The Unwanted Healer's Thirty-Day Fake Marriage

oak door shut with enough force to rattle the brass fixture

an rug, and stood with his back to her-a rigid, unyielding wall of tailored wool and seething contempt. One hand shoved dee

st, her feet planted wide, her posture defensive but unbroken. Her dark eyes tracked

cket of his custom-tailored jacket and emerged with a leather checkbook

h the paper, and ripped the check out with a sharp, violent motion. He tossed it into the air. The slip of paper

"Take it. Disappear from my grandmother's sight before the sun goe

at the piece of paper that could buy her freedom from Inger

. "Is the life of the great Dominic Church really only worth

s flared. His paranoia ignited into a raging, white-hot inferno.

adow. The sheer, overwhelming physical intimidation of his presence-the broad chest, the clenched jaw, the dark eyes blazing with irrational fury-fo

ensive scent of his cologne mixed with something sharper-adrenaline, maybe, or hate. "You think you can use a cheap parlor trick on a train-a needl

t, pulsing beat of pure anger throbbed in her throat. Her fingers

, his lungs rattling like a dying engine. Inger's cold, cruel voice threatening to pull the plug,

e touch Almon's medical funding. The risk of offending the Church family would paralyze her. And the Astor fa

rained away, replaced by cold, crystalline, calculating logi

sult-and crossed to the antique mahogany desk in the corner. She g

the paper in sharp, decisive strokes. "And I definitely don't want you. I'd s

wing into suspicious, dangerou

nd deliberate. "We fake an engagement for one month. You get your grandmother off your back-n

private lives. You go your way, I go mine. We are strangers sharing a paper title. Clause two: Abs

No physical contact? Don't flatter yourself, you little fraud. I would

ty days, the Church Group will provide a medical sponsorship to the Bowers family. Specifically, full cover

hed mahogany toward him. She looked up, her eyes meeting his. There was nothing in them-no lust, no

of vindication curling in his gut. She was bleeding him for cash, just like he knew she would. But thirty days of peace from his grandmother's theatrical suicide thr

He slashed his signature across the bottom of the page with enough force

name beneath his in quick, precise, unhesitating strokes. She folded her copy of the co

rumbling growl that vibrated in the air between them. "Do not try to climb i

uine, bone-deep exhaustion crossed her face. "I have exactly zero interest in paranoid old

ade of red. The thick vein in his temple throb

etween them thick with mutual loathing and a strange, tox

rabbed the cold brass doorknob, and twisted