Nova was on her way to her father's office when she heard voices coming from there and she stopped just before the door so that she could listen to whatever was being discussed without being seen.
"That is ridiculous and I refuse to give my consent." Her father said.
"Listen Jacob, this is heaven sent. No one is going to come with an offer like this, Nova is damaged goods and no one worth their salt is going to want to marry her." A voice she recognized as her aunt's said
Thank you so much for the vote of confidence Aunt Julia. Nova thought to herself with a frown.
Ever since her scandal her Aunt Julia detested her presence and never failed to remind her of how much of a failure she was.
Nova wondered what it was that her aunt was so upset about this time, to the best of her knowledge she had been on her best behavior and not up to any mischief.
"My daughter is not damaged goods and i will not have you speak that way about her." He protested.
"Listen, the Knox family for whatever reason thinks that Nova is good enough for their son and it is a stroke of good luck because let us face it, he could have anyone he wants at all in the city." Aunt Julia continued.
"The same son who is so weird, that no one sees? You think that I would let my daughter who has already dealt with a bad relationship be with someone who might possibly hurt her? Think again Julia." Her father said
Nova's heart tightened at the fact that her father was fighting so hard for her, he was always trying to protect her even though honestly she did not deserve his unwavering love and loyalty. Her actions so far have done nothing but bring disrepute and heartbreak to him and she was touched that even after everything he was not going to throw her to the wolves.
"You should think about what an advantage it will be to you to have the Knox's as your in-laws. I know how bad our family's financial status has fallen and this is exactly the revival that we need and it will be gone if we don't act on it now."
"So the solution to our family's impending financial doom is sacrificing my daughter to some loveless marriage with some man she has never seen?" He asked with clenched teeth.
"Elijah, your problem is that you are a romantic and you think everyone should have a marriage like you had with Jacqueline but that is not how the world works, stop being so naïve. At least you get a wealthy son-in-law in the bargain." Aunt Julia said.
"And maybe now you will stop spending money so recklessly, you are lucky that you are family or i would have you arrested for fraud. all the damage our company has received is all thanks to your sneaky and thieving ways."
There was an audible gasp and angry stomping of feet as someone left the study.
Nova ducked behind the wall just in time to avoid her aunt running into her and she waited until she was sure that she was gone before stepping into the room where her father sat with his head bowed. When he realized there was someone else in the room he lifted his head, apprehension all over his face then he realized that it was Nova and his face broke into a smile.
"Hey sweetie, what are you doing?" he asked patting the space beside him for Nova to join him on the couch.
When she sat beside him she noted the weary look on his face and worried about the stress lines, she had not known that things were going bad financially for her father. Everything had seemed normal and since she had never really gotten involved in the family business and had been encouraged to face her art she never knew anything.
"Are you okay dad?" she asked.
"of course I am, are you okay?" He asked and she nodded.
"I love you so much and I am sorry for all the heartache that I have put you through." She said.
"You are my precious angel and you could never give me anything but joy. You are all that I have of your mom's." he said softly and touched her face.
"..Your mother would have loved you so much."
"Tell me something about her." Nova urged.
Nova's mom Jacqueline had died while giving birth to her and she never met her baby girl so Nova had grown with her father who had never remarried because of how much he had loved his late wife. Nova would ask her father to tell her about her mother and he would oblige her, telling her stories that made his eyes light up.
"Do you know that your mother's grandmother was a witch?" he asked with a smile.
"Really?" Nova asked wide eyed.
"Yup, she was a tiny little lady and you look just like her, same temperament too, she was very wild and stubborn." He said and bopped her nose lovingly.
"Why did you say that she was a witch?"
"Because she was one. She had this huge peach tree with the juiciest fruits and this one time a kid climbed the fence and picked a peach without asking. He was unable to leave and he could not drop the peach either until your great grandma came back and took the peach out of his hands."
"That is not true." Nova protested laughing.
"Is too and she passed some of her powers to your mom, she could always find lost things. If something was missing and you asked her she would point you in its direction without fail." He insisted.
"Unfortunate that I did not have any such powers to me, the only power I can boast of it drawing crazy and destructive people to me." Nova said soberly.
"You were young and you made some mistakes, you should forgive yourself for making mistakes." He said then kissed her lightly on her forehead and left.
When he was gone Nova got up and looked around the desk then the dustbin where she found a crumbled up piece of paper. She picked it up and opened it up and read the letterheaded page. After reading it all she threw the paper back into the dustbin.
She wondered why a man like Caden Knox would want to be with her, with the amount of money his family had he could be with just about any woman that he wanted. They ran in the same social circles but she never ran into him because he seemed like a recluse and people found him weird.
He did not have social media accounts and there were no pictures of him on the internet, not even from when he was a little kid. It made her wonder what kind of man he was. No doubt he was extremely intelligent since he had taken over the affairs of his family's company after his father's death. Maybe he was an ugly nerd who could not speak to girls.
She feared what a union with a man like that would be like, who knew what demons he was battling, who knew how he felt about women? She had already made a mistake once that almost cost her everything. She could not do that again, this time it would kill her.
***
The next morning Nova stayed lurking around her father's office until she saw a maid coming out holding a pile of letters and she stopped her.
"Lisa, could you please get Bert to check my room's heater? It seems to have stopped working."
"I will Miss Nova, just as soon as I drop these letters off." Lisa said.
"Don't worry about that, just give me the letters and I will drop them off while you find Bert for me." She said and took the letters from her.
When Lisa had gone away on the errand she had been sent Nova quickly looked through the letters and when she found the one she wanted she folded it into a small square and hit it in her pocket then she pulled an identical envelope from her hoodie pocket and put it in with the rest then went down the stairs with them.
She knew that her father would be mad at her for what she had just done but he had done so much for her that she felt like she needed to do this for him even though she was afraid of what she was getting herself into but she believed that she was stronger, better and she had definitely grown since that last experience. She could handle herself better now.
She never thought she would end up with a contract marriage but since she had already set the ball rolling all she could do was hope that it ended well for her otherwise she would have to deal with the consequences when they came whatever they were.