The Unwanted Healer's Thirty-Day Fake Marriage

hington D.C. and New York, the metal carriage vibrati

od out pale against her skin. She kept her eyes locked on the smeared green blur of trees outside, jaw clenched, forcing each breath to come slow and even. The enclosed, recycled air o

ir, loo

edges with barely suppressed terror. Cynthia didn't turn her head, but her p

urch was s

on the backs of his hands bulged like cables under the skin. His chest heaved in rapid, shallow, desperate jerks, his shoulders hunching,

racked against the seat frame. He didn't notice. His thick, blunt fingers fumbled franticall

imal, wrong. His massive frame curled inward, shoulders caving, pressing into the seat like he was trying to disappear into the leather. The severe, clinical

of curiosity and alarm. Phones stayed in pockets-no one wanted to be caught recording a man like Dominic Church. The freezing, lethal a

ghost in the glass. Not my business, she told herself, the words a man

ace drained of every last trace of color, going from pale to ashen to a sickly, translucen

deep, unkillable instinct of The S

kled her seat

massive arm shot out like an iron tollgate, blocking

ed over her plain sweater, her frayed canvas bag, her worn sneakers with

ld-the flat, dead calm of someone who had stared down far worse than an overgrown bodyguard. "Move," s

seat. His eyes rolled back, showing only white. A thin line of spittle

king his hard facade. His hesitation lasted e

wiftly under his thick arm, twisting her bo

ecap. Sweat coated his forehead in a glistening sheen, plastering dark strands of hair to his temples. His

e whole arrangement together-the only weapon she always carried, the one thing security never thought to confiscate. She unclasped it in one swift motion. Her dar

hts. "What the hell is that?" he roared, lunging

, fighting-kicked in before conscious thought. She ducked low, dropping her shoulder with an unrefined, almost clumsy-looking

e instant, her r

ssure point on the inside of Dominic's wrist-a strike so fas

bolt through storm clouds. His eyes snapped open, pupils blown wide and unfocused. His vision was a

right there, inches from his face, a delicate silver bracelet gleamed on her wrist as her h

began to unknot. Air rushed back into his lungs in a h

kull and never, ever slept-screamed at him with a voice li

s long, powerful fingers clamped around Cynthia's wrist an

te bones in her wrist ground together under his grip, sending white-hot bolts of agony shootin

lic shriek that vibrated through the entire carriage. The automated voice cr

mentum, Cynthia yanked her arm backw

n

chain slithered off her skin like water and tangled itself tightl

icer were barreling toward them, a bright orange medical kit swinging between them. Pas

pocket, and melted into the surge of bodies pressing toward the exit doors. Her dark hair swung around

rugged, bone-deep sleep, his fingers curled inward on instinct, trapping the b