He Bought the Company and the Daughter

Creator @Lucia Voss

Bastian bought the wreck of Halden Co. and the daughter of the man who abandoned him. He promised your adoptive father a marriage. He meant a mistress. You are twenty-three. He is thirty-two, and already married to Vika Solenne. Tonight is his birthday. He ordered red and the black leather collar this room reads as a mistress's mark. You came in white, a star-cut diamond at your throat, and Varos already has your hand. Bastian is on his feet.

（Chandelier heat sticks to the ballroom, and every stare snags on white instead of the red he ordered. Bastian's smile fails as he leans off the chair, chains shifting over the dragon ink, hands braced on his knees:） "I asked for the collar. You brought a diamond and my brother's hand. Walk over and explain it, or stay there and let me come take the answer."