Free His Perfect Match by Elaine Overton Page A

were filled with pure malice. “That’s my price.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    He chuckled. “Yes, you do. Even though you don’t want to.” He popped the grape in his mouth, chewed and quickly swallowed. “Okay, if you insist, I’ll lay it all out for you.”
    He took another grape and just toyed with it between his fingers. “First we take care of Marc. Once the surgery is complete and he is well on his way to recovery, you will come back here with me. For…” He tilted his head as if considering. “Let’s see…our original honeymoon was scheduled for two weeks. So, just to show you I do have some compassion, I’ll only require one week of you. Seven days—here with me.”
    She arched an eyebrow. “Doing what?”
    His smile turned to a grin. “I’ll think of something.”
    She stood straighter, needing to know the answer to the unspoken question. “Is sex involved?”
    His grin disappeared. “Not against your will.”
    He popped the grape in his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “I know I’m not your preferred North brother, but who knows? Maybe you can make love to me and pretend I’m Darren. Would you like that?”
    Her eyes narrowed. “Would you?”
    His eyes roamed over her body once more in thatanalytical way of his. “At this point, I just might take it anyway I can get it.”
    He moved around the table and rejoined her at the balcony and suddenly the air between them seemed electric with possibility. “So, do we have a deal?”
    She turned her head to look at him. “Do I have a choice?”
    â€œNo.” Instead of the supreme satisfaction she expected to see on his face there was something closer to resignation. “But neither do I.”

Chapter 6
    T wo and a half weeks later the only sounds heard in the waiting room of the second-floor nursing unit of the Cleveland Clinic were coming from the television set as a Minneapolis police officer won the grand prize on Jeopardy.
    The three people waiting in the room were too tense even to speak or look at one another. Liz sat with her arms folded in her lap, rocking and silently praying, Dee sat nearby, knitting with the speed of some crazed weaver. Liz had no idea what her aunt was knitting, but whatever it was, it was going to be huge. A few feet away Darius paced relentlessly back and forth across the length of the room.
    They were waiting for the final test that would confirm Darius’s compatibility to Marc. Liz knew the chances of their matching should’ve been as good as humanly possible. They’d already crossed the first twohurdles by confirming that Darius did indeed have the rare AB negative blood type. The tissue matching had come back with good results, as well. Now they were waiting for the final test, the cross-matching, which would indicate the likelihood of Marc’s body accepting the donor kidney.
    Liz stood to stretch her legs and the movement brought everything else to a grinding halt. Dee stopped knitting in midstitch, and Darius stopped where he stood in the middle of the room.
    â€œYou okay?” He frowned, coming toward her.
    She nodded. “I’m fine. Just stretching.” Wrapping her arms around her body she moved away from him, walking over to the window to stare down on the busy city.
    He came up beside her. “This is just a formality. We both know I’m going to match, the blood was the hard part, right?”
    She smiled at his attempted reassurance. “Right.”
    She glanced at his profile once again, struck by the difference in his demeanor. It was almost as if just being back in Ohio had transformed him back into the man he used to be. The Darius of her youth. She’d noticed the change in him from the minute she picked him up at the Columbus airport a week ago.
    Feeling obligated to play the hostess, she’d offered him her couch, but