Vital Signs
A Sapphic Workplace Romance
by Aurora North
Pairing: F/F | Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ | Tropes: Workplace Romance, Grumpy/Sunshine, One Bed, Forced Proximity, Friends to Lovers, Praise Kink
She’s the ice queen everyone fears. She’s the nurse who sees right through her.
Dr. Elena Vance has spent ten years building walls no one can breach. As the ER’s most brilliant—and most intimidating—physician, she’s laser-focused on one thing: becoming Medical Director. Relationships are a distraction she can’t afford. Emotions are a weakness she refuses to show.
Casey Rhodes is the sunshine to Elena’s storm. The nurse who makes everyone smile, who sees the vulnerable woman behind the professional mask, who’s been harboring a crush she knows will never go anywhere—because women like Elena Vance don’t fall for women like her.
Then a patient they both loved dies, and Elena does something completely out of character: she invites Casey to Miami. Just two colleagues escaping a hard week. Just one hotel room with one bed. Just a vacation that means nothing.
The rules are simple:
No sleepovers.
No feelings.
No one finds out.
But Elena’s never been good at following rules she didn’t make. And Casey’s never been good at hiding how she feels.
When their carefully constructed arrangement starts to crack—when stolen moments turn into something deeper, when “just physical” becomes a lie neither can maintain—Elena faces an impossible choice: the career she’s sacrificed everything for, or the woman who makes her want to stop sacrificing at all.
Vital Signs is a high-heat sapphic romance featuring an ice queen who melts, a sunshine nurse who refuses to give up, and the kind of chemistry that can’t be contained in an on-call room. It includes explicit content, workplace tension, emotional vulnerability, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
🔥 Want More?
Get the exclusive bonus scene—too hot for Amazon—featuring Elena and Casey’s one-year anniversary celebration. It’s available only to readers who find the secret page.
Chapter One
CASEY
The code had been running for forty-seven minutes when Dr. Elena Vance walked in.
I knew it was forty-seven minutes because I’d been watching the clock on the wall, counting down the seconds between compressions, silently begging Mr. Delgado’s heart to remember how to beat on its own. My arms were screaming—CPR is a full-body workout that the TV shows never get right—and the sweat was dripping down my back, and somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking about how I’d promised him I’d try his wife’s tamales next time she visited.
There wasn’t going to be a next time.
Dr. Vance moved to the bedside, her hands already reaching for the chart, her eyes scanning the data with that terrifying focus that made you feel like she could see through walls. Through skin. Through all the desperate hope you were trying to hide behind professionalism.
“His K is elevated,” she said. “Calcium chloride. And let’s try amiodarone before the next shock.”
“Already pushed amio,” I said. “Before you got here.”
She looked at me then—really looked, not the dismissive glance she gave most people. Her eyes were gray, the color of rain on concrete, and just as unforgiving. “Good. You’re doing everything right, Rhodes.”
It shouldn’t have mattered. Five words from my attending, nothing special. But my stupid heart did a complicated little gymnastics routine anyway, because apparently I was a golden retriever in a past life and Elena Vance had just told me I was a good girl.
Focus, Casey. Man dying. Not the time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this book part of a series?
Vital Signs is a complete standalone with a guaranteed HEA. No cliffhangers!
How spicy is this book?
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ — This is a 5/5 heat level book with explicit sapphic content including praise kink, power dynamics, and multiple on-page scenes. All scenes feature enthusiastic consent.
Is there a happily ever after?
Yes! Elena and Casey get their full HEA, complete with moving in together, going public at work, and planning their forever.
Never Miss a Release
Get new release alerts, exclusive bonus content, and reader-only giveaways.