Contract Marriage To The Coldhearted Tycoon

ears could subside, her phone vi

MOUNT SINAI ICU

creen, her voice sha

e harsh blare of hospital alarms and shouting. "Mr. Cook-Vanderbilt arrived ten minutes ago with Kirk Capital's private legal team and Di

eamed, lunging into the street. "I'm co

daline! Security is moving his bed to the servic

ll wen

e sprinted down the avenue, lunged blindly into the midday t

, slamming the door. "Emergency ra

fall over Manhattan. Adaline gripped the door handle until her knuckles turned translu

ambulance bay. Adaline kicked the door open before

oward the service loading dock-and the si

gurney was sitting in the op

y a private security guard. He wore a pristine camel-hair coat, his h

rcibly detaching the portable oxygen

as she threw herself up the concrete incline.

man stumbled, but the hospital's chief administrativ

ucratic coldness. "Kirk Capital has withdrawn their foundational grant matching. We have sixty criticall

overcoat stood at the edge of the d

e board granted that bed, and the board has withdrawn it. If you wish to conte

dler beneath the black umbre

-year-old Angus was dre

nerve suppressants, violent, agonizing tremors were already wracking his chest. His lips were tur

d shaking as he reached blindly for h

at my eyes," Adaline sobbed, dropping to her knee

around her brother's soaking body. She wiped the rain from his pale for

head, looking

ears. "He won't survive twenty minutes in this weather without the suppressants. Tell them to put him back inside. You know h

ting second, a flicker of guilt crossed his face. But then he rem

wn car. "If you had just bowed out gracefully yesterday, Fallon might have let the charity grant sl

ed into the warm leather interior

them. She walked back down the ramp, unhurried, a

ee. Kirk Capital's matching grant is a line item on their age

aline's eyes as

l. "When one person asks another person for something, the other generally expects to recei

to the guards behind her. "Document every

the administrator commanded

tors back through the sliding glass doors, letting the heavy ste

left

ind the hospital loading dock, Adaline s

using her own soaked back to shield him from the relentless rain. Angus's breathing was turning

g, numb fingers, desperately dialing 911, th

ly busy. Estimated wait t

hoked, pressing her forehead against Angus's icy

Eight years of devotion, top honors at Columbia, eighty-hour workweeks-and none of it mattered

ing into a ragged, helpless wail as she felt her b

st a sliver this time-and a youn

t away. Gray facilities jacket. A laminated badge clipped crooked to hi

the phone in his hand, which he now raise

e of it. She won't say anything else-that's the thing to

went on. "I want that un

he sente

d of this to anyone. I'm going to stand right here and hol

look up from her

hundred rooms, at the bottom of a hundred nights. She did it in und

at was useful. That was

the face, once, hard eno

hovered over the scr

ck herse

and the rain, and her brother's

the first button o

opped with her palm flat against the colla

" he said, v

s closed o

rain, twin beams of piercing white lig

battleship-glided silently up the concrete slope. The rain hissed as it struck the specialized

enger do

omed into the storm, cutting off th

out into the

rried none of the haste or chaos around him. He raised the umbrella s

eath seized

was