I married my wealthy 72-year-old boss so my little girl and I would have a roof over our heads — and five years later, his lawyer looked me in the eye and said, “He knew you would fall for it.”
Then he said the one thing I never saw coming.
Chapter 1: The Woman Who Said Yes
My name is Natalie Keller.
I grew up in foster care, passed from house to house with my clothes in a trash bag, and I learned early that nobody was coming to save me.
Nobody except the envelopes.
Every August 1st, from the summer I turned seventeen until the summer I turned twenty-one, a plain white envelope arrived at the Maple Hill Children’s Home with my name typed on the front.
Inside was a thin stack of crisp bills and a small white card.
Two words, typed on an old machine whose lowercase “e” always sat a little crooked.
“Keep going.”
No signature.
No return address.
Only a P.O. box in Duluth, Minnesota, stamped in the corner.
Every year I wrote a thank-you letter to that box.
I never got an answer.
I kept all five cards in a rusted cookie tin, and that tin has followed me through every cheap apartment I ever rented.
At thirty-three, I married Tommy.
