The Blackmail Bride

Chapter 19

This is a bit of a background on Isla's family. Because you know... I'm not yet ready to get them engaged. Let us enjoy the time period in which the main lead is a minor.

Mother

Thursday.

It was Thursday.

I needed the reminder considering I had laid awake the whole night. I had twisted and turned under my blankets, repeatedly shut the lights on and off and set my room temperature to freezing then back to boiling just to trick my brain. I must have chugged two liters of milk but none of those things helped.

My grandmother's words rang in my head, sliding scenarios I dared not believe would come to life. I was having those "what-if" trash-thoughts and I did not believe any boded well... at least not for me.

Should my grandmother find the Black family unsatisfactory for her purposes, was I going to be passed on to the next guy? How many times was that scenario going to play-out? How long until she finally finds me the acceptable man?

The role I was going to take up was unpalatable.

"Tell me, Isla? Where does your loyalty lie with?"

"Prestigio Hotel, our family."

And how far? Just how for would that supposed loyalty take me?

Maybe I was naïve. Nope, there was no maybe in that. Jae and Grandma had both said the same sentiments and they were equally disgusted. Innocence wasn't a complement. And in the line of business we had, it was a burden. My greatest flaw. A liability that I should correct as soon as possible.

Or else.

Or else, Isla?

I wanted to just follow Grandma's instructions and be done with it. But there was another major defect to her plan. Grandma and Jace thought the same way. So how was anything going to work as planned if the other party already anticipated every move that we had? Or how was it to play out if the same strategies were underway? Wouldn't it be a tie?

And I guess that was where I came in. I was my grandmother's trump card. One she expected would bring the success she wanted—whatever the plans she had in mind. She expected me to win Jace Black over. Had even this crazed idea that I was exactly Jace's type.

I didn't believe her idea on that part. Jace had insulted me and the Porter family to the high heavens. He doesn't trust me and how many times did I have to reiterate to myself that he even rejected the idea of respecting me? If Grandma was banking on that idea we were going to fail miserably. So so so miserably.

I could already see the consequences. I could already see Jace Black wringing our family dry for all that our hotel was worth. Then when I was finally useless, I would be discarded to the side and he would go for the next profitable heiress.

I had forced myself to stop at that. My thoughts would only go darker the deeper the night went. And I had laid awake, cursing myself so much when I saw the sun peeking through the small gap between expensive Egyptian curtains.

I came to our back garden to get some fresh air, reciting in my head the stupid mantra.

Thursday. It was Thursday. Thursday. It was Thursday. Thursday. It was Thursday.

And then my mind slipped.

Thursday meant three days before my eighteenth birthday. Three days before the official announcement of my engagement to Jace Black. What the hell was I, the young foolish and completely naïve Porter, going to do?