suteruberry
- Reads 210
- Votes 11
- Parts 30
"The rules were simple, Dr. Giordano. We smile for the cameras, we stabilize my family's stock, and I fund your trauma bays. No feelings. No deviations."
"And what happens when the cameras stop flashing, Mr. Soliven?"
"Then the protocol breaks."
Dr. Ria Giordano lives for the chaos of the Emergency Department. She is sharp, fiercely independent, and completely armored against the wealthy elite who think everything has a price tag. So when a conservative medical conglomerate threatens to defund her trauma unit to settle a corporate grudge, Ria is prepared to bleed for her patients to keep the doors open. She doesn't need a savior-and she especially doesn't need him.
Vester Soliven is the nation's most chaotic golden boy. A multi-platinum industry heir and high-profile actor, his devastating dimples and reckless media image are currently tanking his family estate's stock. Facing a hostile boardroom takeover from his traditionalist uncles, Vester needs a miracle to clean up his public reputation: a brilliant, untainted, and fiercely respectable partner who can't be bought.
When a 3:00 AM medical crisis forces their worlds to collide, Vester lays a cold, transactional contract on the table:
The Protocol: Play his doting, devoted girlfriend for the national media for three months.
The Payoff: The Soliven Trust guarantees ironclad, permanent funding for Ria's ER.
It was supposed to be a bloodless corporate masquerade. But behind the velvet ropes of elite galas and beneath the blinding glare of the paparazzi, the friction between Ria's razor-sharp tongue and Vester's fiercely protective, territorial instincts begins to spark. When fake media poses turn into heavy, breathless encounters behind closed doors, the boundaries of the contract completely disintegrate.
Ria guarded her heart like a fortress, but she forgot one crucial detail: Vester Soliven doesn't play by the rules.