My brain does this funny thing when it's catastrophically overloaded.
It shuts down all non-essential systems.
Emotional response? Offline.
Long-term planning? Offline.
Basic motor functions? Standby mode.
All that's left is a single, blinking cursor on a black screen, typing one word over and over again.
Wife. Wife. Wife.
The word hangs in the air between us, thick and toxic. It's a diagnosis with no cure. A label I can't peel off.
Theo just watches me. He hasn't moved from his casual, propped-up position on the pillows. He looks like a king surveying his ridiculously gaudy, ill-gotten kingdom.
And I'm the spoils of war.
My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. My throat has staged a coup.
"Cat got your tongue, Doc?" he asks, and the nickname slices through the fog.
Doc.
The name he used to use in my office. Sometimes with a sneer, sometimes with a purr, always as a way to remind me of the line between us. The line I have apparently taken, tied into a noose, and gleefully hung myself with.
"Don't call me that," I manage to rasp. The words feel like swallowing shards of glass.
"Why not?" He tilts his head, a gesture of pure, feigned innocence. "It's what you are, isn't it? Or is it Dr. Voss? Or should I stick with Mrs. Raine? We should probably get that sorted for the press release."
My professional brain finally reboots, fueled by sheer, unadulterated terror.
"There will be no press release," I state, my voice gaining a sliver of its usual authority. "There has been a mistake. A significant, multi-faceted error in judgment, likely facilitated by an unknown quantity of alcohol."
"You don't drink, Elara."
He says my name like he's tasting it. Like it's a vintage wine he's been waiting years to open. And he's right. I don't drink. Which means this is so much worse than a simple mistake.
"Something happened, Theo. Last night."
"Yeah," he says, a slow, lazy grin spreading across his face. He gestures between the two of us, a grand sweep of his hand. "I'd say so. The Elvis impersonator who officiated was particularly moved. He teared up. Said he hadn't seen two people so in love since… well, ever."
My mind whites out. Elvis. There's a flash of sequins and a slurred rendition of Can't Help Falling in Love.
Oh god.
I take a step back, my bare foot catching on the corner of a discarded room service menu. I need to put on my own clothes. I need to create a barrier. Armor.
My eyes scan the room. My sensible conference blazer is slung over a chair, looking deeply scandalized. My silk shell top is on the floor. My shoes are nowhere in sight.
"Looking for these?"
He holds up my heels. My practical, comfortable, three-inch block heels. He dangles them from his index finger like they're a prize he won at a carnival.
"Give me my shoes, Theo."
"That's not very wifely," he chides, his eyes sparkling with a dangerous light I remember all too well. It's the same light that used to precede one of his devastating breakthroughs, or a comment so perceptive it would leave me scrambling for my professional composure for days.
It's the look that made me terminate him.
And just like that, I'm not in Vegas anymore.
The gaudy gold walls of the hotel suite dissolve. The scent of stale champagne is replaced by the clean, sterile smell of my L.A. office. It's three years ago. It's raining outside, the water streaking down the floor-to-ceiling window behind him.
He's not lounging in a bed. He's coiled on my patient couch, a spring of restless energy. He hasn't said a word for ten minutes, just staring at me with that same unnerving clarity.
"You're going to end our sessions today," he says. It's not a question. It's a fact.
My hands are clasped in my lap, my posture a perfect model of therapeutic neutrality. Inside, my stomach is a knot of dread. He's right, of course. I have the referral slip for Dr. Albright already printed out in my desk drawer.
"I believe we've reached a point of impasse," I say, the words tasting like ash. "Our therapeutic alliance is no longer as productive as it could be."
It's a lie. A clinical, ethical, cowardly lie.
Our sessions are terrifyingly productive. He's making progress. He's excavating his trauma, facing the fallout from his fiancée's suicide, deconstructing his self-destructive patterns. He's doing the work.
But he's also doing something else.
He's studying me.
He sees the flicker of exhaustion in my eyes when I haven't slept. He notices when I change the brand of tea I drink. Last week, he'd looked at the silver bracelet I always wear—the one from my childhood—and said, "What's the story behind that? Looks like it's seen a few battles."
No one ever asks about the bracelet.
He sees the cracks in my fortress. And he's starting to poke at them. Gently, at first, but with increasing precision.
"Impasse," he repeats now, the word dripping with sarcasm. "Is that what we're calling it? An impasse?" He leans forward, his green eyes pinning me to my chair. "Or is it that you're afraid?"
"My feelings are not relevant to your treatment, Theo." The textbook response. Perfect. Hollow.
"I think they're the only thing that's relevant right now." He stands up, prowling the small space between the couch and my desk. He's a caged panther. Too much power, too much energy for one small, controlled room. "You're a healer who can't stand to be healed. A trauma doctor who flinches if anyone gets too close to her own scars. You spend your life fixing broken men, but you're terrified one of them might actually see that you're broken, too."
Every word is a perfectly aimed dart. I feel my professional mask, my entire identity, fracturing.
"I'm referring you to Dr. Albright," I say, my voice colder, harder. "He specializes in personality disorders with narcissistic traits."
It's a low blow. A punitive, unprofessional jab. I regret it the second it leaves my mouth.
But Theo doesn't flinch. He just smiles that devastating, knowing smile.
"See? That's what I'm talking about. The second I get too close, you pull the trigger. You pathologize me to create distance." He stops in front of my desk, leaning his hands on it. We're closer than we've ever been. I can smell the rain on his jacket, the clean, electric scent of him. "This isn't over, Elara."
He used my first name. For the first time.
And that's when I knew. I had to get him out. Not for his safety.
For mine.
My vision snaps back to the present. To the Vegas hotel room. The decadent, golden cage I've woken up in.
Theo is still watching me, the ghost of that same smile on his lips. My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic, trapped thing.
He remembers.
He remembers everything.
"You still bite your lower lip when you're trying not to pass judgment," he says softly, his voice a low hum. "You did it just now. The same way you did when I told you about my father."
I flinch. A full-body, undeniable recoil. He's not just remembering the facts of his case file. He's remembering the nuances. The tells. My tells. The little cracks he found in my armor.
He's been waiting for this.
The thought is cold and sharp. This isn't a random, drunken mistake. This is the continuation of that final session. The one I ran from.
"Why did you stop seeing me, Elara?" he asks, his voice deceptively gentle. "What were you so afraid of?"
I was afraid of this.
Of this exact moment. The complete and utter annihilation of boundaries. The merging of the professional and the personal. I was afraid of the undeniable, reckless chemistry that sizzled in the air between us even then, threatening to burn down my carefully ordered world.
I was afraid that he saw me more clearly than anyone ever had. And I was afraid that, on some level, I wanted him to.
"This is a catastrophic breach of ethics," I whisper, the words for me as much as for him. It's a mantra. A prayer.
"Is it?" he counters, pushing himself off the bed to stand. He's tall. I'd forgotten how tall. He's wearing nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs that do very little to hide the fact that he is in peak physical condition. It's distracting. Clinically speaking, of course. "Our therapeutic relationship was terminated three years ago. There's a statute of limitations on these things, isn't there? A cooling-off period?"
"The generally accepted guideline is a minimum of two years, but for a case with the complexities of yours, most ethical practitioners would argue it should be indefinite." My voice is automatic, quoting a textbook I helped edit.
"So we're in a gray area."
"We are in a black hole," I correct, my voice shaking. "My career, my reputation, my license… Theo, do you have any idea what this could do?"
"I have some idea," he says, his tone suddenly serious. He takes a step toward me, and I take a step back. "Which is why I've taken the liberty of being proactive."
Before I can ask what the hell that means, there's a sharp, authoritative knock at the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
We both freeze.
My blood runs cold. The police? Hotel security? A representative from the medical board who somehow already knows my life is over?
Theo doesn't look surprised. At all.
He looks… expectant.
He walks past me, completely unconcerned by his state of undress, and opens the heavy suite door.
A man in a crisp, impeccably tailored hotel manager's uniform is standing there. He's holding a sleek leather folio. His eyes don't so much as flicker at the sight of a half-naked Theo Raine or the shell-shocked woman in his shirt standing in the middle of the room. This man has clearly seen things.
"Mr. Raine," the manager says, his voice the epitome of professional discretion. "As requested."
He hands the leather folio to Theo.
Theo takes it, gives the man a curt nod, and closes the door, leaving us alone again in the suffocating silence.
He turns to me, a strange, unreadable expression on his face. He opens the folio and pulls out a thick stack of papers, held together with a binder clip.
He holds them out to me.
My hands are trembling as I take them. The paper is heavy, expensive. The text is dense, legal.
But I don't need to read the fine print. I can see the heading at the top of the first page, printed in bold, unforgiving letters.
PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.
Divorce papers.
He's already had them drawn up. While I was passed out, dreaming of Elvis and ethics violations, he was awake. He was making calls. He was being… proactive.
A wave of something that feels dangerously like relief washes over me. He wants to undo this. He wants to erase it, just like I do.
But then I look at his face. At the cool, calculating calm in his eyes. And a new, more terrifying thought takes root.
This isn't an escape hatch.
This is the next move in a game I didn't even know I was playing.