The Affection Exchange System

"Raine, Skye, if you two don't drink with me tonight, that means you don't think I'm worth the respect!"

I opened my eyes in shock and found myself back at the company's annual gala.

Derek Voss, the intern, was already three drinks deep and completely wasted. He used his buzz as an excuse to force drink after drink on Raine and Skye Lane, the two girls I'd grown up calling my future brides.

I started to rise to stop him, then froze and forced myself back down into my seat.

In my last life, I couldn't stand watching them get humiliated like that. I had called Derek out in front of everyone.

Raine and Skye never touched a drop of alcohol normally, but they acted like completely different people that night. They grabbed their glasses and downed them, then turned around and accused me of using my position as the Sterling heir to control their lives and strip away their right to make their own choices.

I had been furious and heartbroken at the same time, and we'd had an ugly fight.

After that, no matter how good I was to them, all they ever saw was Derek. That was the moment when my life began to derail.

Derek had been watching my every move. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me sit back down and called out loud enough for the whole room to hear.

"Mr. Sterling, want to make a bet? Let's see if your so-called future brides listen to you, or if they'd rather drink with me."

Every eye in the room turned toward me.

I clenched my fists, then smiled.

"Don't be ridiculous. What decade do you think this is? There's no such thing as childhood engagements. That's just something the adults used to joke about when we were kids."

My parents had always wanted a daughter, but after I was born, my mom's body never cooperated again. They wanted one so badly that they used to take me to the orphanage just to look around.

I had a rotten temper as a kid, and none of the other children ever caught my interest.

But then I saw Raine and Skye, identical twins, and thought they looked fun.

That was the only reason my parents adopted them.

I used to drag them around to play all the time, and the neighbors started joking that they were my future brides. The nickname just stuck.

Under all that casual teasing, the three of us had slowly grown genuinely fond of each other. We were right on the edge of becoming something more, and just one step away from admitting it out loud.

Then Derek showed up.

Derek clearly hadn't expected me, of all people, the guy who'd always been so protective of these two, to react with this much indifference. His jaw actually dropped.

"Mr. Sterling, you're really not going to say anything?"

I smiled coldly, glancing at the two sisters pressed up against either side of him.

My smile turned mocking.

"Why would I? Aren't you enjoying having both arms full? What exactly am I supposed to say?"

Seeing that I genuinely didn't care, Derek panicked and slammed his glass down on the table.

"One of these two is supposed to marry you someday, and you're just going to sit there and watch this? Do you have some kind of weird fetish or something?"

He said it loud enough that the whole room heard. A scattering of laughs broke out immediately.