Chapter 3 #2
“You could still ask him.” Mia looks hopeful. “There’s no harm.”
“There’s also no point.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not just the loan repayment he wants, Mia. He wants to bleed me dry for the scandal, too.” The more I’ve read and thought about the situation, the more I’ve realized that Knox is out for blood. My blood. He can’t hurt my father, but he can certainly hurt me.
I’d be enraged, too, if I found out someone played me the way my father did him. But Knox Vale is a billionaire. A hundred thousand is nothing to him. He wouldn’t go through all the trouble of a marriage contract just to get the restaurant if he didn’t want more.
“I wonder what his long-term plans are for the restaurant.” Frustration tightens my voice. “The contract states he gets priority to decide what happens because of the loan, and I guess I just have to agree.”
“God,” Mia mutters, “I have no doubt he’ll sell it when the time comes. Or buy out your share and keep the restaurant.”
My heart squeezes, and my breathing slows. I look at her, sorrow squeezing my insides. “I don’t want to sell it. And I don’t want him to own any part of it, either.”
The restaurant isn’t just a building. It’s another member of the family. I grew up watching my grandparents pour their whole lives into it, guarding the legacy my great-grandparents carved out of nothing.
Their fingerprints are in the walls, their stories in the floors, their souls threaded through the bones of the building.
Even our name carries their history. Our family name was once Monrovsky. My great-grandparents changed it to Monroe when they came to America from Moscow in 1907—a measure to blend in, to survive.
They worked and saved for years before they finally bought the building in 1916, back when Park Avenue was nothing like the manicured stretch of wealth it is now.
The structure they purchased had once been a sprawling railroad service depot—two floors of brick and steel, used decades earlier to store equipment and service the tracks before the city covered the rail line.
They turned it into a restaurant in 1919. And somehow it survived long enough for Park Avenue to rise around it, transforming it from a humble family business into a landmark sitting on some of the most valuable land in Manhattan.
My great-grandparents and grandparents had several offers to buy Monroes, but they turned down every single one, insisting the restaurant was to stay in the family and never be sold.
“Discussion of sale has never even been mentioned… until now,” I mutter, feeling the weight of everything pulling me under.
Sadness fills Mia’s eyes, and she shakes her head slowly.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I think that part is out of your hands.
Think of it this way: the restaurant is worth a lot.
When you get your half of the money, it’ll be enough to set you up for life.
And your mom, too. To be honest, with the amount of debt your dad got into, I’m surprised he didn’t consider selling it before. ”
“Because it’s priceless.” As bad as my father was, I know he valued the legacy. “Now I’m going to lose it. Over a hundred years of precious memories… gone just like that.”
“Oh, Isla. I wish I could do something more to help.”
I sigh and bow my head. “Being here helps.” I meet her gaze. “I just wish I could do better.”
It was my grandparents who encouraged me to become an artist. My parents wanted something more respectable, as they called it. Law, medicine, business, finance. Anything but art.
Before Mom started working at the restaurant—before she got sick—she was a manager at the DoubleTree. That gave me the chance to hide away at Monroes and paint and draw to my heart’s content.
I practically lived there. It was the only place I ever felt free.
Having my grandparents’ support was a blessing, and when they realized how art-obsessed I was, they eventually convinced my parents to cool off and accept my dreams.
That restaurant feels like an extension of my artistic vision. Like the place where my dream was able to breathe and grow. It’s a part of me.
And that’s why it hurts so much to know Knox Vale will have any claim to it.
All because of Dad’s foolish mistakes.
“Please try not to worry,” Mia murmurs as she rubs my back.
I throw her a deadpan stare. “Are you kidding? This is exactly the time to worry. I’m helpless, Mia. I’ve got nothing but this.” I wave a hand toward the contract and grimace. “Thirty pages of shit governing my life from the moment I sign it. And there’s a fucking clause for everything.”
I pick up the contract and flick through the pages.
“There’s a clause for confidentiality, as if I’m going to broadcast to the world how my father screwed me over and now I have to marry Knox Vale.
There’s one for conduct, as if I’m a child who doesn’t know how to behave.
Oh, and my personal favorite is the one for public representation.
According to this, I shall adhere to wardrobe and conduct standards befitting the public image of the Vale family.
To be determined by the husband or his appointed representative.
Have you ever heard such bullshit in your life?
And who the fuck says words like befitting?
” I scoff. “Just saying it makes me sound like I stepped off the set of Downton Abbey.”
There were more clauses, but those were the ones that riled me up the most.
“It sounds awful.” Mia frowns.
I throw the contract down. “It feels like the damn curse again.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
I don’t even know if I believe in that stupid carnival curse anymore, but every time something falls apart, it’s the first thing that comes to mind.
The fact that I spoke those words out loud suggests I’ve officially entered freak-out mode.
Mia rolls her eyes at me and cocks her head so deep her hair falls over her face. She pushes it away and wags a perfectly manicured finger at me, disapproval on her face. “Isla, it’s about time you drop that. You are not cursed.”
My shoulders tense. “I don’t know anymore. Seriously bad things keep happening to me. You’d think the same if you were me. Don’t you dare deny it.”
When I was twelve, we went to a summer carnival and snuck into a fortune teller’s tent. Madame Corvina was her name. On the centerpiece of the table was a single crimson rose suspended inside a glass dome, glimmering under candlelight.
To me, it looked just like the rose in the jar from Beauty and the Beast.
Ironic. I felt just like Belle.
Mesmerized, I picked it up. Just then, Madame Corvina returned and caught us, startling me. The jar slipped out of my hand and shattered when it fell on the floor.
I was full of apologies, but Madame Corvina had just the right thing in mind to creep me the hell out.
“The rose is the heart, and the glass is its protection. You’ve broken both,” she’d said, voice cracked like dry wood. “Now you’ll pay with a curse. Everything you love will fade, one petal at a time… until someone dares to bleed for you and mends what was broken.”
What a cruel thing to say to a twelve-year-old. But she was serious, and I swear my life has never been the same since.
Now I have to literally marry a man people call a monster. à la the Beast.
Mia leans against the counter and turns her palms up in that habitual gesture of hers when she’s trying to calm me down. “Look, you are not cursed.”
“Really? Behold, my tragic resume: Age thirteen—two months after Madame Corvina’s curse, I nearly drowned at summer camp.” The memory stops me, my lungs tightening as if they remember, too. I still get nightmares, sometimes panic attacks when I’m overstressed. It’s a miracle I haven’t had one yet.
“Age fourteen—Mom had her first heart attack, then months later my portfolio with two years of work, got trashed by my high school bully, and I lost my placement at Juilliard’s summer program.
Age fifteen and sixteen—my grandparents died one year apart, on the same damn day.
Age seventeen—Dad left his job at Vale Global because of the scandal, which we now know was his fault.
Age eighteen—the business he built crumbled, and we’ve been struggling financially ever since.
Age twenty-two—Chad, the so-called love of my life, dumped me two days after graduation to move to Australia.
Then Mom got really sick, the theater burned down, Dad died, and now… this.”
I glare at Mia, eyes wide enough to pop. “You tell me if you wouldn’t think you were cursed. It’s too much.”
She nods, agreeing. “Life hasn’t been easy on you.
You’ve definitely been through a lot. But, Isla, some of those things are just natural events that were bound to happen.
Like your grandparents’ deaths. Sure, dying a year apart and on the same day is strange, but they were in their late eighties.
And as for Chad…” She pauses. “He was obsessed with Australia back in high school.”
“I know, but he kept his plans to move there a secret.”
“Yes, that was an unforgivable asshole move.” She smirks.
“Exactly. A complete fuck-you to whatever I thought we had.”
She nods vigorously. “I agree. But Isla… I don’t want you spiraling into doom and gloom because you think some creepy old woman cursed you. Negativity drains you, babe. And then you stop trying.”
I wince and close my eyes. I want to tell her there’s nothing left to even try for. Before Dad died, I had a plan: rebuild my portfolio, apply for the dream job on Broadway, and chase the life I wanted.
But now…
I can’t even think that far. It all feels impossible.
Footsteps echo in the hallway. We both turn toward the door as Mom walks in, looking worse than she did last night. Her phone hangs limply in her fingers, a breath away from slipping.
My hand presses against the counter, my heartbeat picking up just at the sight of her bony frame in that thin nightdress.
She looks at me, a single tear sliding down her cheek. Her lips part to speak, but nothing comes out. Jesus, something else must have happened. Something worse.
“Oh… God,” Mom splutters, lifting a trembling hand to her mouth before breaking down completely.
Mia and I rush to her side. I slip my arm around her, holding her up before she collapses.
“Mom, what happened?”
“Your father’s insurance company just called.” She’s crying so hard the words barely make it out.
“What did they say?”
“They’re not paying out any more money.”
“What?” The word tumbles from my mouth.
Mia and I exchange quick glances before she moves around to Mom’s other side.
“What did they say, Aunt Greta?”
“They went over the autopsy report. It showed John had hypertension. It caused him to have a minor stroke when the other car struck him.” More tears spill over.
“Dad had a stroke?” The air stalls inside my chest. “But the accident killed him.”
“It did, but they’re saying the stroke was part of the cause of death.
Apparently, he didn’t tell the insurance company about his hypertension.
When he downgraded his policy, they treated it like a new one.
So, it was still under the contestability period when he died.
They’re saying because he never disclosed it, the policy is void. ”
Shit, shit, shit. This is not happening. “We need that money. They can’t do that.”
“They are, honey. They’re allowing us the funeral expenses as a gesture of goodwill because your father was a customer for so long. But they won’t give us anything more.”
“Let me call them.”
Mom shakes her head. “It’s done, sweetheart. It’s done. There’s nothing anyone can say to change their minds.”
“But it’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair.” She whimpers, pressing a quivering hand to her heart. “I was hoping to give the payout to Knox Vale. It wouldn’t have been enough, but it would’ve been something. Maybe something to stall him.”
“Oh, Mom.”
“I couldn’t sit around and do nothing while he demands my daughter’s hand in marriage for a debt.” If possible, her skin grows even paler. “Now I have nothing to work with. I don’t know what to do.”
Mia looks at me again, her eyes full of that helpless sadness. The kind you see in someone who wants to help but can’t.
Mom may not know what to do, but I do. There was never really a choice. I knew that.
My gaze drifts back to the contract on the counter. In my mind’s eye, the words taunt me, dancing and spinning and laughing as they close in like shrinking walls.
I turn back to my mother and rest my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll take care of everything.”