En 1914, l'Australie n'est encore officiellement qu'un dominion sous tutelle britannique. Pourtant, dès le déclenchement de la Grande Guerre, l'île-continent s'affirme comme une puissance régionale autonome. De fait, la conquête des possessions allemandes dans le Pacifique constitue le premier engagement militaire majeur et souverain de cette jeune nation. Cette campagne méconnue ne se limite pas à un simple soutien à l'effort de guerre britannique. Elle révèle l'émergence d'une identité géopolitique propre et d'une stratégie de défense proactive. En s'emparant des colonies allemandes du Pacifique, l'Australie instaure autour d'elle un véritable pré carré pour sanctuariser son territoire face aux menaces étrangères. Ce livre explore les racines de la domination régionale australienne en Océanie et les prémices des futurs rapports de force dans cette région. Il offre ainsi une perspective historique indispensable pour comprendre les enjeux stratégiques actuels dans la zone Indopacifique.

He needed a wife the law couldn't question. She was the one person he couldn't buy. Ava Sinclair returned a forty-thousand-dollar bribe and lost the client the same afternoon. That is simply who she is: the one estate attorney in New York who cannot be bought, bent, or charmed. It is the only thing she owns that no one gave her. So when a dying billionaire's will names her firm to certify whether his ruthless heir's marriage is genuine — before a cent of a company worth billions can change hands — she is exactly the incorruptible judge the old man wanted. Until she reads the fine print. The same will that made her the judge will destroy her firm, and the mentor who saved her, unless that marriage is real. An honest ruling ruins the people she loves. A dishonest one ruins the only thing she is. Rourke Halloran has always believed everyone has a price. He has never once been wrong. Ava is the first person who refuses to name hers, which is precisely why he needs to marry her, and precisely why he can't stop thinking about the one woman in the world he cannot purchase. They have one year, one impossible clause, and a marriage that has to become true enough to survive a scrutiny built to catch every lie. Each of them holds the single thing that can destroy the other. Neither of them planned to mean a word of it. Neither of them planned on this. A slow-burn, marriage-of-convenience romance about wealth, integrity, and the terrifying cost of being truly known. Book One of The Halloran Clause.