My Broken Bride Is Not Broken Chapter 1

My fingers were still trembling when I finally dialed my grandfather’s number.

The second he picked up, I heard my own voice—raw, hollow, barely a whisper. "The Halloway girl... the one everyone says is 'broken.' Is she still available? Tell them I’ll do it. I’ll marry her."

The decision had been forged in the dark, born from a conversation I’d overheard outside the study last night—a conversation that had systematically dismantled three years of my life, my faith, and my heart.

My fiancée, Jenny, was one of the top private security contractors in the country. Three years ago, she had kissed me breathless and promised, “Once this last mission is over, I’m yours forever. We’ll get married the day I get back.”

Last night, I heard her giving a cold, sharp order to her second-in-command: "Xavier and the boy—make sure Oliver never finds out. About either of them."

Her deputy’s voice had been hesitant. "But Jenny, Toby is two years old. He’s your flesh and blood! You faked that entire S-tier extraction mission just so you could go off and have him in secret..."

The realization was a physical blow. Those thousand-plus days I spent waiting, worrying, and praying for her safety? They were nothing but a smoke screen. She wasn't fighting for her life in a war zone; she was building a life with another man.

I had looked into her eyes when she finally "returned" a month ago, thinking the exhaustion I saw was from combat. Now I realized it was the fatigue of a woman juggling two lives, two men, and a massive web of lies.

Her parting vow from three years ago still echoed in my mind, but now it felt like a shard of poisoned glass driven straight into my chest.

That child, Toby, was over two years old.

And I, the pathetic fool kept in the dark, was still busy planning our flower arrangements.

The bedroom light was a harsh, clinical white, reflecting my own pale face in the vanity mirror. It showed me the ugliest truth of my life. This marriage to the Halloway heiress was the only life raft I had left. It was an escape—and perhaps the most cold-blooded revenge I could take.

* * *

"Oliver? What’s happened?" My grandfather’s voice was thick with shock. "You told me you’d never marry anyone else. You’ve waited three years for her. Talk to me, son."

"The Halloway daughter... Felicity," I said, ignoring his question. "The rumors say she’s been hidden away since she was a child because she’s... 'not all there.' If she needs a husband to secure her inheritance, I’m his. I don't care about the rumors."

"If you’re doing this because of pressure, I’ll fight them off for you," he insisted. "You don't have to sacrifice yourself to a woman who can't even speak for herself."

I wanted to tell him. I wanted to scream the truth until my throat bled. But when I opened my mouth, only hot, silent tears spilled over.

Everyone in the city knew I was obsessed with Jenny. I’d loved her since I was eighteen. Five years of devotion, followed by three years of waiting for a ghost.

“The day I return is the day I become your wife.”

I had lived on those words. I had ignored the whispers at every gala—the people saying she was probably dead, or that she’d taken the money and run. I turned a deaf ear to it all, counting the days, marking the calendar, waiting for my warrior to come home.

By now, everyone knew that Oliver Thorne, the man who ran his family’s empire with a ruthless efficiency, had exactly one weakness: his bodyguard, Jenny.

I understood my grandfather’s confusion. Even I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that her three-year "mission" was the greatest performance of her career.

The line went quiet for a long moment. My grandfather must have sensed the shift in the air—the smell of something burnt and beyond repair.

"If you’ve truly made up your mind," he said softly, "then I’ll back you. The Halloways have more power than God. At the very least, they’ll make sure you’re never touched again. I’ll send a car for you the day after tomorrow. Wrap up your affairs, Oliver."

I sat there long after the call ended, clutching the phone like a weapon.

Images of Jenny and her deputy kept flashing behind my eyes. It felt like a thousand needles were being driven into my heart simultaneously, the pain radiating through my limbs until I could barely breathe.

She had cheated three years ago. She had fabricated a three-year war just to play house with Damian, her team’s medic, and their son.

I couldn't hold myself up anymore. My knees gave out, and I hit the floor.

Because of the "danger" of her job, she’d told me we couldn't have contact while she was deployed. I’d had to wait for her to call me—sometimes days apart, sometimes months. I spent countless nights staring at the ceiling, paralyzed by the fear of a phone call telling me she was dead, yet terrified of the silence that meant she might never come back.

I had survived on memories of our five years together. I had built a temple out of those memories, only for her to come back and burn it down.

As I sat there, lost in the wreckage, the bedroom door opened. Jenny walked in and saw me on the floor.

"Oliver? Jesus, the floor is freezing. What are you doing down there? Are you sick?"