A D R I A N

By the time I take my seat in the boardroom, the war is already circling like blood in the water.

The glass walls make the chamber feel exposed, the ocean glittering bright and merciless behind the investors’ heads. Lantern Tide banners ripple in the breeze outside, but inside, the air is thick with perfume, coffee, and suspicion.

Marina stands at the head of the table, her voice sweet as poison. “We regret the confusion surrounding Dr. Quinn’s credentials. The matter has been clarified.”

Confusion. Always confusion with her.

But the whispers don’t stop. They hiss along the polished table—fraud, liability, negligence. Some of these men and women don’t care if a boy almost died at the lagoon. They care about lawsuits, press, share price. And tonight, they care about whether the Valcrosse heir let a scandal take root.

Elara sits rigid at the far end of the table, her hair pulled back, her face pale but set like stone. Her credentials lie stacked in front of her, neat and undeniable, but the weight of doubt still presses against her shoulders. I know the look—she’s bracing to fight alone.

I don’t let her.

“I’ll address this.” My voice cuts across the murmurs. All eyes snap to me.

I lean forward, hands flat on the table. “Dr. Quinn’s recommendations—AEDs, antivenom, tents—were implemented under my direction. They are not liabilities. They are insurance. Strategic brand protection.”

A ripple goes through the room. Investors exchange glances. Words they understand: insurance, strategic, brand.

I press harder. “Our guests don’t pay for risk. They pay for serenity. Preparedness guarantees serenity. A mother brings her child here because she trusts us to protect them. And if a donor hesitates to fund that trust?” I let the silence hang, then smile razor-thin. “Then perhaps their money belongs elsewhere.”

The shockwave lands. Harrow, the donor who raged last night, flushes red but swallows his objection. Others murmur agreement, some even nod. Marina’s lips tighten, but she doesn’t interrupt.

Beside her, a silver-haired investor clears his throat. “So this… list… is a safeguard. A selling point.”

“Exactly.” I incline my head, confident. “Dr. Quinn isn’t a liability. She’s an asset.”

The words hang there, and I feel the shift. The murmurs dull, the knives sheath—for now.

When I glance down the table, Elara is staring at me. Not grateful, not soft, but sharp with something I can’t name.

Because I didn’t just spin her list into marketing poetry. I defended her. In front of the board. In front of the investors. Without hesitation.

And I surprised myself doing it.

The board disperses in a swirl of silk ties and clipped handshakes, their murmurs fading down the hall. Marina lingers long enough to slide me a look—smooth, unreadable, but sharp beneath the gloss—before vanishing into the elevator.

I need air.

The bar balcony overlooks the sea, lanterns swaying in the morning breeze, the taste of salt thick on the air. I plant both hands on the railing, jaw locked, replaying the words I just spat into the boardroom like bullets. She’s an asset.

It shouldn’t have felt like a confession.

“You almost made it sound noble,” Elara says from behind me.

I don’t turn. I know her voice—cutting, clear. When I glance, she’s in the doorway, arms folded, eyes hard. The sea light catches in her hair, making her look too much like the storm I can’t outrun.

“You’re welcome,” I say, cool.

Her laugh is short, sharp. “For spinning my work into brand protection? Congratulations, you saved the optics.”

“I saved your career,” I snap. “They were sharpening knives. You would’ve bled out in that room.”

She steps closer, each word deliberate. “If protecting patients scares them, let them choke. I won’t compromise triage. Not for optics. Not for you.”

I push off the railing, closing the distance between us. “And I won’t compromise the brand. Guests don’t want to picture stretchers and codes. They want serenity. That’s what keeps the lights on. That’s what keeps you here.”

We’re toe to toe now, the tension a live current. Neither of us blinks.

Her chin tilts higher. “So we’re at an impasse.”

“Looks like it,” I murmur, my gaze locked on hers.

For a moment, the air shifts. A brush of her hand against the railing grazes mine, accidental but electric. My pulse jumps; hers does too, I can see it at her throat. The balcony feels smaller, the world pressed to the space between us.

Then she exhales, sharp and final. “Enjoy your board victory, Valcrosse.”

She turns, walking back into the hotel, shoulders squared, spine unbroken. Leaving me alone with the sea and the fire she lit in my veins.

I let out a breath that tastes like smoke.

No compromises. No surrender. And no way out.

I don’t go home. I don’t even shower off the stink of the boardroom—coffee, perfume, power.

Instead, I find her.

Not Elara. Never Elara. A shadow of a woman, all sharp makeup and cheap perfume, waiting where the cameras don’t reach. She grins when she sees me, already tugging her dress higher on her thighs.

“You look like you need to blow off steam,” she purrs.

“On the bed. Now.” My voice is flat, stripped of heat.

She obeys instantly, crawling across the sheets, arching her ass high. No names. No questions. Just submission on demand.

I strip fast, fist my cock, and slam into her without warning. The sound is wet, obscene, her cry loud enough to rattle the windows. She pushes back, grinding against me, babbling praise like it’s scripted.

“Harder—fuck, yes, don’t stop—”

I grip her hair, yank her head back, drive into her with brutal rhythm. My hips pound, her breasts bouncing with every thrust, the slap of flesh echoing in the room. She moans louder, desperate to please, to be used.

I flip her onto her back, spread her thighs wide, and take her again. Fast, ruthless, chasing release with no thought of hers. She scratches my chest, leaves red trails down my skin, and screams like she means it.

I don’t kiss her. I don’t touch her face. She isn’t real enough for that.

Her cunt clenches, she cries out, shaking with a release that feels practiced, exaggerated. I groan, thrust harder, and spill inside her, my body jerking through the finish.

For a moment, there’s only the sound of both our ragged breaths. She sprawls back on the sheets, legs still open, a satisfied smile curling her lips. “Mmm. You fuck like you’re trying to kill something.”

I’m already off the bed, pulling on my pants.

Her laugh is low, sultry. “Call me next time you need to burn it out.”

But she doesn’t see the truth—there’s nothing burned out of me. Nothing drowned.

Because even with sweat cooling on my skin, even with another body spent beneath me, the fire in my head is the wrong one. Gray-green eyes. A woman who won’t bend, won’t flatter, won’t fade.

Elara.

And every faceless body only proves it more.

The water beats down until my skin goes red, but no heat scrubs her out. I lean into the spray, eyes shut, fists against the tile. I tell myself I wanted this, that release would strip the fire from my veins. But all I feel is empty. A cavern, echoing with her voice, her defiance.

The woman’s words linger like smoke: You fuck like you’re trying to kill something.

She thought it was praise. She didn’t realize it was the truth.

I shut off the water, silence crashing down with the steam. The suite is too quiet when I step out. The bed’s a tangle of sheets, the air still smells like sweat and perfume, but she’s gone. No name, no trace.

It should feel clean. Instead, it feels like rot.

I drag a towel across my skin and let it drop carelessly onto the chair. The black TV across the room stares back, blank and merciless. No reflection, just void.

And in that void, the truth glares at me: every time I try to bury her, I only dig deeper.

Elara Quinn. The line I can’t cross and the one I already have.

The suite is silent, heavy, until my phone buzzes on the nightstand. I almost ignore it, but the name flashing across the screen isn’t one I can dismiss.

Ethan.

I swipe, and the message hits like a fist:

Drill failed.
The Dock team couldn’t clear in under five minutes.
Try again at dawn.

My jaw tightens, shoulders knotting all over again.

The drills are mine. The safety protocols—hers.

And now the cracks show, wide enough for the board to drive knives straight through both of us. A single failed run, and everything we fought for tonight unravels.

I drop the phone onto the dresser, pace once across the room, back again. Five minutes. That’s the difference between survival and headlines soaked in blood.

Elara knows it. I know it.

If the drills fail again at dawn, the board won’t hesitate. They’ll hang her out to dry. They’ll call her unfit. They’ll call me reckless for backing her.

I catch my reflection again in the black screen across the room—no heir, no commander, just a man cornered by the one woman he can’t contain.

Dawn is coming fast. And with it, reckoning.

If the drills fail, so does she. And so do I.