He operates on hearts for a living.
She learned how to survive with what was left of hers after he broke it.
Arthur Mendonça is a brilliant cardiac surgeon, heir to a hospital empire, devoted to method the way other men cling to faith.
At forty-two, he measures life in protocols and believes happiness is a luxury — efficiency is not.
Or at least he did… until the hospital’s newest hire turned his carefully controlled world upside down.
Alice Braga is young, soft-spoken, and far stronger than she looks. She arrives at her new job with hope — becoming the object of her boss’s attention, twenty-two years her senior, is not part of the plan. Neither is signing a relationship contract with him.
His proposal is clinical: twelve months, one agreement, no feelings. Only bodies.
But what begins as a controlled arrangement unravels when a meticulously planted lie detonates at the worst possible moment. The elevator doors close — and nothing they were survives intact.
Pregnant. Accused. Rejected.
Alice disappears.
Arthur returns to his method. To control. To silence.
Until years later, an emergency call stitches their worlds back together:
a child in the pediatric unit, wires and monitors — and a pair of eyes that reflect something Arthur swore could never exist.
The man of logic discovers a truth he cannot operate around: to save what still beats, he must cut into himself first — dismantle the control that became a weapon, tear down the certainty he hid behind, and ask for something he has never asked for before: Forgiveness.
Alice now guards more than one heart.
Promises don’t move her. Presence does.
And presence is not performed. It is proven — day after day.
Will Arthur be able to prove it?
A second-chance romance featuring age gap, boss/assistant tension, pregnancy, betrayal, and redemption — about learning to care without controlling, about ‘no’ as a boundary, and about discovering that the greatest act of love lives in the ordinary.
Genre: Romance
She learned how to survive with what was left of hers after he broke it.
Arthur Mendonça is a brilliant cardiac surgeon, heir to a hospital empire, devoted to method the way other men cling to faith.
At forty-two, he measures life in protocols and believes happiness is a luxury — efficiency is not.
Or at least he did… until the hospital’s newest hire turned his carefully controlled world upside down.
Alice Braga is young, soft-spoken, and far stronger than she looks. She arrives at her new job with hope — becoming the object of her boss’s attention, twenty-two years her senior, is not part of the plan. Neither is signing a relationship contract with him.
His proposal is clinical: twelve months, one agreement, no feelings. Only bodies.
But what begins as a controlled arrangement unravels when a meticulously planted lie detonates at the worst possible moment. The elevator doors close — and nothing they were survives intact.
Pregnant. Accused. Rejected.
Alice disappears.
Arthur returns to his method. To control. To silence.
Until years later, an emergency call stitches their worlds back together:
a child in the pediatric unit, wires and monitors — and a pair of eyes that reflect something Arthur swore could never exist.
The man of logic discovers a truth he cannot operate around: to save what still beats, he must cut into himself first — dismantle the control that became a weapon, tear down the certainty he hid behind, and ask for something he has never asked for before: Forgiveness.
Alice now guards more than one heart.
Promises don’t move her. Presence does.
And presence is not performed. It is proven — day after day.
Will Arthur be able to prove it?
A second-chance romance featuring age gap, boss/assistant tension, pregnancy, betrayal, and redemption — about learning to care without controlling, about ‘no’ as a boundary, and about discovering that the greatest act of love lives in the ordinary.
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Taylor McQueen's What the Billionaire Left Behind