Page 2 of Her Mountain Christmas
But the whirlwind takes over, and I find myself stepping out of the alcove, fists clenched, heart pounding wildly. My spine is rigid, and I square my shoulders, standing at my full height.
Which, in these heels, is probably about 5’4.
“I am not a pawn. I am not an object. I am not a pet to be sold to the highest bidder.” My words come out from between clenched teeth, and they all turn to look at me with bemused expressions on their faces. It’s the way you’d look at a toddler playing dress up in her mother’s heels and pearls.
“Oh, Ella, do shut up,” says my mother, sighing wearily.
“I won’t! Not when you’re talking about me as if I’m chattel.”
“Calm down,” says my father in such a patronizing tone that it makes me flinch. He raises his hands in a placating gesture. “Don’t make a scene. You’re embarrassing us.”
I’m embarrassing them? The emotions swirling inside me coalesce into one—white hot rage. “You’re trying to sell me off to this disgusting creep. If anyone should be embarrassed, it’s you!” I spit the words out, glaring at them.
Bradford laughs. The sound is like nails on a chalkboard, making my skin crawl. “Maybe she does need a little pre-wedding trip to Switzerland. Something to…” His eyes travel over me in a way that makes me want to puke all over his designer shoes. “Calm her nerves.”
I snap. I can feel it, the second it happens. I’m not in control anymore. I flip them off, a gesture so unlike me, so unlike the prim and proper Ella Montgomery they’ve spent my life molding me into. But it feels good. So fucking good, and so right. “Fuck you,” I say, my voice steady and sure, and oh, that feels good, too. “Fuck all of you.”
I turn, middle finger held high in the air over my head, and I don’t look back. I don’t stop to think. I’m on autopilot right now, with one sole focus—getting the hell away from these assholes. I don’t know where I’m going to go. I have no plan. It doesn’t matter. Anywhere but here is a good start.
I stride out of the hotel lobby, heels clicking on the gleaming marble floor. I don’t stop for my coat. I just keep walking, right out into the cold December night and straight to the taxi queue. The cold air hits me like a slap, rushing over my bare skin, the air filtering through my thin dress. I don’t care, because the cold feels like freedom.
I slip into a taxi and give him my address, my thoughts whirling, my temples pounding. The drive from the hotel to my parents’ mansion is a blur. I don’t see anything, too caught up in my own thoughts to take anything in. When we pull into the circular drive, I pay him and leave a huge tip, then rush into the house. It’s quiet and dark, with the staff off for the night because of the party.
I kick off my heels, adrenaline coursing through me. I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what I’ll do. But I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I can’t stay here for another second. Not after what happened tonight.
I hike my dress up as I take the winding stairs two at a time, sprinting down the hall to my suite.
Gilded cage.
The words hum through me, feeling more true than ever. I’m a canary to be sold to the highest bidder, nothing more.
Fuck. That.
I grab a suitcase and start packing. Clothes, toiletries, my passport, a few mementos that have meaning to me. I don’t know if I’ll need my passport, but I’m not leaving it behind. Maybe I’ll flee to Paris. Or Buenos Aires. Maybe I’ll make a new life for myself in some tiny Norwegian town.
Anywhere but here.
Suitcase in tow, I head back down the stairs, throw on a coat and a pair of boots, and head to the garage, where my sleek, black two-door BMW is parked. I toss the suitcase in the trunk and peel out of the garage, driving without a destination. I just need to get away. Away from their control, their expectations, their manipulations.
Freedom will come with a price, I know, but I’m willing to pay it, no matter the cost.
Snow starts to fall as I drive south out of the city, but I don’t care. I can’t stop. I can’t go back. I won’t.
I turn on the radio, not really listening to the Christmas music playing as I navigate to who knows where. Soon enough, the city’s behind me, and I’m headed south down the highway as snowflakes swirl against the windshield, dancing in the headlights.
I drive and drive, snow falling a bit heavier now. The road stretches out before me like a black ribbon cutting through the onslaught of white. Snow is sticking to the roads a little now, and I ease my speed a bit. Now that the city’s far behind me, my chest feels less tight.
I lose track of time as I drive, not paying much heed to where I’m headed, thoughts swirling just like the snowflakes, my mind replaying everything that happened not just tonight, but overmy entire life. Honestly, given their track record of control and manipulation, I shouldn’t really be so shocked that they’re trying to sell me off like a prized heifer at the county fair.
I think about how my mother forced me to take ballet lessons for years because she wanted me to have “grace and poise.” I hated every single second of it, hated every disciplined, stuffy movement, hated the endless critique of everything that was wrong with me. I finally quit when I was a teenager, and my mother refused to speak to me for week.
Or when they sent me away to a boarding school in France for a year because I talked to a boy they didn’t approve of.
Or the way my mother controlled everything I ate, everything I wore, and would screech at me for saying the wrong thing.
They never cared about me as their daughter. As a person. They never saw me as a fully formed person with hopes and dreams and interests completely unrelated to them and their designs. I was only ever an asset to be used.
The road blurs in front of me as tears fill my eyes again, but I blink them away angrily. I don’t want to cry over them. They don’t deserve my tears. They don’t deserve a damn thing from me. They never have, and tonight, it went too far. I’m done. Done with them. Done with that life.
