MARRIED TO MY RIVAL DOCTOR

chapter five

Terms

Seth

I hated unfinished business.

Missing the first day of my own father's emergency board session wasn't something I'd planned. A complication with a post-op patient at Healing Grace had kept me tethered to the hospital until well past midnight, and by the time I'd resurfaced, the meeting had already adjourned, leaving me with nothing but a terse voicemail from my father and instructions to appear for day two, no exceptions.

I walked into the conference room the following morning already irritated, and irritation sharpened into something else entirely the moment I saw her.

Emily DelaRosa. Sitting directly across the table, spine straight, expression carved from stone, a folder untouched in front of her like she'd rather set it on fire than read it.

Of course.

I hadn't expected her here. I also, apparently, hadn't been paying close enough attention to whatever my father had already set in motion, because judging by the tension radiating off her, day one had not gone well.

I took my seat beside my father without a word. Her eyes flicked to me briefly, sharp, assessing, before deliberately looking away.

Still angry, then. Good. At least I'd know exactly where I stood.

My father rose, and the room quieted instantly.

"I'll be direct," he said. "Healing Grace and Gifted Hands will merge, as discussed yesterday. But there is an additional condition to the agreement, one I withheld until both of you could hear it together."

I straightened slightly. This was new information to me as much as her.

"The merger is to be sealed through marriage."

The room went utterly silent.

For one long second, I genuinely thought I'd misheard him.

"Marriage," I repeated, flat, certain there was a version of this sentence that made more sense than the one I'd just heard.

"Between the two of you," my father confirmed, and the weight of his gaze made it clear he wasn't joking.

Emily shot to her feet so fast her chair scraped hard against the floor.

"Absolutely not."

I stayed seated, my mind working through the sentence again, testing it for some hidden exception that would make it survivable. I found none.

"This is insane," she continued, turning on my father with a fury that, admittedly, I respected more than I wanted to. "You cannot legally force two people into marriage over a business contract."

"I'm afraid I can," the family lawyer said carefully, sliding a document toward her. "The original agreement between your father and Snr Mr. Hernandez included a marital clause, contingent on both heirs remaining unmarried at the time of the merger's activation. Given that neither of you currently is—"

"I have a boyfriend," Emily said sharply, cutting him off.

The room stilled.

I looked at her properly then, the first real attention I'd paid her since sitting down, and something in her expression told me even she hadn't expected to say it quite that loudly.

The lawyer exchanged a glance with my father.

"That does complicate the timeline," he admitted. "But it does not void the clause. It simply becomes... an obstacle you will need to resolve."

Emily's jaw tightened, color rising in her cheeks, and for a moment I actually felt something close to sympathy for her, buried underneath my own rapidly cooling shock.

Marriage. To a woman who currently looked like she wanted to set the entire boardroom on fire with me still in it.

"This is not happening," she said again, quieter this time, though no less resolute.

I finally spoke, my voice coming out steadier than I felt.

"I don't want this either."

Her eyes cut to me, surprise flickering briefly through the anger.

"Then help me stop it."

I held her gaze for a long moment, weighing the sentence I already knew I was about to say, the one that would change the shape of both our lives whether either of us wanted it to.

"I can't."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Both." I leaned back, forcing calm into my voice I didn't entirely feel. "This merger isn't just about hospitals, Miss DelaRosa. Walk away from it, and you're not just losing a business agreement. You're losing everything your parents built."

Something in her face cracked, just slightly, just enough for me to see the fear beneath the fury before she buried it again.

"And if I refuse anyway?"

My father's voice was quiet, final, in a way that left no room for negotiation.

"Then Gifted Hands falls to the board within the year. And Healing Grace loses everything tied to this agreement alongside it."

The silence that followed felt like the entire room holding its breath.

Emily looked between the three of us, her composure fracturing by degrees, and when her eyes finally landed back on mine, I saw something there I hadn't expected to see directed at me.

Not just anger.

Something closer to betrayal.

"You knew," she said quietly. "Didn't you? At the outreach. You already knew this was coming."

I opened my mouth to answer.

I didn't get the chance.