Page 25 of Christmas Treasures

But something inside her said:Be brave.

People were not supposed to live in isolation. She’d pushed everyone away for too long. She’d had fun last night. Let loose a little. People at the party were nice, and they seemed to genuinely like her. Nina, in particular, had made so many overtures of friendship over the last year. Charlie had politely declined, keeping it friendly but never taking it outside of work. But she could use a friend. A real one who would listen and know what to advise. A woman like Nina who seemed so normal compared to Charlie. She went out on dates and had a social life outside of work.

Charlie hit Call.

“Hey, Charlie. What’s up?” Nina’s voice came through, cheerful and warm as always. “Are you as hungover as me?”

“I don’t feel my best ever.” Charlie took a breath. “Hey, are you free? I was wondering if you might want to come by for coffee. I have scones in the freezer I could warm up.”

Not even a beat of hesitation. “I’ll need a bit to get myself together. I’m still in my pajamas, but I can be there within the hour.”

It was enough impetus to get Charlie into the shower. Strangely enough, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was playing in her head. She’d heard it last night at the party.

By the time Nina arrived, Charlie had showered and blown out her hair, even managed to put on makeup asthough it was an ordinary day. But something inside her told her everything had changed.

They sat together in the kitchen, with matching mugs and Fig snoring softly by the heat duct. Charlie had turned on a jazz station in the background while she was waiting, and it played softly through her built-in speakers.

“I have to say, I never thought I’d be invited over,” Nina said. “Your house is beautiful.”

“Thanks.” She added a spoonful of sugar to her coffee. “I’m sorry I haven’t had you over. It’s hard for me to put myself out there.”

“That’s pretty obvious.”

Charlie laughed once, low and tight. “It’s not that I don’t want to connect, I just don’t know how.” She took another sip of her coffee, then stared down at the mug in her hand. “I’ve never shared with you why I left San Francisco. I’m sure you figured out by now that I sold a company for a lot of money.”

Nina tried her best to look surprised, but it was no use. “Yes, I Googled you the minute we met.”

“It sounds great on paper, but the truth is—they pushed me out after the transaction was final. The company who bought us didn’t need me any longer. They said I’d taken the company as far as I could and that now it was time for a real CEO to run the company.”

“As if you hadn’t built it from scratch?”

“That’s right. I was crushed. And my ego was bruised pretty badly too. To make things worse, I’d been dating a man I really liked and thought I had a future with. I consoled myself about my work by jumping into a relationship. I was already imagining the life we might have together. A normal life, with kids and a house in the suburbs.”

“What happened?”

“He turned out to be…a liar. A professional one.”

“I’m scared to know what happened next,” Nina said.

“Yeah, it’s bad.” Charlie drew in a slow breath. “His name was Evan. I met him at a cocktail function before the sale of ForkCast. The company who bought us was still trying to woo me at that point, and they hosted this elaborate dinner, with drinks afterward. He introduced himself as a financial investor—angel funding and that kind of thing. Which is not unusual in Silicon Valley, so I had no reason to doubt his story. He was nice-looking and charming. Even I found him easy to talk to. But I was not in a great place. Burned out. Isolated. And he brought some excitement and playfulness into my life. I’d worked more than a decade without a break, solely focused on building my company. I’d just lost my dad. I had no one I could trust. So you can imagine how easy I was to play.”

Nina’s hands curled around her mug. “Oh, Charlie.”

Charlie looked down at the table. “We were up in Tahoe on a long weekend, and he accidentally sent me an mail meant for someone else.” Her voice caught. She could recall the sick feeling as if it were yesterday. “Basically, it was an email to his girlfriend—his partner in grifting. He was playing me. Pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He’d planned on getting me to marry him.” She told her about the email and his plans to marry her for her money. “And he swiped a piece of jewelry to ‘tide’ them over.” She made air quotes.

Nina sucked in a breath. “Charlie, that’s unbelievable. I’m so sorry.”

“I left without another word, leaving him stranded in Lake Tahoe.” She wiped a hand under her eye before the tears could fall. “When I got home, I turned him in. It turns out the FBI had a file on him an inch thick. They just could neverquite pin him down. He’d done it before—multiple times. Grifting wealthy women, manipulating them into signing over power of attorney, leveraging investments under their names. They were all older women, especially vulnerable. But I was young and smart. Supposedly. But I didn’t see it. Not at all.”

By now, tears slid down her cheeks, silent and hot. “I was humiliated mostly. I’d given him my heart only to find out he was a fraud after my money. I felt like an idiot.”

Nina reached across the table and took her hand. “It wasn’t your fault. He’s the villain in this story. Not you.”

Charlie let out a shaky laugh. “The part that hurt the most? He said I was ‘clearly on the spectrum,’ and that I wouldn’t even realize what was happening. Like I was some robot who didn’t understand human emotion.”

“Jerk,” Nina whispered.

Charlie shook her head. “It wasn’t just cruel. It’s accurate. The way I process things is not the way most people do. I’ve always struggled with social stuff. I don’t like small talk. I hyper-fixate. I find comfort in repetition and patterns. I hate change. Hate noise. I memorize spreadsheets for fun. When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me I was ‘wired for different frequencies.’ I cannot pick up on social clues as well as others, so I don’t know when someone’s trying to harm me or not. Or even when someone likes me.” Charlie exhaled slowly. “I’ve never been diagnosed. My father didn’t trust mental health doctors, so I just white-knuckled it my whole life. And maybe that label doesn’t matter. I know how I am, and I’ve learned to compensate. Regardless, Evan used it as a weapon.”

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