CHAPTER ONE: THE VALUATION OF A HEART

Chapter One

“Sign it, Alora. You give me my heir, I fund your family, and we never speak of love again.”

The words were as cold as the stainless-steel surgical tools he wielded daily.

My billionaire professor, now my ruthless husband, slid the crisp, white marriage contract across his heavy mahogany desk.

Looking up at Dr. Dominic Reid’s frozen, impossibly handsome face, I felt the air completely leave my lungs.

How did a brilliant, scholarship medical student end up trapped by the most ruthless cardiothoracic surgeon in the country?

How did a girl who practically lived on garri, cheap coffee, and pure adrenaline find herself carrying the secret heir to a multi-billion-dollar medical empire?

To understand my complete ruin, you have to go back to the exact day he walked into our university hospital lecture hall three months ago.

⸻

It was a Tuesday morning, and the heat inside the amphitheater was suffocating.

The ceiling fans groaned weakly overhead, doing nothing to cool the room.

I was running on exactly two hours of sleep, stressed out about my late school fees, and trying my best to ignore the angry grumbling of my empty stomach.

As a scholarship student from a poor family, my entire future depended on keeping my grades perfect.

I did not have the luxury of failing.

Then—

The heavy wooden doors clicked open.

The hum of over a hundred whispering medical students went dead silent.

Dr. Dominic Reid did not just walk into a room;

He commanded it.

He was dressed in a flawless, charcoal-grey three-piece suit that screamed old money and corporate dominance.

His dark hair was perfectly styled, and his jawline looked sharp enough to cut glass.

But it was his eyes that froze everyone in place.

They were a piercing, calculated grey.

Cold.

Unforgiving.

Absolutely lethal.

He did not introduce himself.

He did not smile.

He simply tossed his expensive leather briefcase onto the podium and leaned his long, powerful frame against the edge of the desk, crossing his arms.

“Cardiothoracic surgery is not a career for the weak, the lazy, or the easily distracted.”

His deep, baritone voice echoed through the microphone.

The sheer resonance of it sent an involuntary shiver straight down my spine.

“If you are here to memorize slides, leave now.

If you cannot handle intense pressure under fire, drop my course today.

I do not tolerate mediocrity, and I certainly do not tolerate anyone sleeping in my lecture hall.”

His grey eyes scanned the rows like a hawk looking for prey.

Naturally, they landed straight on me.

I had not been sleeping, but I had been staring blankly at my empty notebook, mentally calculating exactly how much money I had left to buy food for the rest of the month.

Dominic straightened up, his gaze locking onto mine with the force of a physical blow.

The air around me suddenly felt thin.

“You.”

He pointed a long, elegant finger directly at my desk.

“Since my lecture appears to bore you so deeply, perhaps you can enlighten the rest of the class on the emergency protocol for an acute aortic dissection?

Unless, of course, you are too preoccupied with your own thoughts to understand the valuation of a human heart?”

A few students whispered nervously.

My best friend, Cassie, nudged my arm in a total panic, her eyes wide with terror.

Everyone else in the class would have stuttered, blushed, or burst into tears under that terrifying, judgmental stare.

But I was too tired to be intimidated.

I was tired of arrogant men in expensive suits looking down on people like me just because they could.

I stood up slowly, keeping my spine perfectly straight.

I looked him dead in his icy grey eyes, completely refusing to look away.

“An acute Type A aortic dissection requires immediate, emergency surgical intervention, Dr. Reid,” I said.

“You look for the tear in the ascending aorta, establish cardiopulmonary bypass, and replace the damaged segment with a synthetic graft.

Speed is critical because the mortality rate increases by one to two percent every hour.”

I paused, tilting my head slightly as a bold, sassy smirk touched my lips.

“And as for your lecture boring me?

I assure you, I am paying attention.

I just prefer to focus on the actual medical science rather than the theatrical introductions.”

The silence in the amphitheater became absolutely deafening.

You could have heard a surgical needle drop on the concrete floor.

Cassie looked like she was about to faint right into her backpack.

Nobody—

Absolutely nobody—

spoke to the chief of cardiothoracic surgery with that much unyielding snark.

Dominic did not blink.

His expression remained a mask of pure ice, but I caught the sudden, dangerous flash of heat in his eyes.

A small muscle in his jaw twitched.

For a fraction of a second, his gaze dropped to my lips before snapping right back to my eyes.

He walked slowly away from the podium, stepping down the stairs of the lecture hall.

Every single step he took felt deliberate, heavy, and dangerous.

He stopped right in front of my row, leaning over the wooden desk until his face was only inches away from mine.

Up close, the scent of him hit me like an absolute wave.

He smelled of expensive cedarwood, rich tobacco, and sterile hospital rooms.

The raw, physical power radiating off his large frame was terrifyingly palpable.

“Intelligent,” Dominic murmured, his voice dropped so low it was meant only for my ears.

“But severely lacking in discipline, Miss Vale.”

He straightened back up to his full height, looking down at me like a god ruling over a mortal.

“Since you clearly possess such a brilliant mind that you do not need my standard teaching methods, you will write a comprehensive, fifty-page comparative analysis on congenital heart defects.

And you will not upload it to the online student portal.”

He paused, a dark, wicked smile tugging at the very corner of his lips.

“You will deliver it directly to my private consultant office on the VIP ward.

Every.

Single.

Evening.

Personally.

Let us see how much sass you have left when you are tracking my hours, Miss Vale.

Sit down.”

⸻

I collapsed back into my seat, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

My skin felt flushed, and my hands were trembling slightly under the desk where he couldn’t see them.

“Are you insane?” Cassie hissed the moment Dominic turned his back to walk back to the chalkboard.

She was frantic, her voice a harsh whisper.

“Alora, that man is not just a lecturer.

He owns half the private clinics in this city!

He can get your scholarship canceled with a single phone call.

Why did you have to talk back to him like that?”

“Because he is arrogant,” I whispered back, staring at his broad shoulders as he began writing complex anatomical terms on the board.

His suit jacket stretched perfectly across his back with every movement.

“He thinks because he has money and a title, he can humiliate anyone he wants.

I am not going to let him break me.”

“He is going to eat you alive,” Cassie warned, shaking her head.

“The VIP ward is secluded, Alora.

Going to his office every night?

You are walking right into the lion’s den.”

I didn’t answer.

I just watched him.

For the rest of the two-hour lecture, I felt his grey eyes snap back to me every few minutes, testing me, challenging me.

And every single time, I forced myself to look right back, matching his coldness with my own stubborn pride.

By the time the lecture ended and the hall emptied, I was exhausted.

I packed my notebooks slowly, trying to process the massive workload he had just dumped on me.

Fifty pages.

On top of my ward rotations.

My pharmacology classes.

My studying.

He wanted to break me.

He wanted me to come crawling to his office, begging for mercy.

As I walked out of the hospital building into the bright afternoon sun, a sleek, black sports car roared past the student courtyard.

The tinted window rolled down just an inch, and for a fleeting second, I caught the profile of Dominic Reid behind the wheel, his jaw clenched, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

He didn’t look at me, but the sheer presence of his car leaving the campus felt like a promise.

A promise of the storm that was coming.

That night, I sat in the dim light of the library, the first ten pages of the assignment staring back at me.

My mind kept drifting back to the way he had leaned over my desk.

To the heat of his breath on my skin.

To the dark, dangerous intensity in his grey eyes.

I hated him.

I truly, deeply hated his arrogance.

But as I wrote down the definitions of a damaged heart, a strange, terrifying realization washed over me.

I was completely terrified of going to his office tomorrow evening—

but a small, wicked part of me couldn’t wait.