A D R I A N

By dawn, suspicion still claws at the back of my skull. Elara’s whisper, “one of our own” loops through me like a curse I can’t shake. But the island doesn’t wait for sabotage to unravel. By mid-morning, I’m in a pressed linen suit, boarding a donor yacht that gleams like a floating palace, every rail polished to a mirror shine.

Seraphine’s skyline recedes behind us, the boardwalk lanterns shrinking into specks. Cameras click as if each flash can crown me competent, untouchable, heir. Champagne bubbles spill into crystal flutes, laughter sails across the deck, and donors lean in with questions about returns, partnerships, legacies. I give them practiced smiles, the same cadence of answers I’ve been honing since I was twenty-one: confident, charming, vague enough to silence doubts.

But even as I perform, my eyes keep drifting. Toward the medical tent Marina insisted be “tucked discreetly by the bar.” Toward Elara, who refused to sit politely on the sidelines. She stands at the rail with Asha and two interns, reviewing hydration packs as though she’s commanding a military drill instead of a pleasure cruise. Her hair whips in the wind, her voice cuts through the chatter like a scalpel, and I hate that I notice she looks more powerful here than any investor in their tailored suits.

“Mr. Valcrosse,” a silver-haired donor interrupts, resting a manicured hand on my arm. “Your family’s commitment to wellness is precisely why my foundation wants to double its pledge. But tell me, how do you balance safety with serenity? Guests don’t want to see emergency drills while sipping martinis.”

I flash the kind of grin that’s won a hundred contracts. “We design safety so elegantly, you won’t even know it’s there. Seraphine runs on discretion.”

Behind me, Elara barks, “Hydrate now, not later, if you wait until you’re thirsty, it’s already too late.” Her orders cut straight through my pitch, and heads swivel. Donors chuckle nervously, torn between my smile and her command.

I clink the man’s glass, swallowing irritation with a mouthful of champagne. I can play heir. I can play host. But the truth is, Elara already owns the deck in a way I never could.

And then the first guest stumbles. A red-faced man in a designer linen shirt sways against the rail, clutching his chest. His wife’s scream cuts through the string quartet like a knife. Cameras swivel, lenses hungry.

Showtime.

The man lurches sideways, his linen shirt plastered to sweat-slick skin. His face is scarlet, lips cracked, pupils blown wide. He staggers once more and crumples onto the teak deck.

The string quartet falters mid-note. Glass shatters. Voices swell, confusion, panic, whispers of liability already forming in the donors’ throats.

I move before anyone else.

“Clear space,” I bark, voice cutting through the din. I kneel beside him, two fingers at his neck. Pulse is fast, pounding, erratic. His chest rises shallow, each breath a scrape.

“Elara!”

She’s already there, dropping to her knees opposite me, med kit snapping open with brutal efficiency. “Heatstroke. Severe. Pulse, too rapid.” Her hands are steady as stone. “Get shade on him, now.”

Two interns scramble, dragging a canopy sail across the deck. Shadows swallow us whole. The man’s wife sobs into her hands, her bracelets clinking like chains.

I rip open his collar, fanning him with my jacket. “We need rapid cooling.”

Elara thrusts a bottle into my hand. “Pour.”

I don’t hesitate. Water cascades over his flushed skin, soaking the deck, sluicing heat from his body. She presses ice packs under his arms and groin, barking orders at staff who look rooted to the spot. “Towels, ice, fans! move, all of you!”

The donors gape. Some films. Others murmur that this isn’t what they paid to see.

“Elara,” I mutter lowly, meeting her eyes, “they’re watching.”

“Then let them see survival.” Her glare is fire and command rolled into one. She tilts the man’s head back, checks his airway, counts under her breath. “Breathing shallow, but intact. If he seizes, we intubate.”

I steady the man’s jaw while she assesses. My suit is ruined, soaked through, but I don’t care. For once, command doesn’t feel like performance, it feels like necessity.

She digs in her kit, withdrawing a vial. “IV fluids, saline. We need a line.”

“I’ll hold,” I cut in, bracing the man’s arm flat against the teak. His skin is clammy under my grip. She finds the vein in seconds, needle sliding home with practiced precision. The drip starts. His pulse trembles toward stability.

The interns hover wide-eyed, useless. Elara doesn’t waste breath on them. “You.” She points at a server frozen with a tray of champagne. “Grab every ice bucket on this deck. Dump it into towels. Now.”

The girl runs.

The man groans weakly, eyelids fluttering. His wife gasps, clutching at my shoulder. “Is he.. ?”

“He’ll live if you let us work,” I snapped. She recoils, but it buys Elara silence to continue.

The ice arrives. I wrap it fast, knotting a towel around the man’s neck, pressing it to his temples. His pulse begins to slow, breathing the evening fraction by fraction.

Elara exhales, sweat streaking her temple. She touches the man’s chest, gauging. Then she looks at me. “Stabilized.”

Our gazes lock. For a second, the noise of donors and cameras and Marina’s furious typing dissolves. It’s just us, two commanders on the same battlefield. Her tone drops softer. “Good catch.”

My chest tightens, something hot threading under my ribs. Respect. Not something I earn often.

Behind us, Marina clears her throat loudly, already dictating spin to her assistant. Valcrosse heir oversees life-saving response… optics of calm leadership. Her voice is honey, but the poison is clear. She’s already rewriting the story, cropping Elara’s presence out with words.

Elara notices. Her jaw hardens. She doesn’t fight Marina, she just squeezes the patient’s hand and whispers something steady. The man squeezes back weakly. Alive.

For once, it’s not my control that saved the day. It’s hers.

The patient is transferred to the shaded lounge with an IV drip propped on a chrome stand that looks absurdly delicate beside Elara’s command. His wife hovers, wringing her hands, whispering blessings and promises of donations to anyone who will listen. The interns finally find their spines enough to chart vitals under Elara’s direction, and Asha stations herself at his side like a sentinel.

The donors murmur in clusters, silk dresses brushing against linen suits as gossip slithers faster than the sea breeze. Did you see the heir on his knees? She saved him, not him. Who is she? The doctor?

I hear every word. My jaw tightens, but not at the insult. At the truth in it.

Elara strips off her gloves, snapping them into a waste bag with surgical finality. Sweat slicks her neck, stray strands of chestnut hair clinging to flushed skin. Her voice carries across the deck, low, firm, unshakable. “He’s stable. Continue hydration, cooling, observation. No transport unless vitals drop. Keep him lateral if he vomits. Any hesitation, you page me.”

The authority in her tone slices through the murmurs. For a heartbeat, even the donors fall quiet.

I stand back, a spectator to her warzone calm. The same woman who snapped at me for being arrogant, who refuses to flatter, now holds the yacht like a general marshaling troops. I should resent it. I should pull rank, reclaim the spotlight.

Instead, I watch her and think—this is what Seraphine needs. Not polish. Not spin. Her.

Cameras flash. Marina drifts into the frame, all coral lips and curated poise. She sidles closer, tablet angled discreetly toward her face. Her voice is syrup, meant only for me. “Crisis reframed: donors reassured by Valcrosse leadership. You handled it perfectly.”

My eyes flick to the tablet. Photos flicker fast, my jacket spread over the patient, my hand bracing his arm for the IV, my posture bent toward command. Elara is in the frame in some shots, kneeling opposite me, hair wild, hands steady. But Marina scrolls past those quickly, lingering instead on the ones where I fill the lens.

“Those are the ones we push,” she murmurs. “Optics matter. Hero heir, calm under pressure. Investors love it.”

Something hot surges through me. “She was the one running the deck,” I bit out.

Marina tilts her head, unbothered. “Optics, Adrian. Guests want a prince, not a surgeon. Leave the medical details to her, and the headlines to you.”

Across the deck, Elara straightens from the patient, meeting my gaze as if she already knows what Marina is doing. Her eyes are steel-gray, unflinching. For the first time all morning, I feel exposed.

Because the truth is simple: I saved the image. She saved the man.

And the donors saw both.

The crisis quiets, but the deck never truly does. Donors sip champagne again, pretending serenity was never broken. The man rests under shade, alive because Elara refused to bend.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. Marina doesn’t look up from her tablet, but I know it’s her work. I swipe, screen glaring in the sunlight.

Breaking: Heir Adrian Valcrosse Leads Heroic Rescue on Seraphine Seas.

The headline crowns me. The photo beneath it steals the air from my lungs.

I’m front and center, jacket fanned over the patient, jaw set like a commander. Donors lean in around me, their faces blurred to anonymity. Behind my shoulder, space where Elara knelt is cropped clean away, no trace of her hands, her orders, her fury that saved him.

She’s been erased.

Across the deck, Elara straightens, wiping her brow with the back of her wrist. She hasn’t seen it yet. But she will. And when she does, the fire in her eyes won’t be the kind that saves.

It’ll be the kind that burns.