Chapter 7 Appeals In The Echo Chamber

• (POV: Isabela Montoya)
• Back in the suffocating silence of my suite, the porcelain doll composure I’d maintained cracked, splintering under the weight of Papa’s decree. I sank onto the edge of the chaise lounge; the pale blue linen of the dress Camila had laid out this morning feeling like sackcloth against my skin. Mateo Castillo. His name echoed inside my head, like a hammer shattering the thin glass of hopes I'd carefully hidden away. Then the first freezing shock started to loosen its grip, replaced by a frantic, almost buzzing energy. A sudden, desperate need to act. Panic morphed into a desperate need to act. I couldn't just sit here and wait to be packaged and delivered like some prized broodmare. Papa had called my dreams childish, irrelevant. But what if… what if I could frame them differently? Not as selfish desires, but as potential assets?
• I couldn't stay seated. Pushing myself up, I paced the room, the rich carpet muffling my steps. Everything screamed quiet luxury, except me—and those damned gilded bars on the windows. It felt like they were laughing silently at this nervous energy buzzing inside my gilded cage. Papa valued strength, legacy, advantage. Could I convince him that an educated daughter, one capable of understanding international finance, languages, perhaps even the subtler arts of diplomacy, could be more valuable to the Montoya legacy in the long run than one simply married off to the highest bidder – or in this case, the most strategically convenient brute?