Dominic walked into the drawing room and slammed the heavy oak door shut with enough force to rattle the brass fixtures and send a framed landscape painting swinging on its hook.
He didn't turn around. Didn't look at her. He walked straight to the tall, arched window, his long legs eating up the Persian rug, and stood with his back to her—a rigid, unyielding wall of tailored wool and seething contempt. One hand shoved deep into his trouser pocket. The silhouette of his broad shoulders against the pale morning light was designed to intimidate.
Cynthia stopped exactly three feet inside the room. She crossed her arms over her chest, her feet planted wide, her posture defensive but unbroken. Her dark eyes tracked his every micromovement like he was a venomous snake that might strike without warning.
Suddenly, Dominic spun around. His other hand dipped into the inside pocket of his custom-tailored jacket and emerged with a leather checkbook and a heavy, solid-gold fountain pen. The metal glinted like a weapon.
He flipped the checkbook open, scrawled a number with brutal, slashing strokes so fast the nib nearly tore through the paper, and ripped the check out with a sharp, violent motion. He tossed it into the air. The slip of paper fluttered and spun, drifting down like a dead leaf, landing on the Persian rug directly at Cynthia's worn sneakers.
"Ten million dollars," Dominic said, each syllable coated in venom. "Take it. Disappear from my grandmother's sight before the sun goes down. Go back to whatever backwater mountain you crawled out of."
Cynthia didn't blink. Didn't flinch. Didn't even glance down at the piece of paper that could buy her freedom from Inger, security for Almon, a new life a thousand miles from here.
Instead, she let out a short, breathy, genuinely amused laugh. "Is the life of the great Dominic Church really only worth ten million? I would have priced you higher. At least twenty."
The words hit him like a physical blow to the sternum. His pupils flared. His paranoia ignited into a raging, white-hot inferno. She wants more. She wants everything. Just like all the others.
Dominic closed the distance between them in two massive, thunderous strides. His six-foot-four frame loomed over her, casting her entirely in his shadow. The sheer, overwhelming physical intimidation of his presence—the broad chest, the clenched jaw, the dark eyes blazing with irrational fury—forced Cynthia to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. But she held her ground. Her feet stayed planted. She refused to surrender a single inch.
"I know exactly what you are," Dominic snarled, his face now inches from hers. She could feel the heat radiating off his skin, smell the faint, expensive 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 needle, a pressure point, a bit of medical theater—to worm your way into the Church family? You want my name. You want my assets. You want the billions."
Cynthia stared into his furious, irrational, bloodshot eyes. A hot, pulsing beat of pure anger throbbed in her throat. Her fingers itched to slap the contempt right off his chiseled, arrogant face.
But then—an image flickered behind her eyes. Almon, gasping for air under the plastic oxygen mask, his lungs rattling like a dying engine. Inger's cold, cruel voice threatening to pull the plug, to sign the papers, to let him suffocate in his own bed while the machines went silent one by one.
If she had the title of Dominic Church's fiancée—even a fake, temporary, contractual title—Inger wouldn't dare touch Almon's medical funding. The risk of offending the Church family would paralyze her. And the Astor family, with their predatory marriage contract, would back off immediately rather than cross a man like Dominic.
The fire in Cynthia's eyes cooled in an instant. The anger drained away, replaced by cold, crystalline, calculating logic. She had one card to play, and he had just handed it to her.
She walked past him—deliberately turning her back, a calculated insult—and crossed to the antique mahogany desk in the corner. She grabbed a piece of heavy cream stationery and a black fountain pen.
"I don't want your money," she said, the pen already scratching rapidly across the paper in sharp, decisive strokes. "And I definitely don't want you. I'd sooner marry a brick wall. At least the wall wouldn't accuse me of seducing it."
Dominic turned, his eyes narrowing into suspicious, dangerous slits. "What are you doing?"
"A thirty-day contract." Cynthia didn't look up. Her hand moved steadily, each line precise and deliberate. "We fake an engagement for one month. You get your grandmother off your back—no more hunger strikes, no more ambushes, no more dossiers of socialites. And I get a shield."
She kept writing, her voice flat and matter-of-fact. "Clause one: Zero interference in each other's private lives. You go your way, I go mine. We are strangers sharing a paper title. Clause two: Absolutely no physical contact of any kind. No hand-holding, no cheek kisses, no touching whatsoever."
Dominic let out a harsh, barking laugh that held no humor whatsoever. "No physical contact? Don't flatter yourself, you little fraud. I would rather press my lips to a corpse than touch a single inch of your skin."
Cynthia ignored the insult like water off a raincoat. Her pen kept moving. "Clause three: During these thirty days, the Church Group will provide a medical sponsorship to the Bowers family. Specifically, full coverage of Almon Bowers' hospital bills and intensive care expenses. Consider it my acting fee for this charade."
She finished writing with a sharp, final period, spun the paper around, and slid it across the polished mahogany toward him. She looked up, her eyes meeting his. There was nothing in them—no lust, no affection, no greed, no desperation. It was the blank, professional stare of a business transaction.
Dominic stared at the contract. His eyes scanned the clauses with rapid, predatory efficiency. The medical fee demand—there it is, he thought, the bitter satisfaction 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 threats was a tactical advantage he couldn't dismiss. It would buy him time. Time to investigate this mysterious orphan. Time to expose her as the fraud he knew she was.
He pulled the gold fountain pen from his pocket and leaned over the desk. He slashed his signature across the bottom of the page with enough force to leave grooves in the paper, the ink bleeding through to the other side.
Cynthia took the pen from his hand—careful not to let their fingers touch—and signed her name beneath his in quick, precise, unhesitating strokes. She folded her copy of the contract with crisp, efficient movements and slid it into the back pocket of her worn jeans.
"Keep to your side of the line," Dominic warned, his voice dropping to a low, rumbling growl that vibrated in the air between them. "Do not try to climb into my bed. Do not 'accidentally' wander into my room. Do not touch my things."
Cynthia rolled her eyes so hard it was a wonder they stayed in their sockets. A look of genuine, bone-deep exhaustion crossed her face. "I have exactly zero interest in paranoid old men who think the whole world is plotting against them. You're not that special, Mr. Church."
Dominic's face flushed a dangerous, mottled shade of red. The thick vein in his temple throbbed visibly, pulsing with barely contained fury.
They stood frozen, locked in a silent standoff, the air between them thick with mutual loathing and a strange, toxic, crackling tension that neither of them wanted to name.
Cynthia broke the stare first. She turned, grabbed the cold brass doorknob, and twisted it hard. "Showtime," she said, her voice flat.
