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  Once Upon a Marriage

  Copyright © 2014 by Sara Daniel

  ISBN: 978-1-61333-692-2

  Cover art by Syneca Featherstone

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

  Look for us online at:

  www.decadentpublishing.com

  Decadent Publishing Beyond Fairytales

  Coming Soon!

  A Riddle for Love

  Operation Owl

  Darkest Magic

  You Belong to Me

  Her Real Life Hero

  Starlight Cowboy

  Also by Sara Daniel

  More Than a Fantasy

  One Night with the Bride

  Captivating the CEO

  One Night with the Bridesmaid

  One Night with the Groom

  Once Upon a Marriage

  By

  Sara Daniel

  A Beyond Fairytales Adaptation of

  Grimm’s Three Army Surgeons

  ~Dedication~

  To every “old man” who is still young at heart.

  Chapter One

  “Once upon a time,” the gnomish man in woolen green pants and a red shirt intoned as he tossed his hat on the sidewalk of the busy Chicago street corner.

  Turning up the collar of her coat against the chilly spring wind, Armina Keer paused, enchanted by the old bearded man who couldn’t have been any taller than four feet.

  The man folded his legs and sank to a sitting position in front of his upturned hat, then continued his story. “War and disease claimed limbs and organs from the good people of this land. My name is Nicodemus. Gather ’round, and I will tell you the tale of ‘The Three Army Surgeons.’”

  If she hadn’t been late for work, she would have loved to listen to the old man’s lyrical voice as he spun his tale. But she didn’t need to hear the story. As CEO of Three Surgeons Prosthetics, she lived it, bringing limbs to people who no longer had use of their own.

  After peeling a couple of bills from her wallet, she nudged her way through the crowd and dropped the money in the hat.

  Nicodemus’s bright eyes met hers. “Thank you, Soldier.”

  She jerked in surprise. Her uncle and his cronies were the only people who called her Soldier. Yet, considering the start to his story, the coincidence seemed fitting. Giving the little man a short nod, she threaded her way through the crowd and down the street, into her office building.

  After greeting the doorman, she took the elevator to the top floor. As soon as she stepped out, her secretary, Camille, jumped up from her desk. “The three surgeons are already in your office. I tried to delay them, but they wouldn’t listen. They strut around this place like they own it.”

  Armina smiled. “That’s because they do.”

  “But you’re the boss now. They should respect that.”

  She patted Camille’s agitated hands. “They like to think they’re still running the show. I’ll handle them. Hold my calls, unless it’s the fertility clinic.”

  Strolling into her office, she took a moment to observe the three elderly gentlemen before they noticed her. Uncle Ned, the only one who’d actually been a surgeon, sat behind her desk, thumbing through a report on the latest sensor implants to control prosthetic motion.

  Lenny, who’d lost an eye over forty years before in Vietnam, watched, as Frank attempted to tie his sneaker with his prosthetic hand, having lost his original extremity in the same attack that had injured Lenny.

  “You can’t do it with that type of prosthetic, but you will with your new one. After you finish physical therapy, you’ll be able to make twice as many hand contortions,” Uncle Ned said without looking up. He hadn’t just been the surgeon who’d patched up the other two on the battlefield, he’d also ensured their injuries wouldn’t stop them from leading productive lives.

  As civilians, they’d founded Three Surgeons Prosthetics and ran it for decades until Ned’s heart problems two years before forced him into retirement and they offered the helm to Armina.

  She closed the door softly behind her. “All three of you at once. It must be my lucky day.”

  They jumped as if she’d caught them doing something wrong. Not surprising, since putting the three of them together equaled a recipe for mischief.

  “You don’t need to give my secretary such a hard time,” she pointed out.

  “She thinks she can fit us into a fifteen-minute time slot,” Lenny complained.

  “As if we don’t have the right to be here any time we please,” Frank added, giving up on tying his white sneaker and tucking the loose laces into the cuff of his black sock.

  Ned rose from behind the desk. “I wasn’t taking over, just warming your seat for you, Soldier.”

  “Sure you were.” She gave each of them a hug and a kiss on the cheek as she walked through the room. “You’re welcome here anytime, no matter what Camille tells you.” After hanging up her coat, she sat down and folded her hands on the desk. “What’s on your mind today, Surgeons?”

  They exchanged meaningful glances, another clue they had something up their sleeves. Although some of the staff privately joked that “stooges” described them better, underneath their antics and borderline ridiculousness, their minds remained sharp, and Armina never underestimated them.

  “I’m due for a new eye prosthetic,” Lenny said.

  “Yes. Have you made the appointment yet?” She’d been nagging him for almost six months, as the old eye neared the end of its life and clearly bothered him.

  “I got the new sensors implanted,” Frank said before Lenny could reply. “So I’m ready for my new hand. Is the prototype still on schedule to arrive tomorrow?”

  “I believe so, but I can’t just give it to you. We need to set up rehab sessions for your muscles to learn how to control the hand. How soon do you want to start?”

  “Right away, of course. Why wait when I have the best physical therapist in the country at my disposal?”

  She nodded an acknowledgment of his compliment. “Thank you. But you know I don’t practice anymore. Running this company keeps me plenty busy.”

  “Frank needs to go to the Inn, where he can get the best therapy and the most state-of-the-art rehabilitation treatment in the country,” Uncle Ned said.

  “In the world,” Lenny argued.

  Armina flattened her fingers on the desktop before anyone could notice them trembling. The surgeons were right. As recipients of the newest and best prosthetics in the world, they needed to receive equally stellar rehabilitation to take advantage of all the advances offered by their devices. “I can have Camille make your reservation.”

  “Not necessary. I already made the reservation. We’re all going,” Uncle Ned said.

  “That’s wonderful. You’ll be in good hands.” Despite the words sticking in her throat, she spoke the truth,
not platitudes. They would receive the best care. No one was more capable of making sure the guests were taken care of and all their rehab needs met than Ian Keer, sometimes known as the Innkeeper.

  She preferred to think of him as her ex-husband.

  Almost ex.

  He’d been ignoring her lawyer’s petitions and court orders for months.

  “You misunderstand. We’re not going alone. You’re coming, too,” Uncle Ned said.

  Armina stared at the three of them in disbelief. “That is never going to happen.”

  “I need you,” Frank insisted, holding up his out-of-date carbon-fiber hand. “I can’t do my rehab without you.”

  “And I’m really nervous about this new eye. I’m having second thoughts about the updated model I’m supposed to be getting. I’m too old for any medical procedure to be routine. I could die on the table,” Lenny proclaimed.

  Not likely, and her presence in the operating room wouldn’t improve his chances, but she could offer Lenny reassurance to ease his fears. “I’ll research your new eye and make sure it’s a good fit, but I’m sure your ocularist and ophthalmologist already did so before prescribing it for you.”

  Ned leaned over the desk and curled his fingers over her hand. “You know how the Inn operates better than any of us. We need you to make sure Lenny and Frank get the most out of their rehabilitation time. More than anyone, you understand how critical the first few days are in measuring how patients adjust to their remaining years with the prosthetic.”

  “Which will probably be the rest of our lives. We’re not getting any younger,” Frank grumbled.

  Part of her wanted to roll her eyes at how thick they were laying on the guilt. However, guilt had nothing to do with her desire to ensure the best care for the men. They were her family, having raised her after the death of her parents.

  “I know it’s hard for you to return to the Inn, but we need you, Soldier.”

  She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to look at the compassion in Uncle Ned’s gaze. She’d never let the three surgeons down before, but they’d never asked her for something that threatened her heart. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Don’t decide yet,” Lenny said. “Think it over tonight. We’re not leaving until tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? Reservations at the Inn were scheduled weeks in advance. Of course, the men could have been planning the trip for a while but decided to wait and spring it on her. They would have assumed correctly that last-minute plans would make lining up a substitute physical therapist to take her place in overseeing their care difficult, if not impossible.

  She also had far too much office work requiring her attention. More importantly, after months of consultations and weighing her options, next week she had an appointment with the clinic to finally take action—if Ian would just sign the damn papers to make their divorce final.

  The surgeons each patted her shoulder and filed out of the office. No sooner had the door closed behind them than the intercom buzzed.

  “Mr. Levato is here to see you,” Camille announced.

  “Send him in.”

  Resisting the urge to bury her face in her hands, she rounded the desk and met the man handling her divorce as he crossed the room. Or rather, the man trying to handle the divorce, if Ian would be halfway cooperative. “Good news, I hope. Am I free yet?”

  “Not entirely. But I do have some good news. The paperwork is in order and has preliminary approval. All we need is Ian’s signature, and you’re free and clear.”

  “What if he doesn’t sign it? He hasn’t exactly been responsive to our requests so far.” No doubt, he was too busy with the Inn to remember he still had a wife, let alone take the time to cut their lingering ties.

  “Then we can go through the courts and finalize the decree without his consent. But be aware that approach will take months.”

  “Months? I want it over now. If I want to have a baby, I don’t have months to wait. I need this divorce to be final before next week.” Thanks to endometriosis, her body had turned into a ticking biological time bomb.

  “I’ve exhausted all my avenues—threats, offers of settlement funds, court orders,” the attorney said. “Nothing gets his attention.”

  “Exactly. That’s why we’re getting a divorce.”

  “The only option we haven’t tried is for you to deliver the papers to him and personally ask him to sign.”

  She could tolerate Ian ignoring her from a few hundred miles away, but every memory of how he’d chosen his work calls over talking to her and went out of his way to accommodate a guest while leaving her waiting in his bed hurt too much to revisit. If he’d cared about her or about saving their marriage, he would have called when she left him.

  After two years, he either hadn’t realized she was gone yet or didn’t care. Either way, she didn’t need to make a personal visit to the man who’d broken her heart. “I don’t see how my presence will make a difference. I don’t mean enough for him to fit me into his schedule.”

  “You must have meant something to him at one point. He did care about you enough to take the time from his schedule to marry you after all.”

  Barely. An impromptu weekend in Vegas to spread the word about the Inn at a medical convention had concluded with a spontaneous side trip to one of the Strip’s clichéd wedding chapels.

  “Look at it this way,” Levato pressed. “Whether you don’t try or he refuses to sign will take just as long to weave through the courts to finalize the divorce. You might be able to convince him to multitask and sign the papers while on a business call or on his lunch break. You have nothing to lose in the attempt.”

  His assessment should have been right, but she was very afraid she did have something to lose, something she’d been trying to heal for two long years: her heart.

  ***

  “The three surgeons are here.” Ian Keer’s assistant, Cat, stuck her head in his office, informing him, as he’d requested.

  “Thanks.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He personally greeted his guests whenever possible, and he wouldn’t stop because the men who were checking in would have his body chopped into fish bait if they could get away with it.

  As he strode through the lobby toward the check-in counter, Cat and his welcoming agents went over each man’s individual schedule. A trim woman with shiny black hair flitted between them, looking over their shoulders and adding comments in a familiar, gentle voice.

  His heart skipped a beat. Her name hadn’t been part of the reservation, and considering her lawyer’s perseverance, he hadn’t expected her to ever step foot in the Inn again. However, he would never turn her away. He’d been waiting two long years for his wife to return.

  She spun around. From across the lobby, her gaze locked on him. Her brown eyes, always warm and generous, iced over until they appeared almost black, nixing any hope he had of ending the reunion with hot makeup sex.

  The elderly man next to her stiffened, and although Ned’s chubby profile wasn’t intimidating, his stance screamed protectiveness as he stepped in front of Armina.

  Ian crossed the polished floor and held out his right hand. “Welcome to the Inn, Ned. We look forward to helping you and your friends with your healing process.”

  Ned gripped his cane and glared at him as if he were an exceptionally vile bug. “I’m not shaking your hand because you don’t deserve that kind of respect after the way you’ve treated my niece.”

  “I respect your honesty.” Unable to remember the last time he’d been so roundly put in his place, Ian lowered his arm.

  “We’re here because this is the best place of its kind—the only place—for the rehab treatment the surgeons need,” Ned continued.

  “We pride ourselves on providing a premium experience.” Ian turned to the other gentlemen and nodded his head in lieu of a handshake. “Frank and Lenny, I’m glad you’re here. We have excellent plans and teams in place to adjust you to your new prosthetics.”

 
“I’m counting on it,” Frank said.

  “I’m counting on a lot of things,” Lenny added.

  Not attempting to decipher the meaning behind that comment, Ian turned to his wife. He needed to say so much, he didn’t know where to start. “Armina, this is a surprise.”

  “Not a pleasant one, I’m well aware, so no need to pretend.” She pulled a set of papers and a pen out of her shoulder bag and stepped toward him with a mixture of confidence, control, and purpose she hadn’t possessed two years ago. “I need you to sign the divorce papers. I’m not touching the Inn or a cent of your money. I don’t want anything. I just want the divorce to be final.”

  He took the papers, but couldn’t look at them. His lawyer had warned him that no matter how much he delayed and stalled, he couldn’t change the end result. Doing so would require going back in time and stopping her from walking out on him. Instead, he’d been preoccupied with the professional crises inundating him from every angle. He hadn’t understood the permanence of her absence until way too late.

  “I like your hair,” he offered. The last time he’d seen her, she’d worn it in a short, no-nonsense bob, but it now hung past her shoulders, straight and shiny black.

  She rolled her eyes. Although still guarded, they’d lost their freezer-burn quality. “Not relevant.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s sexy.”

  The fire in her gaze revealed how strongly she believed he no longer had the right to call her sexy or to compliment her at all. He needed to retreat and regroup until he could come up with a plan to earn his way into her good graces.

  Shifting his gaze to the three surgeons and the check-in staff, he said, “Let’s get everyone settled in their rooms and ready for the first activity of the day. I’ll take Ned. Cat, you’re in charge of helping Armina get settled.”