Chapter 3: Amaya's POV
1349 Words
The plane ride was hell.
Not the kind with turbulence or engine issues. That, I could have handled. No, this was a different breed of suffering: the kind that came with a toddler, a mother with no spine, and an entire row of self-righteous strangers who thought moral superiority came free with their economy tickets.
I sat by the window, a book opened on my lap, earbuds in, head turned away. I had made it exactly nine minutes into the flight before the child in the middle seat began wailing. Not crying. Wailing. Like he had lost his kingdom and this cramped row was his personal hell.
"I want her seat!" he screamed, tiny fists pounding the tray table.
The mother laughed nervously, whispering soft pleas while the boy kicked my chair.
I didn’t say anything. Not yet. Not when he tossed his juice box onto my lap. Not even when he deliberately tried to grab my braids with sticky fingers.
But when the child unbuckled himself and climbed partially into my lap, screaming again that he wanted the window seat, I turned.
"Get your child off me," I said calmly.
The mother blinked at me. "He’s just curious."
"He’s on my leg. This isn’t a zoo. Remove him."
Gasps. One man across the aisle said, "You could be more understanding." A woman to my left offered a patronizing smile and murmured, "You know, kids sense energy."
I took out my earbuds slowly. "No. What he senses is that you people will let him get away with anything. And you enable it. That’s why you’re raising tyrants who’ll grow up thinking boundaries are suggestions."
Dead silence.
The toddler stilled. The mother blinked. The man across the aisle looked scandalized. For the rest of the flight, no one said another word to me. But their eyes did. Cold. Judgmental. As if I'd slapped the Pope.
I didn’t care.
The boy stayed in his seat.
---
By the time I landed in Lyon, my head ached and my patience had worn down to thread. The car waiting for me was sleek, black, and overly polished. The driver barely looked at me.
The Leclerc estate was as I remembered it: unnecessarily large and dripping with the kind of wealth that made even silence feel expensive. The gates creaked open and the manicured lawns stretched in arrogant symmetry.
I stepped out of the car and onto stone.
The mansion loomed.
Two maids waited at the door, both tight-lipped and stiff-spined. Neither offered a smile. One looked me up and down. The other glanced at my locs with something like disdain.
"Mademoiselle Leclerc," the taller one said, though her mouth curled around the name like it was too bitter to swallow.
I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and gave a tight nod. I wore loose linen pants, a wrap top, and a threadbare scarf tied around my waist. Earth-toned. Comfortable. Boho, if you squinted. But to them, it screamed outsider.
I stepped inside without waiting to be invited.
The halls smelled like wax and old judgment. Paintings of dead ancestors lined the walls, none darker than the edge of toast. The legacy here was blood-deep, and my presence felt like a stain they couldn’t bleach out.
But none of that surprised me.
I’d grown up hearing whispers. My father had once been the crown jewel of the Leclerc name — brilliant, charming, fluent in six languages. But he hadn’t wanted all this. He hadn’t wanted arranged dinners and strategic handshakes.
He had wanted freedom. And love.
He found both in my mother, a Black American woman with ambition in her teeth and sharp red nails. But love, as it turned out, wasn’t enough. When my mother found out that he had given up his inheritance for her, she didn’t melt. She left.
He had taken his own life two months later.
The Leclercs never forgave him. And they never forgave me for being proof that he had chosen wrong.
---
My aunt greeted me in the sitting room, air-kissing both cheeks with the delicacy of someone touching a stray cat. Her perfume was sharp. Her expression sharper.
"Amaya," she said, drawing out the vowels. "You’ve grown."
"That tends to happen," I replied.
My uncle sat on a high-backed chair like he was carved into it. Stern nose. Hard mouth. We shared that nose. It was the only resemblance I had to him, and I hated it.
He didn’t rise.
"You look... earthy," my aunt said, eyeing the outfit. "Is this what the children wear in America now?"
"I've lived in New Zealand for three years now."
"Ah, yes. The place with the volcanos. You look... rustic."
I said nothing. It wasn’t worth it.
My uncle grunted. "You went to school, did you not? Nursing, of all things. You chose to clean people for a living when you could have been doing something proper."
I kept my tone flat. "I did what I needed to do."
The room went quiet. My aunt and uncle shared a look — the kind old money people pass around when they’re trying to be discreet in their disgust. I knew that look. I'd seen it on their faces when they came to the hospital.
When my grandmother was dying.
They hadn’t visited for sentiment. They visited out of duty. Because even after disowning my father, they still believed debt ran in the blood.
They’d paid her hospital bills. Made sure the best room was available. Called in favors.
Then she died anyway.
And they still held that favor over my head like a leash.
---
"Why did you bring me here?" I asked.
My uncle leaned forward.
"Your cousin was supposed to fulfill a promise. An engagement, arranged by your grandfather before he passed. Amanda—"
My jaw twitched.
"—had reservations. Said she did not like the energy. A silly girl, always chasing feelings."
Ran away, I thought. He means she ran away.
"And now?"
"Now you will take her place."
The words fell like bricks.
"Excuse me?"
"The engagement party is in a week. You will meet your fiancé tomorrow at dinner. It is not a matter for debate."
I stood still.
"And if I say no?"
My uncle’s eyes narrowed. "Then you spit on the debt your mother owed. The favor we extended in your grandmother’s final days. You throw it back in our faces."
I stepped forward. My voice was quiet. Cold.
"If I marry your boy, your heir, your business arrangement — then I owe you nothing. Not a cent. Not a prayer. Not a second of my time."
He didn’t blink.
"Fine."
My aunt gave a delighted smile, as if I had just agreed to wear heels for the first time.
"Wonderful. You’ll be fitted for a dress tomorrow."
I nodded once, turned, and left the room.
I didn’t slam the door.
But if I had, it would have felt like thunder.
---
The room they gave me was at the far end of the second floor. The help said it used to be the governess’s quarters, but I suspected that was a lie. It smelled like mothballs and old stories. The curtains were beige. The floor creaked. And the view overlooked the west garden — the one they only watered when they had guests.
I set my bag down and sat on the bed. My back was straight. My hands in my lap.
No tears. Not anymore.
I looked around at the carved moldings, the gold-plated lamps, the tall wardrobe I would never fill. Everything in this house whispered that I didn’t belong here. Not truly. Not permanently.
But I wasn’t here to belong.
I was here to end a debt.
Whatever they thought of me — ghetto, earthy, too American, too Black, too loud, too indifferent — didn’t matter. I would marry the boy. Wear the dress. Sign the paper.
And then I would vanish. Debt repaid. Lineage clean.
They could have their perfect little world back.
But they would never get another drop of me after that.
- Writer
