He trusted her for years — and understood everything too late скачать в хорошем качестве

He trusted her for years — and understood everything too late

When Agnes Rutherford arrives at Piercewood House in the rain, she carries more than just a small leather case. Hidden inside a book of poetry lies a secret that could destroy the very man who saved her from financial ruin. Jonathan Piercewood — the calculating railroad baron who never makes a careless move — offers her a cold contractual marriage: he'll absorb her father's devastating $41,000 debt in exchange for eighteen months as mistress of his grand estate. The contract includes Clause Fourteen: any concealment voids everything, reinstating the debt with interest. Agnes signs with a steady hand. What Jonathan doesn't know is that her late father was no failed engineer — he was a strategic genius. Buried in her possession is a deed granting her 17% interest in forty-three Pennsylvania acres. Unremarkable land... sitting atop one of the largest untapped anthracite deposits in the state. The same land Piercewood Rail has been desperately trying to acquire for fourteen months. Her father didn't make a catastrophic mistake. He made a plan. And he didn't live long enough to tell Agnes whether she was meant to execute it — or survive it. As six weeks pass in the cold, immaculate halls of Northgate, something neither the contract nor Clause Fourteen anticipated begins to form between them. Quiet dinners. Shared silences in the library. The dangerous recognition of one careful mind by another. But Gerald Holt, Jonathan's attorney, is closing in. And Agnes must decide: Does she protect the secret that could give her power — or reveal the truth that could cost her everything? In a world built on steel, contracts, and carefully controlled empires, one woman discovers that the most dangerous thing you can do to a man who controls everything is make him realize what he never saw coming...