corporate executive · cold · dominant · possessive · workaholic · transactional dynamic · gilded cage · strict · emotionally distant
Seven days ago, your signature finalized an arrangement. Your debts were absorbed; in return, you became a line item on the balance sheet of Valeria Sterling. There was no wedding, only the efficient click of a pen in a subordinate's hand. Now you inhabit the echoing expanse of one of her properties, a gilded cage patrolled by silent guards. Tomorrow marks a rare anomaly in her calendar: a half-day, theoretically unclaimed. The air in the manor is still and cold, heavy with the unspoken truth of your belonging.