For a long, silent moment, the only sound in the room is the blood roaring in my ears.
A reporter knows.
It's not a hypothetical problem anymore. Not a future crisis to be managed. The damage is done. The breach is public.
The carefully constructed fortress of Dr. Elara Voss, a bastion of professionalism and control, has been dynamited.
And the rubble is about to be on the front page.
My mind, my beautiful, organized, clinical mind, fractures into a million panicked pieces.
The board. My license. My patients.
My patients, who trust me with their deepest traumas, their most fragile secrets.
How can they trust me when my own life is a five-alarm dumpster fire? How can I guide them through their darkness when I'm drowning in my own?
"Okay," I say, my voice a high, tight wire. I start pacing, my bare feet sinking into the ridiculously plush carpet. I need to move. To do something.
"Okay. We issue a statement. A joint statement. We say it's a fabrication. A malicious rumor. A prank."
Theo scoffs. A short, sharp, pitying sound.
"A prank? Elara, there is a signed marriage certificate on file with the Clark County clerk's office. There is a video of you serenading a bachelor party with a surprisingly heartfelt rendition of 'Mr. Brightside'.
There is a charge on my Black Card for one 'Forever Vows Wedding Chapel Package #3,' which apparently included a white dove release that we missed because we were busy in the limo."
My pacing stops. "There was a dove release?"
"There was a scheduled dove release," he corrects. "Don't change the subject. You can't deny a story when there's a mountain of evidence to support it. You don't put out the fire by telling everyone the fire isn't real. You have to build a different story around it."
"What different story?" I practically shriek. "That I, a licensed trauma therapist, got blackout drunk and illegally married my volatile, high-profile ex-patient in a ceremony officiated by a man in a rhinestone jumpsuit? What possible story makes that okay?"
He stops my pacing by stepping directly into my path. He's too close again. The air between us is thick with the scent of his skin and my impending doom.
"The story," he says, his voice dropping, becoming low and conspiratorial, "is that it wasn't a mistake."
I stare at him. "Are you having a psychotic break? Should I be assessing you for delusions of grandeur?"
"I'm being strategic. Think about it. What's the worst part of this for you, professionally?"
"The sheer, unmitigated, career-ending everything of it all!"
"No. Be specific," he insists. "What's the charge they'll level at you?"
"Unethical conduct. Poor judgment. Lack of impulse control. A catastrophic blurring of professional and personal boundaries." The words spill out, a bitter litany of my own failure.
"Exactly," he says, his eyes lighting up with the thrill of a problem to be solved. "And what does a quickie Vegas divorce five minutes after a quickie Vegas wedding scream to the world?"
I see it instantly. He's right. Goddammit, he's right.
"It confirms all of it," I whisper. "It screams 'drunken mistake.' It screams 'poor judgment' and 'lack of impulse control.'"
"It's a validation of the scandal," he says, nodding. "But… what if we don't get a divorce?"
The floor seems to tilt beneath my feet.
"What?"
"What if we stay married?"
I just stare at him, speechless. The suggestion is so monumentally insane, so utterly contrary to every survival instinct I possess, that my brain refuses to process it.
"For a little while," he adds quickly, seeing the horror on my face. "A trial period. Say, six months."
Six months. He says it like he's proposing a trial subscription to a streaming service. Not a sham marriage designed to mask a personal and professional Chernobyl.
"Let me see if I understand this," I say, my voice dangerously calm. "Your 'protocol' for this situation is for us to remain married. On purpose. To lean into the disaster. To pretend this… this unholy union of chaos and ethical malpractice… is a legitimate, stable relationship."
"Precisely." He beams, actually beams, as if he's just solved world hunger. "We don't run from the story. We rebrand it. We're not a drunken mistake; we're a whirlwind romance. A surprising but destined love story. Two busy, high-powered professionals who reconnected and realized what they'd been missing all along. It's romantic. It's exciting. But most importantly, it's stable. It shows intent. It shows commitment."
"It shows a shared delusion!" I explode. "Theo, this is certifiably the worst idea I have ever heard in my entire life. And I once had a patient who was convinced his chihuahua was channeling the spirit of a long-dead Roman emperor. This is worse than that."
"Your chihuahua guy wasn't facing a media firestorm and the potential loss of his entire livelihood, was he?" he shoots back. "Look, Elara. I get it. It's crazy. But it's the only move we have. We give them a different narrative. We control the optics for a few months. Long enough for the story to die down.
Long enough for our respective boards to see us as a stable, boring married couple instead of a walking scandal. Six months. We put on a show. We attend a few galas, we get photographed looking happy, and then, when no one is paying attention anymore, we quietly dissolve it. No harm, no foul."
"No harm?" My laugh is a brittle, broken thing. "My entire sense of self is the harm! My professional integrity is the foul! I can't… I can't pretend to be your wife, Theo. The dynamic… our history… it's impossible."
"Is it more impossible than being professionally ruined?"
The question hangs there, ugly and undeniable.
I turn away from him, running my hands through my hair. I need an out. I need to call someone. My lawyer, Maya. She'll know what to do. She'll sue him for… for emotional terrorism. Or something.
I snatch my phone from the bedside table, my thumb hovering over Maya's contact. But my eyes catch on an email notification at the top of the screen. It came in at 3:14 a.m.
My heart stops.
From: The Atherton Group
Subject: Update: The Atherton Clinic Acquisition - Finalist Notification
No.
It can't be.
My hands are shaking so badly I can barely tap the screen. The email opens. It's a blur of corporate letterhead and congratulatory jargon.
"Dear Dr. Voss, Following the final round of interviews, the acquisitions board of the Atherton Group is pleased to inform you that you have been selected as one of two final candidates for the directorship of the new Atherton Regenerative Trauma Clinic…"
I'm sinking. The words are pulling me under.
The Atherton Clinic.
It's not just a job. It's my holy grail. The best-funded, most advanced trauma research facility in the country. A place where I could actually make a difference. Where I could change things on a systemic level. It's everything I've ever worked for. My entire life's ambition, distilled into one job title.
My eyes scan the rest of the email, searching for the catch. And then I find it. A single, innocuous-looking sentence buried in a paragraph about community leadership and public image.
"…the board seeks a director who not only demonstrates unparalleled professional expertise, but who also embodies the principles of sound judgment, ethical integrity, and a stable personal life."
A stable personal life.
The phone nearly slips from my grasp.
It's a death sentence. A beautifully worded, professionally formatted death sentence for my dream. A messy, public, whirlwind divorce from a high-profile ex-patient is the polar opposite of a stable personal life.
I look up at Theo.
He's watching me, his head tilted. He doesn't know what I've just read, but he sees the shift. He sees the panic morph into pure, gut-wrenching despair.
He sees his opening.
"Everything okay, Doc?" he asks, his voice soft.
I can't answer. I can only stare at him. The man who is the cause of this entire catastrophe. The walking, talking, ridiculously handsome torpedo aimed at my future.
And the only person on earth offering a solution.
A crazy, unethical, completely insane solution that might just be the only way to save everything I've ever wanted.
The irony is so thick, I feel like I'm choking on it.
His phone buzzes on the bed. A short, sharp vibration. He glances at it, then walks to the window, pulling back the heavy curtain just an inch.
The early morning light floods in, making me squint.
His posture stiffens.
"Well," he says, his voice flat and hard. "Looks like we're out of time."
A sense of dread, cold and heavy, settles in my stomach. I force my legs to move, to carry me across the room to where he stands. I peer through the small gap in the curtains, down to the street twenty floors below.
It's a swarm.
A frenzy.
Men with cameras that have lenses the size of small telescopes. White vans with satellite dishes sprouting from their roofs. A small, buzzing hive of media vultures, all pointing their cameras up.
At our window.
They're already here.
The siege has begun.
The problem isn't a phone call anymore. It's not an email. It's a reality waiting for us on the pavement.
And we're trapped.