Chapter 7
Isla MacLaren has always known when a conversation is about to turn ugly.
It begins as a tightening behind her ribs, a shallow breath that refuses to go all the way in.
Her mother’s tone shifts, barely, almost imperceptibly, but Isla hears it the way she hears a wrong note in a chord.
The warmth drains out. The performance ends.
What remains is sharpened, precise, and determined to win.
They are in a sitting room off the main corridor, one of those castle rooms that feels ceremonial rather than lived in. The ceilings are too high. The furniture is too heavy. The air smells faintly of stone and polish, like history scrubbed clean and presented for inspection.
A tray of tea rests untouched on a low table between two sofas. Steam curls upward in delicate threads, as if the castle itself is trying to pretend they’re here for something civilized.
Isla sits on the edge of the sofa, spine straight, hands folded loosely in her lap. Her posture is flawless. Years of lessons have trained her body to behave even when her emotions threaten revolt. Calm has always been her armor.
And yet she knows her mother is furious at her choice.
Alisa paces.
Back and forth across the thick rug, heels clicking softly. She hasn’t sat since they arrived. She hasn’t touched the tea. Her movements are clipped, restless, controlled, like a woman circling a problem she intends to crush.
“This is reckless,” her mother says. “Absolutely reckless.”
Isla waits a beat before answering. She’s learned that timing matters. A response delivered too quickly sounds emotional. Too slowly, and it sounds weak.
“I’m staying,” Isla says, determination layering beneath the two words.
Alisa stops short. Turns. Her eyes narrow.
“No, you’re not.”
Isla lifts her gaze. “The will requires ninety days.”
The words land harder than she expects.
Alisa’s mouth tightens. “The will,” she snaps, like the phrase itself offends her, “is not worth destroying your career over. Let that kilt man have the castle. Who cares?”
“I’m not destroying anything.”
“You have a concert in New York in six weeks,” Alisa fires back instantly. “Then Boston. Then Paris. Contracts you signed. Venues that don’t reschedule because someone wants to play heiress in a castle.”
Isla rises slowly. Her legs feel steady, grounded in a way she doesn’t expect. “I can practice here. Fly to the city for one night and then return. I won’t miss any concert dates.”
Alisa lets out a short, sharp laugh. “Practice isn’t the problem. Perception is.”
She steps closer, lowering her voice as if the walls themselves might be listening.
“Do you have any idea how fast this turns into a circus?” Alisa continues.
“Biographers. Documentarians. Lawyers. Everyone with a grudge or a theory crawling out of the woodwork. Someone claiming they were promised this place. Someone claiming they were promised him. Or worse, someone claiming they were promised you. I’ve lived in the circus; you never have. ”
Isla’s jaw tightens as understanding dawns. “This isn’t about missing a concert.”
“It is absolutely about that,” Alisa snaps. “Everything you have depends on discipline. On control. On consistency. Classical music does not forgive instability.”
“Neither do you,” Isla says quietly.
Alisa recoils slightly, then schools her expression. “I have spent your entire life protecting you from your father’s circus.”
“You’ve been managing me,” Isla says. “There’s a difference.”
Alisa exhales sharply. “You were a child.”
“I’m not anymore.”
Alisa’s eyes flash. “Then stop acting like one.”
The words sting more than Isla expects. And she suddenly wonders when the last time she defied her mother was. When has she ever been truly independent? But it’s more than that. It’s the fact that she’s staying in her father’s castle. The man her mother hated.
Alisa’s mouth hardens. “The man who nearly ruined us.”
“I was a baby. You mean the man who nearly ruined you. The man who paid for my entire life,” Isla counters.
The silence between them cracks like ice.
“He paid because it was easier than showing up,” Alisa says. “He paid so he wouldn’t have to explain himself. So he wouldn’t have to change.”
“And you let him,” Isla says. “You took the money every month.”
Could her mother have prevented her from ever seeing her father? The thought sneaks into her brain like a worm, creating chaos.
“I took it because it was owed,” Alisa snaps. “Because he didn’t get to walk away without consequences.”
“And while you were taking it,” Isla says slowly, “you were deciding everything else.”
Alisa stiffens. “I made sure you succeeded.”
“Did I?” Isla asks.
The question hangs there.
Alisa’s gaze flickers, just for a second.
And Isla feels something shift.
“You chose my teachers,” Isla continues. “My repertoire. Which competitions I entered. Which interviews I gave. You’ve done it all, Mother.”
“That’s called guidance.”
“You chose when I rested. When I pushed. When I smiled.”
Alisa folds her arms. “You needed structure.”
“You chose my agent,” Isla says.
Alisa’s lips press into a thin line.
“You chose which offers I saw,” Isla presses.
“That’s not—”
“Did you ever show me the Berlin offer?” Isla asks.
The words slip out before she can stop them.
Alisa freezes.
The silence is absolute.
Isla’s heart begins to pound. “There was an offer, wasn’t there?”
Alisa turns away, pacing again. “Berlin would have been a distraction.”
“You said they never called,” Isla whispers.
“They weren’t right for you.”
“You decided that?”
“I knew what was best.”
Isla’s chest tightens painfully. “What about Vienna?”
“That schedule was too aggressive.”
“What about the London masterclass?”
“You were exhausted.”
“I wasn’t exhausted,” Isla says. “I was twenty.”
Alisa whirls back toward her. “And you were fragile.”
The words are a lie and twisted to her mother’s advantage.
“I was talented,” Isla says. “And ambitious. And scared, but not fragile.”
Alisa’s voice sharpens. “You were my responsibility.”
“I was your project.”
Alisa flinches.
The truth lands with brutal clarity.
“You organized my career,” Isla says, her voice steady even as her hands begin to shake. “You filtered the world, so I only saw what you wanted me to see. Did you also keep him from me?”
Her mother gasped, her eyes darting nervously around the room, like Keir would walk in and announce the truth. “Never. He could have seen you any time. I protected you from chaos.”
Something in her body seemed to tense.
“You protected yourself,” Isla says. “And now you’re afraid I’ll learn the truth and you’ll lose control.”
Alisa stares at her, breathing hard. “There is only one truth. He never wanted to be a father. He didn’t want to see you. Don’t buy into their lies. This place will destroy your control. Your career.”
“That’s why you want me gone.”
Alisa doesn’t deny it.
“This castle isn’t just about him,” Isla continues. “It’s about what happens when I’m not under your thumb.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s accurate.”
Alisa’s voice drops. “You don’t understand how easily this can all disappear.”
Isla laughs softly. “You mean my career?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Isla says. “You mean yours.”
The accusation lands clean and final.
Alisa straightens, smoothing her expression like she’s facing an investor instead of her daughter. “You do not belong here,” she says. “This castle will rewrite things that don’t need rewriting.”
Why did her mother appear to be nervous?
“I need the truth.”
“You need to get on a plane,” Alisa snaps. “You can grieve from New York.”
Isla shakes her head. “Who says I’m grieving? You’re afraid.”
“Yes,” Alisa says fiercely. “I am afraid of watching you throw away everything I sacrificed for a man who couldn’t stay sober or faithful long enough to raise his own child.”
“I’m not staying for him.”
“Then why?”
Isla meets her mother’s gaze, unwavering. “Because I want to learn about my sperm donor. Not to honor him, but to understand where I come from. And for the first time in my life, I want to make a choice you didn’t approve.”
Alisa stares at her. “You are choosing him over me.”
The accusation slices deep.
“I’m choosing myself,” Isla says. “I want to learn about my genes. I want to make certain that the description of my father that you gave me agrees with others who knew him. I need to know the truth.”
Alisa turns toward the door, anger brittle and sharp. “Fine. Stay. But when this costs you your career, don’t expect me to save you.”
“I won’t.”
Alisa pauses, hand on the knob. “Ninety days,” she says. “Then you come home.”
“Ninety days,” Isla said, not willing to promise her mother that she’d return.
The door closes with a loud, angry boom. The kind of sound of someone leaving, angry, frustrated, and filled with rage.
For the first time in her adult life, Isla has not agreed with her mother, and it feels strangely freeing.
The castle does not react.
No thunder. No collapse. No sudden rush of people.
Just silence.
Isla stands there, heart racing, the weight of what she’s learned pressing down on her.
She sinks back onto the sofa as if her legs have finally given up pretending.
The tea tray sits untouched, steam thinning, cups still perfectly aligned.
A small, irrational part of her wants to sweep it onto the floor and listen to porcelain shatter against stone, proof she can break something in this place that broke her first.
Instead, she presses her fingers to her sternum and breathes.
Alone.
The word lands harder now that it’s real.
She closes her eyes and sees the funeral again, not the casket, not the faces, but the piano. The weight of the bench beneath her. The way her hands didn’t tremble. The way her voice stayed steady as she sang.
He loved music. He just didn’t love being a father.
The chapel had gasped. Isla hadn’t looked up. She hadn’t needed to.
Honesty had carried her through.
Here, honesty feels heavier. Like a weight bearing down.
She stands, because sitting still will swallow her whole, and steps into the corridor. Her footsteps echo, following her like a reminder that she exists here now, whether she wants to or not.
The castle unfolds around her, stone and shadow, history layered thick as dust. Portraits line the walls: stern men, sharp-eyed women, ancestors who look like they would never apologize for wanting more.
She wonders which of them Keir resembled.
She wonders if anyone in this bloodline ever learned how to stay.
A study door stands ajar. She pauses, peering inside. A desk cluttered with papers. Sheet music stacked carelessly. Coffee rings on polished wood. Evidence of a life lived without clean edges.
She doesn’t touch anything.
Not yet. She isn’t ready to dig into her father’s secrets, but knows sometime during these ninety days, she will search to find out what kind of man he really was. If he was the vile creature her mother painted him or if he was just a man.
Farther on, a room filled with records and books about composition, guitar technique, theory. Framed photos, Keir on stage, Keir laughing with bandmates, Keir alive in a way Isla recognizes with a painful jolt.
She turns away before the jealousy can root itself. They knew him, she didn’t.
The staircase beneath her hand is worn smooth, the stone cool and solid. Hell has excellent stonework, she thinks, and the humorless thought keeps her moving.
At the end of a quieter corridor, she stops.
The music room.
She opens the door.
The piano sits at the center like an altar, glossy black, patient, waiting.
Isla approaches slowly. Rests her hand on the lid. The surface is cool beneath her palm.
She sits.
Adjusts the bench. Finds the pedals.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then she presses a single key.
The note rings out, pure and unafraid.
Another. Then another.
The melody forms hesitantly, exploratory, as if feeling its way through unfamiliar territory. Isla lets it wander. Lets it stumble. Lets dissonance exist without apology.
She plays angry first. Sharp-edged and relentless. Emptying her soul of the dire emotion onto the keys of the piano, in the music she’s creating.
Then sorrow underneath it.
Then something quieter. Curious.
She doesn’t realize she’s humming until she hears herself.
Not words. Just breath on pitch.
Tears slip silently down her cheeks, but her hands don’t falter.
She plays until her wrists ache.
Until the music resolves into something steady and determined.
The final chord lingers.
Silence settles, not hollow this time, but alive.
Isla lifts her hands from the keys.
She is not alone.
She doesn’t turn. Doesn’t need to.
Let them hear, she thinks. Let them feel her emotions and absorb her pain.
She sets her fingers back on the keys, not to perform, not to impress, but to claim the one thing in this castle that is hers.
And she begins to play again.