Eli
I should have known the road was warning me.
My Triumph hugged the corners like it was trying to keep me alive, the engine vibrating through my palms, the cold wind clawing at my jacket. My hands ached from gripping too tight. My chest felt tight too, not from the ride, but from everything I’d been pretending wasn’t going to happen when I got home.
If I could stand in front of the man I used to be, I’d tell him to run. Not walk. Not hesitate.
Run.
But I didn’t. I stayed. And that choice became the first crack in a life that would eventually shatter.
I love Adrian, I do. And loving him has never been the difficult part. Living with his discipline is.
Adrian is handsome. The kind of polished, lethal handsome that belongs on magazine covers. His dark hair is always perfect, not a single strand out of place. At six foot four, with broadshoulders sculpted by relentless, punishing hours in the gym, he fills every doorway he walks through. Adrian doesn’t simply walk into a room. He claims it. He owns it, and everyone willingly lets him.
And when he speaks, they listen to every word, stepping aside without even realizing they’re doing it.
Meeting Adrian for the first time should have told me everything I needed to know. The warning bells should have been deafening. Instead, I mistook it for chemistry.
* * *
The hospital ER department where I work was too bright that night, harsh overhead lights reflecting off polished floors, making everything feel exposed. We’d been getting off lightly, or so we thought. A few broken limbs, a concussion from a hockey game, and the usual paperwork that came with a quiet shift.
Then the call came.
A major pile-up on the freeway. And suddenly the ER was drowning. I swear that someone had said the Q-word.
One of my patients had lost her husband at the scene, and her daughter was in surgery fighting for her life. The shock had shattered what fragile control she’d been clinging to. She’d threatened to hurt herself, so Adrian was called.
I was her attending nurse, and because of everything she’d endured, we’d moved her into a private room while she waited. We didn’t do that often, but grief on that scale deserved some dignity.
I was checking her vitals when the door opened. I turned my head to acknowledge him, and what I saw stole my breath away. He was gorgeous.
He stood in the doorway for only a moment, but somehow the room felt smaller with him in it. His dark eyes settled on me, unwavering, assessing, and I felt pinned beneath them, as though they’d found every thought I’d never spoken aloud and quietly laid claim to them.
He crossed the room with effortless confidence, each step measured, controlled. Then he offered me his hand.
“Doctor Adrian Blackwell.” His voice was calm, measured, impossible to ignore.
“And you’re Elijah,” he added.
I slipped my hand into his. It vanished inside his larger one, his grip firm without crossing into pain. For a moment, it felt ordinary, a professional greeting, nothing more. Then something snagged at the back of my mind.
I frowned.
How did he know my name?
My gaze dropped to my ID badge. The hospital logo faced him. My name didn’t. A strange feeling crept across the back of my neck, cold and quick, gone almost before I could register it.
At the time, I told myself it was nothing. Looking back… It was the first red flag I chose not to see.
After introducing the patient to Adrian, I stepped out into the hallway to give them privacy. I leaned against the wall, finishing her paperwork while the organized chaos of the ER carried on around me; monitors beeping, stretchers rolling past, voices rising and falling in urgent waves.
Then a pair of black polished dress shoes stopped directly in front of mine.
My gaze dropped automatically.
The contrast was stark. My shoes were scuffed, practical, built for twelve-hour shifts and sprinting down hospital corridors. His looked as though they’d never seen a speckof dust. They probably had their own maintenance schedule. Maybe even insurance.
