If she didn't try, she would never forgive herself.
She picked up her phone and typed:Meet me at your apartment. Eight o'clock. We need to talk.
The response came immediately:Will you still want me after everything that's happened?
Marianne stared at the words. The vulnerability in them. The fear. Isla, who never backed down from anything, was afraid that Marianne would abandon her now that the crisis had arrived.
She typed back:I will always want you. No matter what happens. I love you.
A long pause. Then:I love you too. See you at eight.
Marianne set down her phone and looked at the files spread across her desk. The documentation that had been used as a weapon. The evidence of Isla's brilliance reframed as evidence of recklessness.
She thought about what it would take to fight this. To stand up in front of the board and argue that Isla's approach, while unconventional, had saved more lives than it had cost. To challenge the institutional machinery that was grinding toward its predetermined conclusion.
It would mean putting her own career at risk. Again. After she had worked so hard to rebuild from the ashes of Riverside General.
It would mean taking a stand that might accomplish nothing except destroying her own reputation.
It would mean choosing love over safety, passion over protection, Isla over everything she had built.
Marianne thought about the woman who had held her while she cried. Who had listened to her darkest secrets and loved her anyway. Who had shown her that vulnerability wasn't weakness and that connection was worth the risk of loss.
That woman was worth fighting for.
And Marianne was finally ready to fight.
15
ISLA
Isla's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
She had been steady in the operating room. Three hours of fighting to save a life, and her hands had been rock solid. But now, standing outside Marianne's apartment building, she couldn't make the trembling stop.
Robert Hendricks was dead. Her career was in ruins. The woman she loved had presented evidence against her to the board.
And all she wanted was to be held.
The hours since the surgery had been a blur of interviews and paperwork. Hospital administrators asking the same questions over and over. Legal representatives taking statements. HR informing her that her surgical privileges were suspended pending investigation. Each conversation had chipped away at her composure until there was nothing left but raw, exposed nerve.
She had called in sick to her regularly scheduled shift. Had spent the day in her apartment, staring at the walls and waiting for Marianne to respond to her texts. The silence had been deafening.
Now it was evening, and she was standing outside Marianne's building because she didn't know where else to go. Couldn't face another night alone with her thoughts. Needed the comfort of the only person who understood what she was going through.
Even if that person might be the reason she was going through it.
Marianne opened the door before Isla could knock, as if she had been watching for her. For a moment, they just looked at each other. Two women who had built walls around themselves, now standing in the wreckage of everything they had tried to protect.
"Come in." Marianne's voice was rough.
Isla stepped inside and immediately fell into her arms.
The tears came fast and hard, months of contained emotion breaking through the careful barriers she had maintained. She cried for Robert Hendricks, the man she hadn't been able to save. She cried for her career, which might be ending even as she stood here. She cried for the love she had found and might be about to lose.
Marianne held her through all of it, not speaking, just being present. Her arms were strong around Isla's back. Her heartbeat was steady against Isla's chest. She was the only solid thing in a world that was falling apart.
"I tried," Isla gasped between sobs. "I tried so hard. He was bleeding out and I did everything I could think of and it wasn't enough."
