Page 255 of Santa Daddies

“You lost your job?”

“He asked me to quit soon after we were married. He said that he would really like to concentrate on his career without all the life admin getting in the way. And that once he was more secure in his job that I could return to my career. In hindsight, I was such an idiot, but I believed him then. And I didn’t mind the idea of staying at home. I enjoyed my job, but I didn’t love it.”

“What does he do?”

“Oh, he’s the Chief Financial Officer for an electric car company. He’s very good with numbers. He certainly kept me on a tight budget. I had a spreadsheet and was given a certain amount of money each week. I had to put in how much went on groceries, household supplies, clothes for myself. It was all closely monitored.”

“How did you get away from him?”

“It was my books. And my readers. I wrote my first book in a notebook, he’d have noticed it if I’d used the laptop. Once it was written I snuck to the library every day for an hour and typed it up, sending it to an online folder with an email address I keptsecret from him. It was hard because I only had a small amount of money secreted away that I’d gotten from . . . from pawning some of my mom’s jewelry. George didn’t think it was worth much and I think the guy at the pawn store actually took pity on me.”

“Your mom’s jewelry? Baby, I’m so sorry.”

“She would have understood, I think.”

“If she loved you like I think she did, I’m sure she would have,” he told her.

That’s what she hoped. It still hurt. But it had gotten her away from George.

“I couldn’t open a bank account without using our home address. But everything was in his name. I finally figured out a way to load money onto an online account and use that to pay for my cover and editing. The online publisher then paid me into that same account. I never expected it to do as well as it did. But it made me enough money in three months of sales that I knew I had to keep going and that to do that I had to get away from him. My readers sent me so many nice messages, they will never know what they did for me. But they gave me the confidence I needed. So I started to plan.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

“His annual conference was coming up, which meant I’d get to drive him to the airport. Yay me. But it also meant I got the car. He’d leave the gas tank nearly on empty, but he didn’t know that I had money. I dropped him off and returned home. He tracked my phone and I also knew he’d check the cameras at home. But if I timed it right and left while the plane was taking off, he wouldn’t know where I was going. So I kept an eye on the time and when it was due to take off, I turned off my phone and left it on the kitchen table. Then I quickly packed, I didn’t dare do it before then, and I took his car. I knew that was a risk. He could say I stole it.”

“You were his wife.”

She still was, unfortunately. But she’d figure that part out.

“I drove to San Francisco Airport and I flew to Miami. I stayed in a really cheap motel. I bought a phone and a laptop and I got book number two published within three weeks. It was already written so I only had to type it up and send to the editor. I had contacted her and my cover designer about it earlier through the library. I bought a car and drove up to Connecticut. I stopped at lots of small, inexpensive places along the way. Several of them didn’t bother asking for identification. It had been two months since I left him and I figured he wasn’t coming after me. Book three was nearly done. Book two was doing well. I contacted a divorce lawyer and told her everything. She immediately told me to get a P.O. Box and use that as my address for a credit card. She set all these things in motion and helped me feel like he really couldn’t find me. But I still felt like I needed to get away. I traveled around a bit more before selling the car and catching a flight to Denver. Then I rented a car and drove here. I’d already rented this cabin. Now, I’ve got four books out and readers are begging me for book five. I finally feel like I’m getting control of my life again.”

“You’re so fucking brave, baby. I’m so proud of you for doing what you did.”

“I’m not proud of myself for getting involved with him,” she confessed. “I should have seen who he was in the beginning.”

“People like him are good at hiding who they really are,” he told her.

Alice nodded. He was definitely good at hiding his true self from others. “I just want this Christmas to be my turning point. I always loved Christmas as a child. The magic. The lights, the Christmas carols, the decorations. The lead up to Christmas was always so much fun. My mom loved her Christmas traditionsand I haven’t been able to do any of them in . . . in the last eight years.”

Eight years of her life she’d wasted on that bastard. That hurt. A lot.

Well, no more.

And it wasn’t like the whole ten years had been terrible. He’d been good to her in the beginning. At least, that’s what she told herself.

Chapter Sixteen

“What traditions did your mom have?” he asked.

“On the first of November all Halloween decorations went down and the Christmas ones went up.”

“The first of November? They’d be up all of November and December?” He gaped at her in shock and she couldn’t help but giggle.

“Yep. My dad used to fuss a bit but he always helped. He insisted on doing the outside stuff. His girls weren’t getting up on ladders or putting themselves at risk.”

“I think I would have liked your dad.”

“Yeah, you remind me a lot of him.”