The Unwanted Healer's Thirty-Day Fake Marriage

The Acela Express tore through the tracks between Washington D.C. and New York, the metal carriage vibrating with a low, relentless hum that rattled the teeth.

Cynthia Bowers sat rigid by the window, her fingers digging into the frayed fabric of her canvas tote bag like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth. Her knuckles stood out pale against her skin. She kept her eyes locked on the smeared green blur of trees outside, jaw clenched, forcing each breath to come slow and even. The enclosed, recycled air of the train car pressed against her chest like a physical weight—a low-grade claustrophobia that crawled up her throat every time she traveled. She swallowed it down. Again. And again.

"Sir. Sir, look at me."

The voice came from the seat directly beside her—low, urgent, frayed at the edges with barely suppressed terror. Cynthia didn't turn her head, but her peripheral vision caught the sudden, violent movement in the wide leather seat.

Dominic Church was suffocating.

His massive hands clamped around the armrests, squeezing so hard the leather groaned and his knuckles bleached bone-white. The thick veins on the backs of his hands bulged like cables under the skin. His chest heaved in rapid, shallow, desperate jerks, his shoulders hunching, his spine curling forward—but no air seemed to reach his lungs. His lips were already parting, the color leaching out of them in real time.

Leo, a heavily built bodyguard crammed into the row ahead, twisted around so fast his knee cracked against the seat frame. He didn't notice. His thick, blunt fingers fumbled frantically with the silk knot of Dominic's tie, trying to loosen it, trying to do something, anything.

Dominic blindly swatted Leo's hand away with enough force to knock it against the armrest. A low, agonizing groan ripped from deep in his throat—guttural, animal, wrong. His massive frame curled inward, shoulders caving, pressing into the seat like he was trying to disappear into the leather. The severe, clinical paranoia he had battled for years had triggered a full-blown neurological spasm. His muscles were locking up, one by one, betraying him from the inside out.

Whispers rippled through the first-class cabin like wind through dry grass. Passengers turned their heads, eyes wide with a ghoulish mix of curiosity and alarm. Phones stayed in pockets—no one wanted to be caught recording a man like Dominic Church. The freezing, lethal aura radiating from his convulsing form kept every single person glued to their seats. No one stepped forward. No one wanted to get close.

Cynthia stared harder at the window, her reflection a pale, hollow-eyed ghost in the glass. Not my business, she told herself, the words a mantra. Keep your head down. Stay invisible. You cannot afford to be seen.

Then Dominic let out a ragged, wet gasp that sounded like fabric tearing underwater. His face drained of every last trace of color, going from pale to ashen to a sickly, translucent gray. His lips began to