Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
“Church wasn’t just for Sunday mornings in my house,” she explained. “Once my mom found God, faith became her entire identity. It consumed her. And the more severe her faith became, the more she needed. It was never enough to simply be a mother or wife. She had the compulsion to…” She frowned, trying to explain it in a way that truly expressed how deep her mother’s addiction went. “She was subsumed by the church’s ideology.”
Reaching for her wine glass, she drained half of it.
“I didn’t realize they were that involved. Were they strict?”
“Not at first, but the more she got into it, the more things started to feel like some Puritan settlement. And I was just your run-of-the-mill heathen trapped in sin.”
He chuckled, as if to say he preferred her that way.
“When I was twenty-one, they found a church community, and my mom wanted full-time involvement. She asked me to go with them, but…” She shrugged.
“You didn’t want to go to Nashville?”
“Hell no. But I also didn’t have a reason to stay. I was working at the municipal building as a clerk, making shit pay, and there was nothing keeping me here, but I was not going to move across the country to join some sort of fanatical conservative cult that thinks women should submit their free will.”
She didn’t look at him as she admitted, “It’s not that I don’t believe in a higher power. I do. But I’ll never get behind a religion that views my life as a stain that needs to be cleansed. I am who I am.”
“You’re not a stain.”
She laughed without humor. “Filthy, that’s the word my mom likes to use.”
“Were they angry you didn’t go with them?”
“Not at first. I had no money, and they planned to sell the house. I think they thought I’d eventually follow them out of desperation. But I was only desperate to find a way to stay.”
“That had to be scary.”
“I cried a lot. I didn’t want to leave. I had a life here. Friends.”
“I’m glad you were stubborn.”
She smiled. “Me too.”
“How did you wind up getting the house?”
“I saw an open submission post on social media calling for stories. I figured I always got decent grades in English, and I could write something. I never expected it to go anywhere, but hoped I might be able to sell it for a hundred bucks and maybe write a few more. If I sold enough, I could come up with a down payment for an apartment and try living on my own.”
He chuckled, knowing how the story ends. “Sounds like you underestimated yourself.”
“A bit.” She grinned, the coldness in her chest cracking as a sense of warmth spread like a warm, comforting hug.
The waiter returned, and the conversation paused as plates were set across the table, tempting aromas wafting from each dish. Pan-seared scallops in an autumn corn puree over sage brown butter with ribbons of prosciutto. Dry-aged lamb chops with rosemary and crispy potato cakes.
When she tasted her first bite, she moaned at the heavenly flavors melting in her mouth. The taste, the texture, the scent… It was all decadent.
“Tell me about the day you got your first book deal.”
She grinned and lifted the linen napkin off her lap to wipe her mouth. “Mm, this is really good.” Everything was so delicious it was difficult to stop eating.
She sipped her wine, then continued with her story.
“I got an email from an editor at the publishing house, asking if I wanted to schedule a call. I said yes, thinking they were going to connect me with someone who could collect my tax information or whatever they used to send out payments. Since they contacted me, I assumed they liked my story, because I’d heard that no response meant not interested. So I took the meeting.”
“Always take the meeting.”
She smiled, because that was excellent business advice.
Slicing a scallop in half, she swirled it in the warm, buttery sauce. “I was totally unprepared for what came next. I mean, I was a kid. I didn’t have a clue how these things worked.”
She popped the scallop into her mouth and laughed as she chewed. “They wanted to offer me seven figures for that story and several more in the series.”
“Wow.”
“I know.” Chasing the bite down with another swallow of wine, she smiled proudly. “When they told me the number, I screamed so loud my mother thought I was hurt.”
He chuckled. “What did she say when you told her?”
Her smile faltered, but some indignant part of her wouldn’t allow that, so she stiffened her shoulders and straightened her spine. “At first, she was confused. Then betrayed.”
“Betrayed?”
“Yeah. The fact that I wanted to stay back and write erotic love stories rather than go chasing megachurches across the country with her blew her brainwashed mind. It turned into a fight that... Well, nothing was ever the same after that day.”