Off the Record

Off the Record

by Ellis Carrington

Heat 5 / 5 · 21+Novella · 12 chapters32,194 words2h 20m read~3h 35m listen

Priya Whitaker does not take risks. She counts rail heights, marks wet concrete, and keeps her clipboard between herself and every bright moment that could go wrong. One rooftop accident already lives in her chest like a splinter — she will not add another. So when corporate orders her to babysit Dorian Vale on a rain-slick After Dark helipad until PR can kill his story, she treats it like any other safety assignment: contain the hazard, follow the protocol, go home.

Dorian Vale is the hazard. Inked, chain-smoking, maddeningly unhurried, he leans against the low rail in a downpour and grins at her clipboard like it is a punchline. He is about to expose After Dark’s most dangerous secret, and the power “glitch” that just fried the elevator panel was no accident — someone engineered this lockdown to stop him.

Now they are trapped twelve stories above a city that cannot hear them, a corporate spin team is climbing the service stairs, and Priya is starting to realize that the rules she has been following were never designed to protect anyone but the chain itself.

Enemies To LoversFake DatingOpposites Attract