A D R I A N

The photo burns behind my eyes long after the screen goes dark.
The sound in the room isn’t Elara’s breath anymore, it’s the buzz of a thousand phones lighting up across the island. The PR storm has already broken; I can feel it through the walls like thunder.

Ethan’s still by the door, jaw tight. “They’re running it on every feed. The island’s tagged in three languages already. Comments are brutal.”

Elara doesn’t speak. She’s standing, trembling but upright, the glow from the monitor painting her skin in blue light. Her pulse flutters at her throat, fast and terrified, but her spine doesn’t bend.

I want to pull her back into my arms and hide her there.
Instead, I take the phone from Ethan, scroll through the headline again. Secret Lovers in the Wreckers’ Cave. The shot is grainy, zoomed from a distance, but the angles are unmistakable. My hands on her waist. Her mouth on mine. Firelight catching her hair.

No name attached, but the comments already dissect every pixel.
“Doctor.” “Heir.” “Affair.”
The words twist like hooks.

“Elara,” I start, but she cuts me off. “You should go handle your press team.”

Her tone is even, too even and that’s what kills me. The ice after the fire.

Ethan’s phone vibrates again. He looks at me, grim. “The board’s calling an emergency meeting. Marina’s already drafting statements.”

Of course she is. The spin will be brutal: the noble CEO, the reckless doctor. The woman always pays first.

“Get Marina to my suite,” I say, voice steady. “Lock the clinic door behind me.”

Ethan nods once and leaves.

Elara doesn’t move. She’s staring at the dim monitor, at the reflection of her own face. “They’ll crucify me,” she says quietly.

“Then I’ll take the hit.” The words come out before I think.
Her head snaps toward me, eyes wide. “What?”

“I’ll tell them I initiated it. That I pursued you. That you tried to stop it.”

She just stares, disbelief turning slowly into fury.

“Adrian.. No.”

I take a step closer, lowering my voice. “Let me handle this. You don’t deserve to bleed for me.”

Elara folds her arms across her chest like she’s trying to hold her ribs in place. Her damp curls cling to her temples, a smear of exhaustion under her eyes, but she still looks like she could stare down a god.

“You think that fixes anything? You lying for me?”

“It’s not a lie,” I say. “I started it. I broke protocol. You were my employee, my responsibility. It’s cleaner if I take the fall.”

Her laugh slices through the quiet like broken glass. “Cleaner,” she repeats. “That’s what this is to you? Optics? A noble heir taking a bullet for the weak doctor? You get to look honorable, and I get erased.”

“Elara..”

“No,” she cuts in, stepping closer. “Don’t you dare spin this into some corporate fairy tale where you protect the poor woman from the big, bad world. I’ve lived through that story already.”

The hit lands before I can reply. She’s not just angry, she’s remembering. Nathan Hale. The surgeon who called her compassion weakness and made her pay for it.

I lower my voice. “This isn’t about stories. It’s about survival. The board is already looking for reasons to strip me of Seraphine. If this scandal grows, they’ll burn both of us down to keep the brand clean.”

She lets out a shaky breath, pacing a tight line across the small space. “And you think I’ll survive that by hiding behind you? You think the headlines will stop because you say it was all your fault?” She turns on me again, eyes blazing. “They’ll call me a homewrecker anyway. They’ll dig up every patient I ever lost, every mistake I ever made, and they’ll say it was because I was fucking my boss.”

Her words hit like gunfire.

“That’s not what I..”

“Yes, it is.” Her voice wavers, but her body doesn’t. “You want to protect me, but what you’re really doing is protecting the version of me that’s easiest for you to love. The quiet one. The grateful one. The one who doesn’t fight back.”

I step toward her before I can stop myself. “Don’t twist this.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

“It’s me trying to make sure you don’t lose everything because of me.”

Her mouth curves, not into a smile, but something rawer. “I already lost everything once. My name. My hospital. My peace.” She presses a hand to her chest. “You think I came here to hide? No. I came here to start over. I’m not letting you decide what happens to me again.”

Her words land like surf breaking against the cliff of my chest, relentless and right.

“Elara..”

“No,” she says, fierce now. “You don’t get to decide who bleeds. Not this time.”

Silence swells between us, thick as the humid night pressing through the clinic window. The bioluminescent bay beyond the glass flickers like it’s listening. I can smell salt and adrenaline, the faint antiseptic tang of gauze and fear.

She takes a step closer, so close that I can feel the heat of her. Her pulse flutters at her throat, a frantic rhythm I want to soothe but can’t touch.

“If you go out there and tell them it was all you,” she says softly, “you turn me into your mistake instead of your choice.”

The word choice wrecks me.

Because she’s right.

Because the truth is I’d choose her again, even knowing what it costs.

I drag a hand through my hair, every muscle tight. “You think this is about pride? About saving face?”

She shakes her head. “No. It’s about control. You’d rather burn alone than admit we’re in this together.”

The accusation hangs there, heavy and true. I’ve spent my entire life controlling everything, the markets, contracts, scandals. But her? I can’t control her. I don’t even want to.

I exhale, low and rough. “I just..” My voice breaks. “I don’t want to watch them tear you apart.”

“Then don’t,” she whispers. “Stand beside me instead.”

A sharp knock hits the door, Ethan’s signal. The press must already be circling like vultures outside.

Elara’s gaze doesn’t move from mine. “If you walk out there and make this all about you,” she says, voice trembling but firm, “you’ll lose me before they ever take Seraphine.”

Her words hollow me out, clean and final.

I take a slow step toward her until there’s barely a breath between us. “You think I care about the island more than I care about you?”

Her voice is soft now, tired. “I think you don’t know how to stop trying to save everything.”

Outside, another flash lights the glass. I catch the reflection of us, two silhouettes locked in a storm neither of us can contain.

And for the first time, I realize she’s right. This isn’t about hiding. It’s about standing.

The knock fades, but neither of us moves. The air feels charged, thick with everything unsaid.

Elara’s voice cuts through first. “You can’t fix this, Adrian. Not with PR statements or strategy.”

“I can contain it,” I start, but she shakes her head.

“That’s the problem. You always want to contain things. Control them until they don’t scare you. But this..” she gestures between us, trembling “..this isn’t meant to be controlled.”

Her words strip me raw. I’ve spent my life mastering storms. She’s the first one I don’t want to tame.

“I’m not trying to silence you,” I say.

“Then stop speaking for me.”

Quiet, but lethal. It lands like a blade.

She exhales, voice softening. “You told me control is a performance. That you do it so no one sees you break. But we’ve already broken open, Adrian. The storm did that. The cave did that. You can’t hide what’s already real.”

I searched her face, every muscle pulled tight. “They’ll drag your name through the dirt.”

“Let them.”

“Elara..”

“No.” Her voice shakes but holds. “You told me to say no if I didn’t want something. So hear me now: no, I won’t be your shield. No, I won’t let you turn love into protection. I’m not a scandal to erase. I’m the woman who chose you.”

That word chose hits harder than any headline.

I step closer, breath brushing hers. “You think I’m ashamed of us?”

“I think you’re afraid,” she whispers.

“Maybe I am,” I admit. “But not of them. Of losing you.”

Something shifts in her eyes, it’s fragile and luminous hope she’s afraid to name.

“You don’t lose me,” she says. “You either stand with me, or you don’t.”

Her words settle like a verdict. I reach up, brush my thumb over her cheek. She doesn’t pull away.

“I don’t want to stand in front of you,” I say quietly. “I want to stand beside you.”

Outside, cameras flash like lightning. Voices rise. The island is already watching.

Elara meets my gaze, chin high, trembling but unbroken.

“Then stand with me,” I say.

The storm outside roars, but for the first time, I feel steady.