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Veda checked her pulse before buckling the strap, then quickly verified it again from her seat using only her eyes. “Her pulse is good.”

“I know.”

Her brows bunch. “How do you know?”

“I saw you clock it.”

“You were watching me?”

“Due diligence. I know you’re good at research, people say you’re good with patients, and all of that counts for a lot. But seeing you in action with my daughter is the real test.”

“Hm.” She eyes me for a moment, then stares out the window.

The whole truth is, I noticed because I notice everything about the doctor, and that is dangerous.

Nick holds the forward table with an espresso and a phone he isn’t reading. He has offered ten words since takeoff, nine of them to the pilot. His silence has volume, and every decibel of it points at me.

I know what he isn’t saying.

“This is reckless, and you’re putting all of us at unnecessary risk.” He said it before we absconded with the lovely doctor.

The discussion we had was colorful, and when I told him to mind his own business, he countered with, “You’re my own business, remember? Watching over this family is all I do, Lupo. Adding another person to the mix, one who doesn’t want to be there, is a bad call, and I’d be an asshole if I didn’t tell you that.”

Being my consigliere ages him. He looks a lot older than me, and he’s only a year my senior. It can’t be easy watching over someone like me, so I give him some leeway.

But only some. “I hear you. I’m ignoring your advice, but I hear you.”

He huffed and stormed out of my office, and that was the end of it. Sometimes I let him push me, but not when it comes to Sarah’s care. I know he doesn’t see it that way—borrowing the doc is a big risk. She could run screaming to someone I don’t own, and all of this could go to shit.

It’s a risk, but a calculated one. I just hope I’m right about her.

I take the seat across from Veda and set a folder between us. “Time to rehearse.”

“Rehearse what?”

“Our marriage. My mother will ask questions. We will have answers, and our answers will match.”

She stares at the folder. “You made a binder for our fake marriage.”

“I made a binder for Sarah’s leukemia. Of course I made one for this.” I open it. “Page one. How we met.”

“At a conference. Then you kidnapped me.”

“We first met during a conference in Boston. I watched your keynote, then introduced myself at the bar, and two weeks afterward, we married at City Hall. There was no press and no celebration. My mother understands that my life doesn’t allow for such events.”

“Two weeks.” Flat. “Nobody sane marries a stranger in two weeks.”

“My mother married my father in nine days. To her, two weeks is a long engagement.”

Her jaw chews on that. “Fine. We met at a conference. That is how we met—it is not a meet-cute, so don’t you dare smile at your mother and make it sound charming.”

“You’re the one who took me upstairs at the hotel, Doctor. The charm was mutual.”

“I will throw this espresso at you.”

“You like coffee too much to waste good espresso.” I turn the page. “The wedding. She’ll want the date.”

“We eloped on a date now?”