A D R I A N

The boardroom hums with low voices and clinking crystal, but the air feels sharpened, like the edge of a blade waiting for flesh. I know what they’ve been whispering since dinner. I heard it, too. Fire the doctor before Lantern Tide.

Now the investors sit around the quartz table, polished and gleaming as if it could blind us into agreement. Marina perches at the far end with her tablet, her coral smile sharpened to a warning. The CFO clears his throat like he’s already counted the costs. They expect me to swing the axe.

Elara sits opposite me, scrubs under a blazer, hair pulled back, eyes steady gray-green. She looks nothing like the investors in their linen suits and understated jewelry. And that’s exactly the problem. They see an outsider, a liability, someone who doesn’t polish well under chandelier light.

But I see the boy she hauled out of the lagoon. I see the storm cave, her body trembling but unbroken. I see her fingers brushing my throat last night, her pulse answering mine.

And I know I can’t let them bury her.

The chairman leans forward, silver hair glinting beneath the recessed lights. “Adrian. Marina has raised serious concerns about guest confidence. Doctor Quinn’s recent… visibility may not align with Seraphine’s reputation. We suggest reevaluating her role before Lantern Tide.”

Marina’s lashes lower, hiding her satisfaction. She thinks I’ll nod, that I’ll make the clean cut she couldn’t.

I lace my fingers on the table and lean back, deliberately casual. Control is performance, and no one performs better than me. “Doctor Quinn stays,” I say.

The room goes very still.

The CFO blinks. “Excuse me?”

“She stays,” I repeat, letting the words land like anchors. “You think firing her protects us? It doesn’t. You remove the only person on this island who’s prepared to save lives during the Lantern Tide, and when someone collapses under those lanterns, you’ll have a corpse and a scandal.”

Murmurs ripple around the table. Marina’s smile freezes, too bright.

I lean forward, palms flat. “You want optics? Fine. Optics are survival. Serenity doesn’t sell if guests die in front of their children. Safety is our luxury. You can spend millions on lanterns, champagne, and moonlight dinners, but if one guest drowns on your watch, Seraphine becomes a hashtag no one books again. She’s the reason that doesn’t happen.”

My words slice through the room, sharp enough that even Marina can’t spin them fast enough. Elara doesn’t flinch. She just watches me, lips parted like she’s trying to decide whether to thank me or strangle me.

An older investor clears his throat. “And you vouch for her protocols personally?”

I meet his gaze head-on. “I do.”

That admission feels heavier than I expect, like I’ve carved my name beside hers, binding myself to her fire whether I like it or not.

The chairman leans back slowly. “Very well. We’ll proceed with her recommendations. But if there’s fallout..”

“There won’t be,” I cut in, voice like steel. “Not on my island.”

The meeting dissolves in murmurs and scribbled notes, but I feel the shift. They’ll back me, for now. Marina gathers her tablet, coral smile cracking at the edges, and sweeps out like perfume and poison.

And across the table, Elara’s eyes find mine. Hot. Sharp. Accusing.

She knows I didn’t defend her for free.

The investors scatter, murmurs trailing like smoke. Elara gathers her folder, spine straight, movements controlled, but her fingers are tight around the paper, and her jaw ticks like she’s grinding down the words she wants to spit.

She doesn’t thank me. Of course she doesn’t.

When she strides for the door, I get there first, slamming it shut behind us. The corridor hushes, sealed. Just her and me.

“You’re welcome,” I say.

Her eyes flash, gray-green bright as cut glass. “You don’t get to frame it like a favor. You don’t own my survival.”

I step into her space, close enough that the citrus of her shampoo cuts through the starch of my shirt. “I just kept you from being fired.”

“You kept yourself from looking like a coward,” she snaps. “If you’d let them cut me, you’d have lost the only buffer between you and body bags.”

The words land like a punch. My blood heats, but not with anger alone. “You think you’re untouchable?”

“No.” Her chin lifts, her breath brushing my jaw. “I think protocols are. Safety doesn’t care about your optics. I don’t bend because lives don’t bend.”

Her defiance sparks in me like a live wire. I move before I can stop myself from pressing her back to the wall, my hand braced beside her head. Her folder crumples between us, but she doesn’t flinch. She rose onto her toes, lips parted, daring me.

“You think you’re the only one who cares about lives?” My voice scrapes low. “I’ve held this island together with my bare hands since I was twenty. My optics are what pay for your crash carts and AEDs.”

Her fingers lift, trembling but sure, curling around my wrist where it braces against the wall. Heat shoots through me. She doesn’t push me away, she holds me there.

“Then admit it,” she whispers, so close her lips almost graze mine. “You believe in the same thing I do.”

The air goes molten. Every nerve in me screams to close that inch, to taste her, to drag her mouth under mine and finally end this standoff in the only way it can end. My free hand hovers at her waist, thumb nearly grazing her hip bone.

Her breath catches. Mine stops.

And then, footsteps echo down the corridor. A door creaks. Voices rise.

We tear apart like we’ve been burned. Her hand drops from my wrist. My palm leaves the wall, leaving a ghost of heat where her body pressed mine.

“This isn’t about you defending me,” she says, voice clipped, folder hugged tight to her chest. “It’s about whether you’ll keep defending the truth when no one’s watching.”

Then she strides away, sharp and furious, leaving me alone in the charged silence.

I drag a hand through my hair, cursing under my breath. Because I don’t just want her fire. I want her. And that terrifies me more than any storm.

The corridor empties by the time I reach my office. My pulse still thrums, raw from the heat of her body against mine, her fingers gripping my wrist like she wanted me there. I should dive into numbers, contracts, anything to burn her out of my head.

Instead, I see her mouth, close..  too close and the way she walked away as if she hadn’t almost let me kiss her.

I shove the thought down and unlock my door. The suite smells like salt and leather, the hum of the ocean a constant pulse behind glass. Papers are stacked where I left them. My desk gleams, orderly, untouched, except for the envelope lying dead center, cream stock with no seal.

No one should have been in here.

I tear it open. A single sheet slides out, crisp and anonymous.

“Lantern Tide will expose what Seraphine hides. Your clinic is a façade, your staff unprepared, and your doctor reckless. When the failures leak, the Valcrosse name drowns with her. Choose: loyalty to optics, or loyalty to her. You can’t have both.”

My jaw locks. The words bleed poison, each line a knife aimed at Elara. Reckless. Unprepared. Facade.

I know exactly what this is. Not concerned. Not accountability. Sabotage.

The paper trembles in my fist before I slam it flat against the desk. My reflection stares back in the glass window, jaw tight, eyes dark, and I feel the choice pressing already: bury her to save the brand, or defend her again and risk the empire my family built.

Elara’s fire is still in my blood, her voice in my ear: Safety doesn’t bend. Lives don’t bend.

The envelope curls in my grip, edges cutting my palm, and I know one thing with brutal clarity, whoever wrote this wants her destroyed. And they’ll use Lantern Tide to do it.

I shove the memo into my desk drawer, lock it, and lean back in the chair, staring at the ceiling while the ocean roars beyond the glass.

For the first time in years, control feels like sand slipping through my fists.