A D R I AN

The island looks almost too perfect tonight, the boardwalk hums with music, low and easy, lanterns strung like gold veins across the dark. I stand at the rail above it all, jacket off, sleeves rolled, pretending I’m just checking sound levels instead of hiding from my own staff. From up here, the clinic’s lights spill out onto the sand, steady and alive.

They’re celebrating her, not the Valcrosse crest, not me. Her. Someone’s set up a folding table by the doors, cheap champagne, mismatched glasses, music playing from someone’s phone in a bowl for echo. I watch them lift their drinks, laughter rolling like surf. Every face is turned toward Elara. She’s in the middle of it, scrubs swapped for a simple white dress that looks like she didn’t even mean to look that good. Barefoot, hair down, freckles I didn’t know she had catching light.

The storm, the crisis, the interviews, it’s all burned off her somehow. What’s left is calm. Real calm, not the kind we fake for the guests. I should go down there, but I don’t,  because I know the second I do, the moment stops being theirs and turns into mine again. And maybe, for once, I don’t want to steal it.

Elara throws her head back and laughs at something Asha says, the sound carrying up the boardwalk like a wave breaking. It hits me right in the chest. She’s laughing with my people, no, not mine, our people now, apparently. They lean closer to her, orbiting like she’s the gravity that keeps them upright. For ten years I’ve built this place on obedience, but tonight, she rebuilt it in one week on trust.

I can see the bruise on her wrist from yesterday’s chaos, a small purple mark just above where her pulse beats. I hate that I notice it before I notice her smile. Someone hands her a flute of champagne. She hesitates, then takes it,  Asha cheers, “To Dr. Quinn!” and everyone echoes it, sloppy and honest. Elara raises her glass, embarrassed but shining.

“To the team,” she says, voice steady but soft. “You kept this island breathing when it wanted to hold its breath.” It’s the kind of line I’d pay a PR team to script, but she means it, every word. That’s the difference, I don’t realize I’ve started moving until I’m halfway down the steps.

Every step toward that light feels like walking into a mirror I don’t want to face. The headlines this morning still spin in my head: Doctor Quinn humbles the heir. The comments, half praise, half blood sport. My name in every sentence, but for once, not as the hero. She never asked for any of it, she just did her job, and I turned her competence into a battlefield.

I stop at the bottom of the stairs, shoes sinking a little into the sand where it meets the boards. The smell of salt and cheap champagne mingles with the sterile tang of antiseptic that still clings to me. It would be ridiculous, with executives in dress slacks lurking on a beach while the staff party, but this is the first time I’ve seen them look alive since I took over Seraphine.

She did that, I try to catalog the feeling like it’s a spreadsheet: pride, relief, envy, but the numbers won’t settle. All I know is that the sight of her, unguarded and laughing, makes something in me unclench and that’s dangerous.

“Boss sighting,” someone murmurs when I step onto the boardwalk. The music dips, conversations falter. Even the gulls seem to hush. Elara turns toward the quiet, her eyes find me instantly, gray-green and unreadable. For a second, I see the night we nearly drowned in that cave flash between us, raw, wordless recognition, then she smiles, small, cautious.

“Adrian,” she says, voice carrying just enough to bridge the silence. “We saved your clinic. You’re allowed one drink.” That breaks the tension, laughter bursts out, easy and nervous. Someone shoves a glass into my hand before I can refuse. I raise it a little. “To competent leadership,” I manage, half-smiling. “Apparently not mine.”

They laugh harder, It feels good and awful at the same time. Elara rolls her eyes. “You built the island. We just stopped it from killing anyone.”

“That’s a pretty big just, Doctor.”

She shrugs, pretending not to blush. “Occupational hazard.”

The conversation starts up again around us, people clinking glasses, retelling the day in louder, funnier versions. I stand beside her, close enough to feel the warmth of her shoulder through the thin fabric of her dress. The music shifts to something slower, the kind of playlist no one admits they love but everyone knows.

Asha appears long enough to hand Elara another drink, winks at me like she’s rooting for something, and vanishes back into the crowd. Elara tilts her head toward the rail where the sea throws back the lantern light in pieces. “Do you ever stop moving long enough to actually look at this place?”

“Sometimes,” I say. “Usually when it’s on fire.” She laughs, soft and surprised, and the sound slides straight under my ribs. I could stay in this easy moment forever, but habit wins. I glance at the crowd, at Marina’s people hovering near the edge filming snippets for internal comms. “You know they’ll turn this into a headline,” I murmured.

“Let them.” She sips her drink, eyes on the horizon. “For once, it might be a good one.” Her confidence guts me more than any insult ever has. I built my empire on control; she rebuilt it on faith. And she’s right, it’s better this way. I drain my glass, trying to ignore how her laughter keeps replaying in my head long after the music swells again.

When the crowd starts migrating toward the beach bonfire, she stays behind, leaning on the rail. The music fades into laughter and waves, the kind of sound that softens sharp edges. I hover a few feet away, telling myself it’s a coincidence that we’re suddenly alone.

“You’re not celebrating,” she says without looking at me.

“I’m supervising.”

“From two feet away?”

“I’m efficient.”

That earns a quiet laugh. She takes another sip of champagne, eyes glinting in the lantern light. “You don’t know how to just be, do you?”

“Being doesn’t fix budgets,” I say.

“No,” she answers, “but it might fix people.”

Her words hit deeper than I expected, she doesn’t say it like advice, but more like truth. I glance at her profile, how the sea breeze keeps tugging strands of hair across her cheek. My hand twitches with the urge to tuck them back, but I don’t.

She keeps her gaze on the water. “You did good today, Adrian.”

I almost laughed. “You think I need reassurance?”

“I think you need to hear it from someone who doesn’t want anything from you.” That shuts me up. The lanterns flicker in the glass around us, reflections bending like smoke. Somewhere below, someone cheers, the sound bright and human.

“I watched you tonight,” she says, quiet now. “You let them have it, the credit, the laughter, the relief. Most people in your position would’ve made it about themselves.”

“I’ve done that before.” She glances over, mouth curved. “Growth looks good on you.”

“Dangerous compliment, Doctor.”

“I’ll risk it.”

Her eyes hold mine for a long second, steady and unafraid. Everything between us hums, electric and close. The storm, the fights, the cave, all of it compresses into this breathless space where nothing else matters. I shift closer, not enough to touch, but enough that her dress brushes my arm when the wind moves. She doesn’t step away.

“Do you ever regret coming here?” I ask, voice rougher than I mean. 

She considers it. “Sometimes, but only before I met the people who make it worth staying.”

Her gaze catches mine deliberately when she says it, and for a heartbeat, I forget how to breathe. The staff cheers again from the bonfire, sparks float up into the dark like tiny suns. The noise makes her smile; she leans forward on the rail, the neckline of her dress slipping just enough to make my throat tighten.

She doesn’t notice, or maybe she does. Her laugh is softer now, private. “You look like you’re trying not to say something.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Then say it.”

“I’m proud of you.” The words are simple, honest, and they shake more than any speech I’ve ever given. She blinks, surprised, then smiles like she doesn’t quite believe it. “Careful. You’ll ruin your reputation.”

“I have plenty left to ruin.”

Silence folds between us, heavy but not uncomfortable, the ocean hushes against the shore. I can smell her perfume under the salt, warm and faintly sweet.

She turns to face me fully. “You’re still staring,” she says softly.

I should look away. I don’t. “You make it hard not to.”

For once, there’s no smirk, no retort, just her watching me, eyes darker now. Then she steps closer, close enough that her arm brushes mine again, deliberate this time. Her voice is low, almost a whisper.

“If you keep looking at me like that, Adrian, someone’s going to believe it’s love.”

The words land like a heartbeat gone wrong, I open my mouth, to deny it, to joke, to breathe, but nothing comes out. She smiles, slow and devastating, then sets her empty glass on the rail.

“Goodnight, Valcrosse.”

She walks away barefoot, lantern light chasing her down the boardwalk. I stay where I am, glass still in hand, pulse hammering, the taste of her name on my tongue. The ocean keeps moving like it knows something I don’t, and maybe it does, because for the first time in years, I’m afraid of what happens when I stop pretending this isn’t real.