E L A R A

Someone just made me a fraud—at least on paper.

The clinic’s back office is a war zone. Papers sprawl across the desk, medical journals stacked like barricades, the old printer screeching as if it resents the overtime. A single lamp throws a hard circle of light, bleaching my credentials into stark black-and-white.

Asha is a storm beside me, hair falling from her bun, stapler snapping like a weapon. “Unlicensed? That’s the best they could come up with?” She slams another packet closed. “Marina must be choking on her champagne.”

I don’t answer. My throat’s too tight, my jaw clenched so hard it aches. The smear post’s headline still throbs in my skull: “Doctor Quinn Unlicensed? Seraphine’s Guests at Risk.”

All those years.
All those rotations. The overnight shifts that shredded my body, the codes I ran until my hands shook, the patients I lost and carried like ghosts. Reduced to one word: fraud.

“Copy the Massachusetts board registry,” I snap, tossing Asha a URL scrawled on a sticky note. “Highlight the verification date. Then pull the Harvard transcripts—scan, don’t just print. They’ll say they’re fakes otherwise.”

She nods sharply, already typing. She’s angry enough to move fast, but steady, the way only nurses can be when bureaucracy threatens patient care.

I grab another stack of papers—letters of recommendation from chiefs who barely remembered my name until I begged for signatures. Every sentence sings the same sterile praise: competent, reliable, skilled. Paper cuts of validation, each one proof that I earned this.

“God, this is a joke,” Asha mutters, stapling another packet. “You save a boy’s life in front of half the island, and suddenly you’re the liability?”

The printer spits another page, hot, curling at the edges. I rip it free, slap it into a packet, and jam the stapler down until the crack echoes off the walls.

“This is how they bury you,” I say, voice sharp, almost shaking. “Drown you in questions so the truth suffocates under the weight of doubt.”

Asha looks up, her eyes fierce. “Then we don’t let them. We out-print, out-staple, outlast.”

Her words should reassure me, but fury sits too heavy in my chest. I’ve been here before—New York board reviews, administrators sniffing for blood after Nathan’s mistakes cost me more than my pride. And I survived it then. I’ll survive it now.

Still, the weight of it presses hard. My career, my name, everything I’ve clawed for—balanced on a printer tray.

I slam the next stack into order. “Fine. Let’s drown them in proof.”

The door rattles then, hinges protesting as it swings open. A shadow cuts across the desk, long and sharp under the lamp’s glow.

Adrian Valcrosse.

Of course.

And behind him, a woman in a steel-gray suit with a briefcase.

My pulse spikes. The battle just shifted.

Adrian doesn’t knock. He never does. He fills the doorway, the overhead light catching on his loosened tie and storm-sharp eyes. Behind him, the woman in the suit sets down a briefcase with the kind of precision that screams retainer fee.

“Your lawyer?” I bite, not bothering to hide the venom.

“My scalpel,” he says, smooth as glass, dropping a thick folder on the desk. “Every credential. Notarized, cross-referenced, sealed.” He nudges it toward me. “You’re welcome.”

I snatch a paper from the printer, stapler cracking hard through the packet. “You think this fixes it? A smear spreads faster than fact. They’ve already painted me a fraud.”

His gaze locks onto mine, dark and unflinching. “Then we cut the rot before it spreads.”

The lawyer speaks briskly, sliding open the folder. “Registry entries. State board verifications. Fellowship certifications. Each timestamped and notarized. A legal sledgehammer.”

For a second, I falter. Proof, clean and undeniable, staring up at me. Gratitude claws at my throat, but Adrian’s shadow suffocates it.

We fall into motion anyway—printing, copying, collating. Asha feeds papers through; I staple; Adrian initials each set with ruthless speed. The printer hums, the lawyer slides documents into stacks. It’s surgical: fast, efficient, strangely seamless.

I slam another staple down. “Don’t get used to this.”

His pen flicks across a page. “I won’t. Teamwork isn’t usually this combustible.”

The word lances straight through me. Combustible. He said it at the gala, branding me with it. My pulse stutters.

We both reach for the same fresh sheet. My fingers graze his, a spark crackling skin to skin. I freeze.

He doesn’t.

He leans closer, the hum of the printer filling the silence, his cologne threading sharp and salt-rich between us. His voice drops, intimate, dangerous. “You always assume I want to silence you. Maybe I just want to keep you here.”

The words coil low in my stomach. Heat floods, traitorous, immediate. My body leans the tiniest fraction closer, as if pulled. His gaze flickers to my mouth. Holds.

My heart slams once, hard, and for a terrifying second I think he’s going to close the inch between us. Printer, lawyer, Asha—none of it matters. It’s just him, me, the heat burning under stress.

Then the printer spits another page, the sound slicing the moment in two. I jerk back, my chair scraping.

“Save your lines for the donors,” I snap, shoving the sheet into the lawyer’s hands.

Adrian straightens, a faint, razor-sharp smile curving his mouth. “You didn’t hate it.”

I staple the page harder than necessary, the crack like a gunshot. “You have no idea what I hate.”

His eyes glitter, too steady, too knowing. “I’m learning.”

My hands shake as I line up the next packet. The stapler misses the margin by a hair. He sees. He doesn’t comment. That’s worse.

By midnight, the back office looks like the aftermath of surgery—stacks of proof lined in neat rows, paper scraps scattered like gauze on the floor. Asha slumps in her chair, rubbing her temples. The lawyer checks her watch, cool and unbothered, as though reputations aren’t bleeding out under fluorescent light.

Adrian doesn’t waste a second. He gathers the packets, slides them into a leather folio, and sets his laptop squarely on the desk. The glow from the screen lights his profile—jaw sharp, eyes narrowed in focus.

“Board packet, final draft,” he mutters, typing fast. “Every document embedded, every page notarized.”

I hover behind him, arms crossed tight, adrenaline still thrumming. Watching my whole life compressed into a single .pdf feels obscene. Years of sacrifice boiled down to attachments and footnotes.

He hits send. The email shoots into the ether, aimed at the Valcrosse board. The seconds stretch, my lungs caught in a breath that won’t release.

Then the reply flashes in. Not from the board itself—but from Marina.

Her face fills the screen in a recorded statement, sleek and smiling, like she’s already rehearsed her absolution.

“We regret the confusion surrounding Dr. Quinn’s licensing,” she says smoothly, her voice a silken dagger. “The board has received satisfactory confirmation of her credentials. We value her service to the resort.”

Confusion. Not sabotage. Not smear. Just confusion.

The word tastes like poison.

I clench my fists. “She doesn’t regret anything. She’s painting me as sloppy—like I misplaced my own license.”

Adrian’s expression doesn’t change. He just closes the window, as if Marina’s face is beneath his notice.

My blood boils hotter because it matters to me. It always matters. The smear may be blunted, but the knife still twisted.

And tomorrow, everyone will be watching to see if I bleed.

The lawyer gathers the remaining documents, satisfied. Asha collapses back in her chair with a triumphant little huff. “There. If they don’t choke on that proof, they’ll at least drown in it.”

My shoulders ache from hours hunched over the desk, but the ping of a new email pulls me upright. The board secretary’s seal blinks at the top.

Budget allocation confirmed.
Safety requisitions approved.

I exhale hard, the sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. It’s not everything—not the respect, not the clean slate—but it’s enough. Six AEDs. Antivenom. Heat tents. Lives protected, at least for now.

Asha punches the air, grinning. “We did it.” She pulls me into a quick hug before I can protest. The papers dig into my ribs, but the warmth is real.

When she lets go, I glance up—and find Adrian watching me. Leaning against the desk, arms crossed, unreadable. There’s no smirk, no blade-sharp quip. Just steady eyes, heavy enough to make my chest tighten.

For a second, I almost thank him. But the words lodge, too bitter to release. Instead, I turn back to the stack, sliding the email into my saved folder like armor.

For tonight, I won.

The victory lasts less than five minutes.

Another email pings into the inbox, this one flagged urgent. I click it open, pulse still unsteady from the relief.

Dr. Quinn is requested at the Valcrosse Board meeting, 8:00 a.m. Attendance mandatory. Format: public.

The words blur for a second before snapping into focus. Public. Not private review, not behind closed doors. A spectacle.

My stomach drops. They don’t just want proof—they want theater. They want me on trial.

Asha leans over my shoulder, reading fast. “Public? What the hell—”

Adrian takes the laptop before she can finish, scanning the message with that predator’s calm he never loses. His jaw flexes once, hard.

“They want optics,” he says flatly. “A performance.”

I shove the chair back, anger rising hot in my throat. “They want humiliation. They want to make me their example.”

For a moment, our eyes lock—my fury against his steel. His look says what mine cannot: that tomorrow, I’ll walk into the lion’s den, and the whole island will be watching.

My phone buzzes again. Notifications keep pouring in—screenshots, forwarded messages, speculation already burning across the gossip channels.

Public. Mandatory. 8 a.m.

And my war has just gone live.