Chapter 1 The Lightning Proposal

The first time I saw Daniel Kingsley again after ten years was across an emergency room gurney, with a dying child between us.

"Dr. Montgomery! BP dropping to 80/40!"

I barely registered the nurse's urgent call as I stared into those steel-gray eyes I thought I'd never see again. For one dangerous second, I was twenty-two again, secretly watching him across the university quad, wondering what it would be like to be loved by someone so brilliant and untouchable.

Then the monitor's alarm yanked me back.

"Push another round of fluids and prep two units of O-neg," I ordered, forcing my gaze back to my patient—a little girl, no more than five, with skin so pale it was nearly translucent. Leukemia, advanced stage. Her chart said Sophie.

"What are her chances?" His voice was deeper than I remembered, edged with something I'd never heard from him before—fear.

"You can't be in here, Mr. Kingsley," I said, not looking up as I checked the girl's pupillary response. "Family waits outside."

"I am family. I'm her father."

My hands faltered for just a second. Daniel Kingsley with a daughter. Of course he'd have a family by now. Wealth, power, and those genes—it was inevitable some woman had claimed him.

"Then as her father, please let us work," I said, my professional mask firmly in place. "Nurse Jenkins will update you."

He didn't move. "You're the best hematologist on the East Coast. Save her."

It wasn't a request. Daniel Kingsley, pharmaceutical mogul and heir to the Kingsley Medical empire, didn't make requests. He made demands, and the world complied.

But death didn't care about his billions.

"Out. Now." I met his gaze fully this time, challenging him.

Surprisingly, he retreated, but not before I saw something in his eyes that made my chest tighten—raw desperation.

Twelve hours later, Sophie was stabilized, but the prognosis remained grim. I found Daniel in the consultation room, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up, staring at his daughter's lab results as if he could change them through sheer will.

"Mr. Kingsley, we need to discuss Sophie's treatment options."

He looked up, shadows under his eyes. "Daniel. We were in biochemistry together at Columbia."

"I remember," I said, though I doubted he truly did. I had been just another face in a lecture hall of three hundred. "Sophie needs a bone marrow transplant. Her cancer is aggressive."

"I know. I've been tested. I'm not a match." His voice was hollow. "Her mother isn't either."

I frowned at the file. "That's... unusual. Parents typically share at least half the genetic markers."

"Run the tests again," he demanded.

"We did. Three times." I hesitated. "Mr. Kingsley—Daniel—there might be a possibility that—"

"That I'm not her biological father?" His laugh was brittle. "Just discovered that particular bombshell myself. Victoria's been lying for five years."

Victoria. The name brought back memories of a stunning blonde who'd been perpetually draped over Daniel's arm at university functions. I'd heard she'd become some sort of wellness influencer with a massive following.

"I'm sorry," I offered, unsure what else to say.

He waved it away. "Sophie is my daughter in every way that matters. I need options, Dr. Montgomery."

"Bella," I corrected automatically, then regretted the familiarity. "We'll do a wider search through the national registry. Sometimes siblings or distant relatives—"

"There's something else," he interrupted, sliding a folder across the table. "Sophie's genetic profile. Look at the HLA typing."

I opened it, scanning the results. My blood turned to ice.

"This can't be right," I whispered.

"It is. I had it verified by three separate labs." His eyes bored into mine. "You're a 100% match, Bella. A statistical impossibility unless..."

"Unless I'm related to her," I finished, mind racing. "But that's not possible. I don't have any children."

Daniel leaned forward. "Ten years ago, did you donate bone marrow anonymously through the Columbia University Medical Center program?"

My heart stopped. That donation—my secret gift to him after his leukemia diagnosis our senior year. He'd never known it was me.

"How did you—"

"I didn't, until now." His expression shifted to something unreadable. "Sophie received a bone marrow transplant as an infant. From you, apparently."

The room seemed to spin. "That doesn't make sense. Bone marrow recipients don't become genetic matches to their donors."

"No, but if someone harvested your eggs without your knowledge, created an embryo, and implanted it in another woman..." He let the implication hang in the air.

"That's insane," I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I remembered the unexplained three-day gap in my memory during my reproductive endocrinology rotation. The "reaction to anesthesia" they'd told me I'd had during a routine appendectomy.

"Victoria worked at the fertility clinic associated with the hospital," Daniel said quietly. "She wanted my child but couldn't conceive naturally. The rest you can piece together."

I felt violated in ways I couldn't articulate. "This is criminal. We should contact the authorities—"

"Sophie doesn't have time for that," he cut in. "She needs a stem cell transplant now. And cord blood would be even better."

"Cord blood? I don't understand."

Daniel's gaze was calculating now. "Have a child with me, Bella. Our biological child would be Sophie's best chance."

I laughed, thinking it was a twisted joke. His expression didn't change.

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious." He pulled out a document. "Marriage contract. Full funding for your pediatric hematology research center. Joint custody arrangement post-divorce. Everything you could want professionally."

"This is insane," I repeated, standing up. "You can't just—"

"She has six months, maybe less." His voice cracked slightly. "I've exhausted every other option."

"There are ethical protocols, donor registries—"

"Which take time Sophie doesn't have." He stood too, towering over me. "One child to save another. Think of it as the ultimate medical intervention."

"It's not medicine, it's madness!" I moved toward the door.

"Ten million dollars," he said to my back. "For your research. No strings attached, whether it works or not."

I froze, thinking of all the children that money could save. The treatments we could develop.

"Twenty million," he continued, sensing my hesitation. "And I'll never contact you again after the divorce, if that's what you want."

I turned slowly. "You want me to marry you, have your child, harvest its cord blood, and then just... what? Go our separate ways?"

"Essentially, yes." His expression was unreadable. "A business arrangement with a humanitarian outcome."

Two weeks later, I stood in a white designer gown in the Kingsley estate garden, signing my name on a marriage certificate while a private doctor waited in the next room with a fertility hormone injection.

What Daniel didn't know was that as he slid the platinum ring onto my finger, I had already injected myself with a contraceptive that morning. The needle still hidden in the folds of my wedding dress.

He caught my wrist as we entered the bedroom that night, his fingers finding the tiny puncture mark with uncanny precision.

"Did you think I wouldn't check?" he asked softly, dangerously.

I met his eyes defiantly. "This isn't how I planned to have a child."

"Plans change, Dr. Montgomery." He pressed a gentle kiss to the injection site, his lips burning against my skin. "Or should I say, Mrs. Kingsley?"

The war had begun.