She climbed into his bed at midnight and got caught like a burglar. He asked one question with no heat: "What are you doing?" Colette Fontana married the town's most admired neurosurgeon for reasons everyone calls lucky—but inside their Mariner Heights townhouse, her husband Sebastian White is a locked door. Cold in public, inscrutable at home, and rumored on Instagram to be "that kind" of man who can't—well—perform. Colette refuses to play victim. She will research, hustle herbal recipes from online forums, raid herb shops at midnight, and flirt like a riot squad. She will not let a rumor steal the husband who once saved her as a child. When a vulnerable patient starts to unravel and the patient's violent husband attacks Colette in the clinic, the hospital threatens her internship—and the scandal goes viral. Sebastian's silence at first looks like indifference. Then, quietly, he becomes the one who gets things done: calming a terrified patient, confronting a bully, and protecting the one person everyone underestimates. This is a story about a stubborn doctor-in-training who refuses to accept "cold" as a relationship, and the man whose silence hides more than shame. By the time she drags the truth out, Colette will have cost herself a career, revealed a city secret, and forced the surgeon to decide: keep his distance—or learn how to fight for love.

12 Chapters