Emmett Durham had offered to save Manuel from ruin — pay off the debts, reopen the case, clear the family name.

In return, Manuel had to marry Rosalie.

Three weeks earlier, in their only private meeting, she’d been blunt with him.

“My father says you’re desperate,” she said, watching his face.

“And I was told you hate lies,” Manuel answered, matching her.

“They probably told you I’m hideous, too,” she said.

He held her gaze. “I’ve heard a lot of things. I’d rather know you before I repeat any of them.”

It wasn’t love. But no one had ever spoken to Rosalie without false pity or cruelty dressed up as a joke.

That was why she agreed — that, and because she needed to escape her father’s house.

Her mother, Lorelei, had died twelve years earlier, falling from the veranda of the family lake house in Duluth. The police report called it a tragic accident.

Rosalie had never believed it.

From that day on, Emmett kept her under the thumb of paid private doctors, heavy sedatives, and a steady stream of diagnoses about her emotional instability.