My Family Sold Me For $7 Million. I Owned Their Building Chapter 01
My entire family believed I was cursed.
The day I was born, my father’s company nearly went bankrupt. Before the hospital even discharged my mother, they sent me to live with my grandmother in a forgotten town upstate.
Eighteen years later, the company was in trouble again. Victor Warren had agreed to rescue it on one personal condition. He wanted a Monroe daughter as his wife. Chloe refused to go through with the bargain, so my family brought me home and ordered me to take her place.
My father, Richard Monroe, kicked aside the battered woven sack at my feet. Disgust twisted his face.
“Get that filthy thing out of my house. Our stock dropped the minute you walked through the door. You really are bad luck.”
My mother, Diane, pulled my sister behind her as if I carried a contagious disease.
“If Victor weren’t willing to pay seven million dollars for this marriage, I would never have let you poison this house again.”
Chloe tossed a debit card at me. It skidded across the marble floor and stopped beside my sneaker.
“There’s fifteen thousand in the account, and the PIN is on the back. Take the money and go marry him. Consider it payment for getting our family curse out of our lives for good.”
I ignored her. My attention was on the sack Richard had knocked open.
Just last month, Grandma had left me ten furious voice messages.
“Come get these closing files out of my house, Avery! You buy apartment buildings like other people buy groceries. I don’t have another feed sack big enough for all this paperwork.”
If any of them had bothered to glance at the burgundy closing binders and certified title abstracts peeking through the zipper, they might not have assumed fifteen thousand dollars was enough to make me disappear.
“Not enough for you?”
Chloe planted the heel of her designer pump on the toe of my canvas sneaker. The debit card lay beside us.
She folded her arms and raised her chin.
Diane covered her nose and turned to the house manager.
“Mr. Lewis, put on gloves and throw out that sack. I don’t want whatever is on it getting into the rug.”
Mr. Lewis obeyed. He pulled on a pair of gloves and bent for the handles.
I closed my hand around them first.
He tugged twice. The sack did not move. Finally, he straightened and frowned at me.
Richard sat on the sofa and crushed out his cigar.
“Avery, letting you take Chloe’s place in this deal is more generosity than you deserve. Victor is worth over a hundred million dollars. You’ll live better with him than you ever did in that backwater town.”
He nodded toward the card on the floor.
“Use that money to buy a decent dress. I won’t have you embarrassing the Monroe name at the courthouse.”
I tucked the exposed corners of several burgundy closing binders back into the sack and zipped it shut.
If they saw the documents now, the show would end before it began.
“I’ll marry him,” I said. “Give me my birth certificate and every identity document you kept when you sent me away.”
Chloe laughed.
“Listen to her. She hears Victor is rich and suddenly she can’t wait to become Mrs. Warren.”
Diane’s lip curled.
“That is all girls like her understand. Give her the papers and get her out of here.”
Richard signaled to Mr. Lewis. A few minutes later, the house manager returned from upstairs with a document envelope.
I did not take it.
“I also want a family settlement and mutual release. I disclaim any inheritance from you, resign from every Monroe family trust, and waive any right to challenge your wills. In return, all three of you waive any claim to my property or income and acknowledge that I owe you nothing. Sign it, and I’ll be at the marriage bureau tomorrow.”