The first attack hit before Eva Lane could decide whether Marcus Sterling was protector or captor. A shot shattered the lock. Marcus Sterling covered her with his body, returned fire once, and forced a path into the building's service corridor.
They escaped with the sealed record but not the evidence that proved who had signed it. Inside a guarded room, Marcus Sterling traced its payments and erased seals. Every path led back to someone Eva Lane had defended for years.
Marcus Sterling placed a contract beside the evidence. For thirty days they would appear united, share information, and never move without security. In return, he would give her access to the one archive capable of proving Marcus ordered no procedure—the pregnancy was engineered by the woman trying to steal his company. The final clause was strangely specific: neither of them could pretend the attraction between them was part of the agreement.
She laughed once, without humor. “You wrote a rule against falling for you?”
“I wrote a rule against lying about it.”
Their first move together became another ambush. A messenger slipped Eva Lane a key engraved with the date of her greatest loss. It opened a private box containing photographs of Marcus Sterling meeting the person who had arranged a frightened nurse admitted Eva's embryo transfer file had been switched with a billionaire's sealed sample.
She pressed the photographs against his chest. “Tell me why I should not leave.”
He did not deny the meeting. He stepped close enough that anger became heat and covered her hand with his over the evidence. His pulse beat once beneath her palm, too fast for the cold man everyone else feared.
“I went there to stop what happened to you,” he said. “I failed. I will not fail twice.”
The lights died before she could decide whether to believe him. His phone lit with a live video of the person Eva Lane trusted most bound to a chair.
“You have until midnight,” the caller said. “Marcus ordered no procedure—the pregnancy was engineered by the woman trying to steal his company. Ask Marcus Sterling what else he is hiding. Then decide which one of you I kill first.”