The realization should shock me. Should scandalize professional Elle Park, who’s spent her career ensuring that she’s seen ascompetent rather than desirable, as a colleague rather than a potential mate.
Instead, it feels like clarity breaking through fog, like truth I’ve been avoiding for reasons that suddenly seem meaningless in the face of what’s coming.
“Rest,” Miles tells me, misinterpreting my silence for exhaustion. “I’ll be here if you need anything.”
I nod, letting my eyes close as another wave builds on the horizon of my awareness. But behind my closed lids, I see them all—Caleb, Adrian, Miles—moving around me in their careful dance of care and restraint.
And for the first time since this nightmare began, I find myself not dreading what’s coming, but anticipating it. Not just for the relief it will bring, but for the boundaries it will blur, the walls it will tear down, the truths it will reveal.
About them. About me. About what happens when control is no longer an option, and all that remains is what we truly want.
fourteen
. . .
Adrian
I checkmy watch for the third time in five minutes, my eyes flicking between the display and the schedule I’ve meticulously crafted. Two-fifteen.
Elle’s last temperature check showed 101.3—higher than yesterday but still within expected parameters. The next check is scheduled for three, but my instincts are screaming at me to go to her now.
I force myself to remain seated, fingers drumming against the polished surface of the dining table. Control. This is about control. Not just of the situation, but of myself. Especially of myself.
The villa feels like a pressure cooker, the storm outside having downgraded from howling destruction to steady, persistent rain. I’ve rearranged my presentation notes three times. Reviewed quarterly projections I could recite in my sleep. Anything to keep my mind off Elle in that bedroom—Miles’s bedroom—her scent growing stronger with each passing hour.
When my tablet pings with an email from the resort manager about customs clearance for Elle’s suppressants, I nearly crush the device in my haste to open it. Useless.
Just another bureaucratic wall of text confirming what we already know: the medication isn’t coming. Not today, not tomorrow. Not in time.
I glance at the schedule again. I’ve built in contingencies for every scenario except the one that terrifies me most—what happens when her heat reaches peak intensity and she needs more than cooling packs and breathing exercises? Who will she choose? The thought of her with Caleb or Miles makes something primal and possessive twist in my gut, but the thought of her suffering alone is worse.
A sound breaks through my spiral—a strangled whimper from down the hall, followed by a crash. Glass breaking. I’m on my feet before the sound fully registers, tablet forgotten as I stride toward Elle’s room.
Miles is already there when I push the door open, kneeling beside the bed where Elle is curled into herself, trembling violently. Shards of a water glass glitter on the hardwood floor, liquid soaking into the expensive rug.
“What happened?” I demand, eyes scanning Elle’s form for injuries.
“Fever spike,” Miles says, his voice infuriatingly calm as he presses a cooling pack to the back of Elle’s neck. “The glass slipped from her hand.”
Elle looks up at me, her dark eyes glassy with fever, pupils blown wide. Her scent hits me like a physical blow—vanilla and coconut intensified a hundredfold, no trace of chemical blockersremaining. Pure, unfiltered Omega in heat. My body responds instantly, a surge of Alpha hormones flooding my system with the primal need to claim, protect, possess.
“Adrian,” she whispers, my name in her mouth almost unrecognizable—rough and needy in a way I’ve never heard from professional, composed Elle Park.
I move to her other side, opposite Miles, careful to avoid the broken glass. “I’m here,” I say, my voice lower than usual, roughened by instinct I’m fighting to control. “What do you need?”
She laughs, the sound edged with hysteria. “What do I need? God, Adrian, I need—” She cuts herself off, biting her lip hard enough that I worry she’ll draw blood.
Miles shifts slightly, reaching for another cooling pack. “It’s happening faster than we anticipated,” he says. “Eight hours, just as predicted.”
I try not to be annoyed by his accuracy, by the composed way he’s handling this while my own heart hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. I take satisfaction in knowing that at least the spike was accounted for in my schedule, even if the intensity wasn’t.
“The breathing techniques aren’t working anymore,” Elle manages, her voice thin with strain. “Nothing’s working.”
I reach for her hand, intending to check her pulse, but the moment our skin connects, she makes a sound that shoots straight through me—half gasp, half moan.
I pull back instinctively, but she grabs my wrist, keeping me anchored to her.
“Don’t,” she says, her eyes finding mine with surprising clarity. “Don’t pull away. It helps. When you touch me, it helps.”
