The first thing to register is the pain.
Not a normal pain.
This is a bespoke, artisanal, handcrafted-by-demons kind of pain. It lives behind my right eye, a tiny, furious blacksmith hammering on an anvil made of my optic nerve.
Ugh.
The sound that escapes my throat is less human, more wounded animal. A dry, scraping thing.
My tongue feels like I've been gargling sand.
And the light.
Jesus Christ, the light.
It's a single, merciless spear of white-gold, stabbing through a gap in the blackout curtains. It's the kind of light that knows all your secrets and intends to broadcast them on a jumbotron.
I try to roll away from it, a simple, reflexive act of self-preservation.
But I can't.
Something is holding me in place. An arm. A heavy, warm, undeniably male arm, slung possessively over my waist.
My eyes snap open.
Mistake.
Bad, bad mistake.
The tiny blacksmith behind my eye starts a flash mob. The room spins, a nauseating tilt-a-whirl of gold lamé and dark, oppressive mahogany. This isn't my hotel room. My room is a soothing palette of beige and sterile calm. This room looks like a place where taste came to die. Violently.
My brain, usually a fortress of clinical precision and ordered files, is a smoldering crater. The filing cabinets have been looted, the documents set on fire. There are just… fragments. Echoes.
Okay, Elara. Dr. Voss. Let's be clinical.
Assess the situation.
One: A hangover of apocalyptic proportions.
Two: An unfamiliar, offensively gaudy hotel suite.
Three: A heavy, masculine arm wrapped around me as if it has a legal right to be there.
My gaze travels down the arm. Tanned skin. A light dusting of dark hair. A strong wrist, and on that wrist, a watch that probably costs more than my car. My entire student loan debt, probably.
My own hands are fisted in the sheets. The sheets, by the way, feel like they have a thread count higher than my IQ at this precise moment. I slowly, carefully, uncurl the fingers of my left hand.
And then I see it.
The fourth horseman of my personal apocalypse.
A ring.
Not just any ring. A diamond. A rock. A goddamn asteroid of impossible, infuriating light, sitting on my left ring finger. It winks at me from the shadows, a tiny, brilliant star of pure, unadulterated panic.
It's an accusation.
A tiny, diamond-studded middle finger to my entire life's work. To the control. The boundaries. The carefully constructed walls I have spent thirty-four years perfecting.
No.
The word is a silent scream in my skull.
No. No. No. No. No.
My breathing hitches. This is a panic attack. I can name it, chart its progression, list the five most effective grounding techniques to mitigate it.
My brain helpfully supplies the list.
Engage your five senses.
Focus on your breathing.
Hold a piece of ice.
Identify objects around you.
Use progressive muscle relaxation.
I can't do any of them. I can't breathe. I can't move. The only thing I can feel is the foreign weight of this ring and the suffocating heat of the man pressed against my back.
Who is he?
The question finally cuts through the static.
Who the hell is he?
Okay. Rewind. Go back. Access the last saved file before the system crash.
The conference.
The keynote address on "Post-Traumatic Growth in High-Functioning Individuals." Ironic, isn't it? I remember the weight of the microphone in my hand. The hum of the sound system. The blur of faces in the auditorium. I nailed it. Of course, I did. I always do.
Afterward… the dinner.
The hotel ballroom. The cloying scent of lilies and over-priced steak.
My assistant, Brenda.
That's it. That's the hook. The last clear memory. Brenda.
Brenda, with her sensible shoes and her gluten-free bread basket. She was fluttering around me, fending off over-eager neurology residents and a particularly persistent pharmaceutical rep who wanted to "synergize our deliverables."
"Dr. Voss, you were brilliant," she'd said, her eyes wide with a hero-worship that always made me vaguely uncomfortable. "They were hanging on your every word."
I remember nodding, a tight, professional smile plastered on my face while my social battery plummeted into the red. I remember a waiter offering me champagne. I waved him away. I never drink at professional functions. It's a rule. Rule #3 in a long, long list of rules designed to keep my life from imploding.
Rule #1: Maintain professional boundaries at all costs.
Rule #2: Never, ever lose control.
The ring on my finger glitters, mocking them both.
So what happened after Brenda?
There are flashes.
Noise. Laughter that sounds too loud. The clinking of glasses.
I remember… a bar? A different bar. Not the stuffy hotel lounge. This one was dark, loud, thrumming with a bassline I could feel in my teeth. There were neon lights. And shots. Little glasses of amber liquid. Tequila?
I don't drink tequila.
I never drink tequila.
A hand on my back. A low voice in my ear, saying something that made me laugh. A real laugh. The kind that starts in your belly and shakes your whole body. I don't remember the last time I laughed like that.
I remember dancing. Me. Dr. Elara Voss, dancing in a crowded, sweaty bar in Las Vegas like I didn't have a care in the world. Like I wasn't a walking, talking fortress of other people's trauma and my own carefully managed anxieties.
And then… nothing.
A gaping, black void.
The man beside me shifts, his breathing deepening. He murmurs something in his sleep, a low rumble that vibrates through the mattress, through my own body.
My heart is a trapped bird, slamming against my ribs.
I have to see his face.
I need to know.
I need to catalog the disaster. To give it a name.
Slowly, millimeter by agonizing millimeter, I turn my head. I'm afraid of what I'll see. A stranger? The pharma rep? One of the neurology residents who looked like he was still in high school?
My eyes trace the line of his jaw, sharp and defined even in the dim light. The dark stubble. The strong column of his throat. His hair is a mess of dark waves, spilling over the ridiculously plush pillow.
He's… beautiful.
Objectively speaking, of course. From a clinical perspective. He is a collection of aesthetically pleasing, symmetrical features. High cheekbones. A straight nose. A mouth that, even in sleep, looks like it knows its way around a smirk.
A dangerously familiar smirk.
The recognition hits me not like a wave, but like a physical blow. A fist to the gut that knocks all the air from my lungs. The smoldering crater in my brain erupts. The final, corrupted file loads.
The sterile white walls of my L.A. clinic.
The leather couch.
The coiled, restless energy of the man sitting across from me, his leg bouncing, his eyes burning with an intensity that felt like it could strip paint. He was all sharp angles and barely-leashed chaos. A beautiful, brilliant, broken mess.
My most challenging case.
My most dangerous patient.
The one I had to terminate three years ago for my own sanity.
Theo Raine.
Tech billionaire. Walking red flag. A man with a God complex and a gravitational pull that could swallow stars.
And I am in his bed.
Wearing his ring.
The world narrows to a single, horrifying point. I am going to be sick. Right here, on the thousand-dollar sheets.
My body moves before my brain can object. I have to get out. Escape. I slide my legs out from under the heavy duvet, my movements clumsy with panic. My feet hit the thick carpet. I am halfway to a standing position, a silent, desperate flight.
The air is cold on my skin. I'm wearing one of his shirts. A ridiculously soft, dark gray t-shirt that smells like him—a clean, sharp scent of cedar and something electric, like ozone after a storm.
One more step. Just get to the door. Call Brenda. Call my lawyer. Call an exorcist.
I can fix this. I fix things. That's what I do. I fix broken men.
But this… this is a five-alarm fire. A natural disaster. A Level 5 biohazard.
I take a shaky breath, turning my head just enough to make sure he's still asleep.
His eyes are open.
Not sleepy. Not groggy. They are wide open. A startling, intelligent shade of green, and they are looking directly at me. There's no confusion in them. No hangover haze. Just a calm, terrifying clarity.
A slow smile spreads across his lips. The very same smirk that used to unravel every theory I had about him.
He props himself up on one elbow, the sheet pooling around his waist. He doesn't look panicked. He looks… amused.
My blood turns to ice.
He lets the silence hang in the air for a beat, savoring it. Savoring my deer-in-the-headlights terror.
Then, his voice, low and impossibly casual, breaks the stillness.
"Good morning, wife."