she agreed lightly, her fingers worrying at that stupid sequin. “Really, it was just a matter of expectations. My father had led him to think that I was going to be pliable and just so darn happy to marry him. And when I was starry-eyed in the beginning of the relationship, I thought so, too. But after we got married and I sat around a beautiful house all day with nothing to do, I was bored. I couldn’t decorate because I had to run everything past Blake. I couldn’t cook, because Blake had a chef that handled everything. I couldn’t drive anywhere. I was just living in this little bubble and it felt smaller and smaller every day.”
Even now, just thinking about it, she felt smothered. Choked. She closed her eyes, took a steeling breath.
“So after a few months of that, I started to ask for things to do. For money. For opportunities. I think I even asked him at one point to give me a job at his start-up. He was creating all kinds of apps, you see, and things were very exciting. But Blake just wanted me to stay at home.” Her mouth twisted. “I would have been fine with being at home, except . . . it wasn’t my home. It was his. I was just another decorative piece.”
“But you got your degree,” Caleb prompted after a long moment of silence.
She nodded, ripping the annoying sequin free from her dress finally. “I did. I saved my allowance for months and opened a bank account in secret. I took the classes online and did my course work on the days that he wasn’t there, or I’d wake up in the middle of the night to do them. I got my degree.” She cast a triumphant look in Caleb’s direction. “And after that, I realized I didn’t like my life. It was like I could see how it would turn out in another five years, another ten years, another fifteen . . . and the thought was horrible. So I saved more of my allowance, and when I had about five grand saved, I left in the middle of the night and filed for divorce.”
“Middle of the night?” His brows went up in surprise.
“It was easiest,” she agreed. “Cowardly, but easiest. Blake was really, really good at running me down and making me feel stupid. Like if bad things happened, they were somehow my fault. It was all manipulation, but that’s why I left without saying a thing. I didn’t want him to change my mind for me.” She laughed, tugging at the thread her sequin dismemberment had left. “And I knew if I talked to him, he’d just bully me into seeing things his way. So I left and had the lawyers handle it.”
“Good for you.”
She laughed, wrapping that green thread around her finger. “You’re the first one that’s ever said that to me. I tell people about it and they always say something like, ‘You left a rich, handsome man who wanted you to just stay home and look pretty? Are you stupid?’ But I just . . . wasn’t happy. I felt so lonely. Even when Blake was there, he never really talked to me. He didn’t value my opinion. I was just . . .” She shrugged. “There. I think that’s one reason that moving here appealed to me so much. I came out for the job interview and someone joked that everyone here was in everyone else’s business and people grew up knowing the names of all their neighbors and I thought that sounded just lovely. Like instead of a town, you had one big happy family. But I’m here and I’m still on the outside. Maybe I always will be.” She shrugged, staring down at her hands. “Anyhow, that’s my loser sob story.”
“You’re not a loser.” Caleb’s voice was harsh as he got to his feet. He crossed the small cabin and sat down next to her on the bed, and she could practically feel the tension vibrating through him. He was angry on her behalf, she realized. “They just pushed you into something without ever asking how you felt. That doesn’t make you a loser. It says that you trusted your parents.”
“Yeah, well, Blake got them in the divorce.” She shook her head. “My father was so mad at me that he screamed until his face was purple. Like I’d somehow divorced him instead of Blake. And my mother looked at me