Morgan Fragrance House received a legal letter marked:
Hale Global – 51% Acquisition Notice.
No investment conversation.No partnership call.No "Hello, would you like corporate salvation as dessert?"
Just: Acquisition. Majority. Signed. Dorian Hale.
Lila felt like someone had purchased her childhood library before she finished reading her own life.
She marched into Hale Global headquarters the next morning radiating lemon fury mixed with floral threat, and unfortunately for Dorian, citrus was her life language.
The lobby smelled like wealth etching signatures onto air.
"You bought my company!" she said inside his blueprint lounge without greeting, without fear, without umbrella—because war had not rained yet today.
Dorian didn't look up from blueprints immediately. "Not entirely. Only the percentage required to stop destiny from murdering legacy."
"You can't own legacy," she snapped.
"I don't plan to," he said, finally lifting his head. "I plan to stop it from dying."
The sentence struck with veteran sincerity. The crack he created in her defenses did not sound like war. It sounded like pressurized grace.
She exhaled fury unevenly. "Investing and acquiring are not synonyms."
"They are when companies love romance instead of solvency."
"What?"
"You love heritage," he stated. "Shall I pull your company out of bankruptcy by holding its wrist or shall I save its soul with strategy? Both look equally dramatic, but only one stabilizes valuation."
Lila narrowed her eyes. "Architects build," she said. "They don't seal other people's foundations and call it renovation."
"I designed cities," he said quietly, "so don't lecture me on foundations."
She froze slightly at the calm force behind the words.
He continued:"Your formula deserves survival. Distributors will not treat it gently. I will. Unfortunately, gentle survival still needs contracts, not poetry."