pain in my belly hadn’t let up. I went to the clinic alone and came home with a prescription.

A girl I didn’t recognize stopped me at the door. “Who are you? You can’t just walk into someone else’s house.”

The housekeeper grabbed her arm and pulled her back, hissing. “Are you out of your mind? This is Mrs. Vance!”

“She only started recently — she hasn’t met everyone yet. Mrs. Vance, please don’t—”

“It’s fine. I don’t blame her,” I said quietly.

I was gone half the time, sent away whenever Chloe needed appeasing. Of course the new girl didn’t know my face.

The estate stretched out around me, enormous and silent. Every wall in the living room was covered with photos of Harrison and Chloe.

Theme parks, landmarks, little craft studios — all of it documented, all of it theirs. Our wedding photos had been shoved into a storage room ages ago.

I pulled out a box of old things — love letters, ticket stubs, photos. The whole history of us, packed into cardboard.

In the photo, I looked like a mess — hair cropped to my ears, a camera slung around my neck. A complete tomboy beside someone like Harrison.

I’d only ever been truly brave twice in my life. The first was defying my grandfather in my early twenties — carrying on the legacy my parents never got to finish, and becoming a war correspondent.

The second was asking Harrison to kiss me in a trench while the world exploded around us.

That night, the bombing came without warning — enemy planes roared over the refugee camp. A mother and her little girl beside me were dead before they hit the ground.

A beam pinned me down. Fire crawled over everything, and the smoke was stealing the air from my lungs.

Harrison clawed me out from under the wreckage, shielded me with his body, and dragged me to the trench. Shells were still falling. Rescue wasn’t coming.

He’d come alone — put his life on the line to pull me out.

I couldn’t stop crying. I was already in love with him by then — had written him letters I’d never had the nerve to send.

I thought I was going to die. So I said what I’d never been brave enough to say.

“Kiss me. If we die tonight, I want to feel something real — even if it’s just this.”

He was crying too when he kissed me. A fleeting moment — that’s all it lasted.

But that single moment was worth dying for.

A hand snatched the photo right out of my grip.

“Is this you?” Chloe’s voice cut through the memory. “Ew. You’re so ugly.”

“Harrison looks amazing, though.” Her gaze slid to me. “So you’re divorced now, right, Ms. Mercer? What are you still doing in our house?”

Everything about her — the voice, the posture — was pure little girl. But the words had teeth.

She caught me staring and tugged at the necklace around her throat. “What? Was this yours or something?”

Harrison designed that necklace himself, for my birthday. Both our initials carved into the metal. I loved it so much I’d barely ever worn it — too afraid something would happen to it.

“Whatever. I told Harrison it was pretty, and he just handed it over.”

“Fine — it’s yours! I don’t even want it!” She yanked it off her neck, snapping the chain, and hurled it at the floor.

The door opened. Harrison walked in, and Chloe was hiding behind him in a heartbeat.

“I broke the necklace by accident, and now Audrey’s trying to hit me! Harrison, I’m scared!”

He didn’t even look at me. “It’s a necklace, Audrey. It’s junk. Stop making a scene over nothing.”

I didn’t raise my voice. “Is that all our history means to you?”

Something shifted behind his eyes. His mouth pressed into a thin line.

I crouched down, picked up the necklace piece by piece, and dropped it into the trash. Something between us was snapping apart — the same way that chain had.

Harrison’s eyes followed the necklace into the trash. He went still for a beat, and then his voice came out sharp.

“What is wrong with you, Audrey?”

Bitterness burned at the back of my throat before I could stop it. “You two broke it. You called it junk. I’m just taking out the trash — so what exactly did I do wrong?”

He was speechless. His chest rose and fell, hard and uneven.

Chloe grabbed his arm, rubbing it. “Harrison, don’t be mad. Let’s play a game instead.”

“The dice game! I saw the hospital papers in her bag! If it lands on odd… Audrey has to get rid of the baby. Okay?”