Page 27 of Intense (Beneath The Blaze #3)

STEPHANIE

Song- Delusional, Visenya

“ M orning,” I say to Josh as he walks past me.

He offers me a strained smile in return.

Weird. Maybe he’s still hungover from Vegas.

But then I round the corner into reception, and the two nurses behind the desk just… stare. No words. Just blinking, like I’ve grown a second fucking head.

I frown, pulling out my phone and opening the camera.

No mascara smudges. No lipstick on my teeth. My hair’s fine. I don’t get it.

I keep walking, shoulders stiff, eyes forward, pretending not to care while my heart thuds like a warning shot in my chest.

As I reach my office, I grab the door handle—then stop.

Something’s off. Viscerally wrong.

And there it is.

A new plaque. Bright, gold, and sickening.

Dr. Stephanie Quinn

My stomach twists. Rage flashes hot and white in my bloodstream.

How fucking dare he.

I dig my nails under the edge of the plaque, trying to rip it off, but the damn thing won’t budge. I’m seconds from causing a scene, so instead, I shove the door open and storm inside.

The first thing I see is the black box on my desk. Beside it—an envelope.

My breath catches.

He has to be kidding.

This has gone too far. Way too far.

Rivalry is one thing. I can take the snide comments, the surgical pissing contests, even the damn leaderboard. But this? A whole-ass marriage? With that egotistical psycho?

Not happening. Not in this lifetime.

Even if he does make my heart skip and my skin flush and my brain glitch when he so much as breathes near me. Still. No.

I open the box with trembling fingers.

Holy. Shit.

That is not just a ring. It’s a goddamn statement. The diamond alone could buy my apartment building. It’s flanked by a band covered in smaller diamonds, gleaming like gilt.

There’s purpose behind it.

This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment Vegas gimmick.

These rings are a warning.

I don’t even know how he pulled the Vegas ones off, let alone this. What strings he yanked. What rules he rewrote.

And I’ve ignored him since we landed. Not one reply to his texts. I thought if I left the city and pretended it didn’t happen, we could go back to what we were. Enemies. Rivals. The cold war we waged daily in the OR.

I was wrong.

So fucking wrong.

No one can read Finn Quinn.

I pick up the letter with fingers that won’t stop shaking.

Mrs. Quinn,

I know you dared to come to work today without your rings, and I thought to myself, you probably deserve to have something more of a statement to show off our marriage. So, your first gift from your husband.

Wear them, or else.

Once you have them on, please come to the staff room. Your presence is required for a very important meeting.

P.S. I hope you like your new plaque, as specifically requested by yourself.

And yes. HR knows about our marriage, and it has been signed off on.

Love your doting husband,

Finn

I want to scream.

My hands ball into fists. I press one to my mouth to keep from letting the sound out. Rage floods every nerve ending, but underneath that—beneath the fire—is something worse.

He’s doing this for me.

Not for attention. Not for applause.

He’s doing this to get under my skin. Because he knows it’ll work.

And the sickest part? He’s right.

A sliver of me finds it funny. Another horrifying part? Flattered.

He’s always cold. Always composed. Never a man for spectacle. Yet, here he is, loving the fact he’s trapping me in a legally binding nightmare.

One minute I was worried he wouldn’t come back. That he’d vanish—arrested and gone for good. Now, I want to throw him into a wall.

I haven’t heard a word from the people blackmailing me. Not since I handed Finn to them on a silver platter. I guess my part’s done.

But I’m not dumb enough to believe it’s over. They’ll be back. Blackmailers don’t like loose ends. And now I’m married to my biggest liability.

I toss the note aside and snap the ring box shut with a hard click.

Like hell I’m wearing those rings.

Finn needs to annul this circus now before I commit murder.

Fueled by fury, I storm toward the staff room. My heels strike the floor like gunfire. Heads turn, but I don’t care.

I slam the door open.

Balloons. Streamers. Confetti.

And front and center, a giant banner that reads:

“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Quinn.”

The room spins.

A sea of faces, but I only see his. That smug, self-satisfied grin.

My breath lodges in my throat. I can’t even move. My body forgets how.

What the fuck is this?

Finn Quinn doesn’t throw parties. He doesn’t even like people. He makes that abundantly clear.

And yet here he stands, center stage, celebrating a joke that only he finds funny.

I move through the room like a woman possessed. People whisper congratulations like I’m a fucking bride instead of a hostage.

Poppy catches my eye, confusion etched across her face.

This is the most humiliating moment of my life.

I stop when I reach him.

“What in the actual fuck do you think you’re doing?” I hiss.

“Celebrating my wonderful wife.” He smirks.

I shake my head, barely containing the scream building in my chest.

“Do you want me to make a scene?” I snap.

He tsks, snakes his arm around my waist, and pulls me close—his lips brushing my ear.

“Where are your rings, wife?”

“I’m not wearing them. This wedding isn’t real. Do we need to send you to the psych ward? This is insane. Even for you.”

He chuckles, but it’s warm, not patronizing. Too intimate. Too real.

“I thought you’d appreciate the effort.”

I wrench away from him and spin, hands planted firmly on my hips.

“Take it all down. And leave me the hell alone. I am not your wife.”

His lips curl at the edges. He’s enjoying this too much.

But then his expression falters. Concern flickers. Genuine, maybe.

“Steph, are you okay?”

And that nearly breaks me.

Because if he cared, he wouldn’t be doing this. He wouldn’t be dragging my name, my work, my whole fucking life into his twisted idea of love or revenge or obsession.

Tears burn behind my eyes. I blink hard.

No one sees me cry. No one has ever stayed long enough to deserve that piece of me.

I back away. Silent.

Someone bumps into me, but I don’t stop.

I don’t go to my office. Not when that plaque is still on the door, laughing in gold.

I run.

Straight to the only place in this hospital no one thinks to look.

Where I can breathe.

Where I’ve cried more tears than anyone knows.

Where life and death hang in the balance every goddamn day.

The hospital roof.

I find my secret spot, hidden in the corner, and find my stash of cigarettes behind the planter.

Lighting one, relief washes over me.

I know I shouldn’t. How I preach to my patients not to.

But, damn. They do work for stress. And today has been awful.

I nearly fucking cried in front of a room of people.

I promised myself I’d never become a man’s property. Or allow a man to control me. I forged my way in this industry on my own, in spite of them.

And then in waltzes Finn, just like he did six years ago.

Storming in and taking over.

And now, that includes me.

The door clicks in the distance, and I close my eyes.

Here we go.

Round two.

And I want to throw him over the railing. Maybe watching his body splat on the concrete below will bring me some sort of satisfaction.

No. Killing my boss, and now my apparent husband, would be a bad idea. And what’s worse, I could never do that to him.

Sighing, I keep my gaze fixed on the ground, hoping that, if I don’t look at him, he won’t come over. That he will just let me have a minute.

But, no.

His shiny black shoes soon appear in my vision.

Blowing out an exhale of my cigarette, I lift my head.

His eyes are like daggers. There is no remorse for what he just did to me. How he humiliated me, like I am some pawn in his game, only there for his amusement.

I toss my cigarette on his sparkling rich boy shoes, and he growls. I might as well have spat in his face by the sound of his reaction.

I stop breathing as his hand snatches my face, dragging me up to him like I’m nothing but a rag doll made for punishment.

His crazed eyes don’t just stare; they consume.

They track every inch of my face, dissecting me.

Assessing me. Breaking me open.

And I can’t hide. Not from him. Not now.

The tears have already betrayed me.

“Your tears won’t have the desired effect on me, love.”

He leans in so close I can feel him in my bones.

“They have quite the opposite, actually.” His fingers slide from my cheek to my throat, coiling tight.

“But this isn’t the real you. Is it?” His voice dips into something darker. Hungrier. “You’re like me. We don’t break. We don’t show our weakness in front of people.”

My bottom lip trembles.

Wrong move.

His grip tightens, jaw twitching with disdain.

He tuts like I’ve failed some unspoken test. “I thought my wife could take a joke,” he says coldly. Like he doesn’t care. Like this game means nothing to him.

But it means everything to me.

“That wasn’t a joke. That was humiliation in front of all of my colleagues in a career that means everything to me. You have no fucking idea what I’ve had to do to get here.” I spit the words with fire, but they burn me on the way out.

His eyes go narrow. A storm brews in the space between us.

“You really think you know me, huh? Rich boy this, rich boy that. You think you’re the only one here who has felt real pain?”

Then he drops me.

Like I’m disposable. Like I don’t matter.

And that hurts more than anything.

He steps away, shoving his palm against his chest.

“You think my life was a walk in the park? Do you believe I was always this fucking ice cold?”

He looks like he wants to tear his own skin off.

“You don’t get this fucked up for nothing, temptress.”

Suddenly, he’s in my face again. So close I can taste the fury on his breath.

But instead of striking, he drags the back of his hand across my cheek. It’s so soft compared to the fury radiating from him.

“I don’t hide my crazy. I am who I am. But you? You’re trying to conceal it, like I can’t see straight through you. Like I haven’t spent the past six years analyzing your every move. I know you, Stephanie. Now how about you fucking show me?”

My head shakes before I can stop it. He doesn’t know me. Not really.

Not the parts that still wake up screaming. Not the girl who crawled out of hell just to prove she was worthy of the title doctor.

“No, Finn. Just fuck off.”

He cackles.

“Words are pointless to me. People lie. You can never trust what comes out of someone’s mouth. Actions are the only thing I believe. So, I dare you, show me how you really feel about your husband. Not with tears, not with venom on your tongue. Fucking show me.”

My fist clenches at my side. Heat coils in my gut. It’s a mix of rage and desperation. It’s how I’ve always lived, the only way I know how.

Everyone always leaves. My parents got sent to jail for fucking murder when I was twelve.

Leaving me in a foster home until I was eighteen.

No funding for college. No home. Nothing.

The two people in the world who were meant to protect me were too busy trying to fund their schemes to even think about me. I’ll never forgive them.

I don’t even think. My body moves on instinct.

Before I know what I’m doing, my fist collides with his throat. Hard.

The sound that leaves his mouth is half-choke, half-growl.

His grin spreads slowly and twistedly, like he’s been waiting for this.

“There she is. The real Dr. Miller,” he taunts, eyes gleaming.

He claps; it’s so loud it makes me flinch.

My hands tremble at my sides.

I just throat-punched my boss.

On hospital grounds.

“Oh, come on. I’m not going to get you fired. You think that’s what I want? If I wanted you gone, I could have done that years ago.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, my whole body shaking with the weight of it all.

“What do you want from me? Why do we keep playing these stupid games?” Now I’m practically yelling at him. Great, throat-punching and yelling at my boss. All in the span of two minutes.

His eyes soften, but only a fraction.

He steps forward, brushing his thumb along my lip. My breath hitches. My knees weaken.

I think Dr. Quinn is making me lose my mind.

“The answer isn’t quite that simple.”

“But you hate me,” I say.

“And you hate me.”

It’s quite clear that isn’t the truth from either of us. His hand drops to my hip, curling into the soft curve there like it’s his. Like he has every right.

“Do you believe that lust and hate can’t walk the same line, temptress?”

My skin erupts with shivers. My lungs seize.

His breath ghosts my mouth.

My whole body screams with want. With conflict. With everything I’ve spent years burying.

He’s taking over everything.

And then?—

“Kiss me and find out,” I whisper breathlessly.

He’s done it. He’s broken me.

And I know the second his mouth meets mine…

There’s no going back.