Isadora stopped a few feet behind her close enough to catch the faint scent of something clean and expensive: citrus, cedar, a hint of hospital antiseptic that clung even here. Close enough to see the fine tension in Rowan's shoulders, the way her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass when she sensed someone too near.
Isadora's voice came out low, velvet-edged, laced with the pretense of disdain she didn't feel. "Still saving lives, Doctor? Or just here to judge the rich kids who don't know how to behave?"
She waited.
The air between them thickened.
Rowan's back stiffened barely perceptible, but Isadora caught it.
And when the doctor finally began to turn slow, deliberate, like she was deciding whether the interruption was worth her time Isadora's pulse kicked harder.
The black dress shifted with her, the high slit parting just enough to reveal the smooth line of her thigh.
Isadora's breath caught for half a second; the face was about to come into view, the same eyes, the same full mouth that had delivered clinical commands while saving her life.
But before the turn completed before Isadora could finally see the woman who'd haunted her thoughts for days Lexi's voice sliced through the air like a thrown knife. "Dora!"
Sharp. Urgent. Loud enough to carry over the quartet and the low hum of conversation.
Isadora froze mid-step. Rowan paused too half-turned, back still mostly to them, head tilting slightly as though registering the call but deciding it wasn't worth her full attention yet.
Isadora's jaw tightened. She shot Lexi a glare that could've melted steel.
Lexi, undeterred, sauntered closer with Jade trailing behind like amused backup. She hooked her arm through Isadora's, tugging her backward a step, voice dropping to a conspiratorial stage-whisper that was still entirely too audible.
"She's hot," Lexi said, nodding toward Rowan's still-turned form. "Like, stupid hot. That back alone could start wars. You sure you wanna go in guns blazing when you haven't even seen the front yet?"
Isadora rolled her eyes so hard it hurt. "What now?"
"Nothing," Lexi said innocently, batting lashes. "Just that she's hot. Thought you should know before you commit to whatever unhinged plan is brewing in that pretty head of yours."
Jade snorted, leaning against a nearby pillar with his champagne flute dangling from two fingers. "She's right. That posture? That hair? If the front matches the back, you're fucked, Dora. In the best way."
Isadora exhaled through her nose sharp, impatient. Her gaze flicked back to Rowan, who had already turned away again, resuming her conversation with Sara and Emma as though the near-interruption had never happened. The doctor's profile was partially visible now no sharp jaw but damn hot, lips pressed into that familiar line of quiet control but not enough. Not the full face. Not yet.
Isadora's mouth curved again half frustration, half dark amusement.
"I'm going," she said, voice low and final. She disentangled her arm from Lexi's grip with deliberate care. "Don't dare disturb me again. I mean it. Touch me, call me, breathe too loud in my direction, and I'll make sure your next party invite comes from the doorman downstairs."
Lexi raised both hands in mock surrender, grin wide and wicked. "Fine, fine. Go hunt. We'll behave. Mostly."
Jade lifted his glass in a lazy toast. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"That leaves the field wide open," Isadora muttered.
She straightened her blazer one last time sharp lapels, rolled sleeves, the crisp white shirt underneath hugging her athletic frame like a second skin. Then she moved. No hesitation this time.
She stopped just behind her personal space deliberately invaded and let her voice drop, velvet and edged, carrying the same pretense of disdain she'd worn like armor all night.
Her lips parted, ready to speak the name again, sharper this time, to force the doctor to turn fully and finally meet her eyes.
Before the words could leave her mouth, Rowan's voice cut through the space between them low, controlled, but carrying just enough in the lull of the quartet's transition to be unmistakable.
"…the drunken heiress," Rowan was saying to Sara, her tone flat but laced with something rawer than clinical detachment. "Seventeen, overdosed on coke and benzos, woke up swinging at nurses like we were the ones who forced the drugs down her throat. Verbally abusive the second the Narcan hit. Called me a 'self-righteous bitch in scrubs' before she signed out AMA and disappeared with her little entourage. No thank you. No remorse. Just entitlement wrapped in a trust fund."
Sara let out a low whistle, leaning against the bar. "Damn. And you still saved her life like it was nothing."
Rowan's shoulders lifted in a small, tight shrug. The black dress shifted with the motion, the slit parting to show more thigh before she crossed one ankle over the other. "It's the job. Doesn't mean I have to like the patient. I felt… angry. Disgusted. Hate, even. Not for the addiction—that's a disease. For the way she treated everyone like we were beneath her. Like her life was the only one that mattered in that trauma bay. People die every shift because they can't get the help she threw away. And she just walked out laughing with her friends."
Emma, sipping her drink, nodded slowly. "Sounds like a nightmare patient. But hot, right? The photos online don't lie. That face, that body—"
Rowan cut her off with a sharp exhale, almost a scoff. "Doesn't matter. Beauty doesn't excuse cruelty. If I never see Isadora Ravencroft again, it'll be too soon."
Isadora stopped dead.
The words landed like ice water down her spine cold, precise, final. She stood frozen three steps behind them, blazer suddenly feeling too tight across her chest, oxfords rooted to the marble. The party noise receded to a dull roar; the chandelier light seemed harsher, the orchids cloying.
They hadn't seen her.
Sara was laughing softly at something Emma added. Rowan's back remained turned—still elegant, still untouchable, still radiating that quiet fury Isadora had only glimpsed in the hospital through the haze of drugs and restraints.
Disgusted. Hate.
The words echoed in her skull, twisting something inside her chest she hadn't expected to feel. Not shame, never shame. But a sharp, unfamiliar sting. Rejection. From the one person who'd looked at her without flinching, without pity, without begging her to behave.
The one person she'd fixated on because she hadn't bowed. And now that same person hated her.
Isadora's mouth went dry. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides, nails biting into palms. She should have stepped forward. Should have interrupted, thrown the words back in Rowan's face, made her turn and see exactly who was standing there. Made her eat every syllable.
But she didn't. She stayed silent. Watching. Listening.
The three women remained oblivious Sara gesturing animatedly, Emma laughing, Rowan's posture unchanging, shoulders set in that perfect, infuriating line of control.
Isadora turned. Walked away.
Lexi spotted her first leaning against a pillar, mid-sip of champagne. Her grin faded when she saw Isadora's face.
"Dora? What happened? You look like someone just—"
Isadora cut her off with a single look dark, unreadable, burning.
"Nothing," she said, voice low and steady. Too steady. "Change of plans."
Jade straightened, brow furrowing. "You didn't even talk to her?"
"I heard enough." She didn't elaborate.
She simply walked past them, toward the terrace doors that led to the private outdoor space overlooking the park. The night air hit her like a slap when she stepped out—cold, sharp, cleansing. She gripped the railing, knuckles white against black metal, staring down at the city lights far below.
Angry. Disgusted. Hate.
The words looped in her head, each one a barb sinking deeper.
She should have felt triumph. Vindication. Proof that Rowan was just like the rest—judgmental, superior, quick to write her off.
Instead she felt… hollow. And furious.
Because hate from Rowan Blackwood didn't feel like rejection. It felt like a challenge. One she was no longer sure she wanted to win. But one she could no longer walk away from.
She gripped the railing harder, knuckles bleaching white against the black metal, staring down at the glittering void of Central Park far below.
Lexi and Jade stepped out together, champagne flutes still in hand, expressions shifting from playful to concerned the second they saw her face. Lexi's dress caught the terrace lights like fresh blood; Jade's silk shirt fluttered open in the breeze, revealing more chest than the party probably approved of.
Jade reached her first, leaning one hip against the railing beside her, voice low and teasing but edged with real curiosity.
"What now?" he asked, tilting his head to study her profile. "You're gonna think about that mature bitch all night? Fuck, I can't forget her body. Fucking tempting. Those curves in that dress? Like she's carved out of marble and sin at the same time. But yeah… with you."
He let the last part hang—half joke, half dare—his eyes flicking toward the glass doors where Rowan still stood inside, oblivious, back turned again.
Lexi came up on Isadora's other side, setting her flute down on the wide stone ledge with a deliberate clink. She crossed her arms under her chest, pushing the deep V of her dress even lower, and fixed Isadora with a knowing look.
"Isa thinking about anyone impossible," she said quietly, "but happening."
Isadora didn't answer right away. She exhaled once slow, controlled then turned her head just enough to meet Lexi's eyes.
"She hates me," Isadora said, voice flat, stripped of its usual venom. "Said it out loud. Angry. Disgusted. Hate. For the way I treated everyone in that trauma bay. Like her life was the only one that mattered." She laughed once short, bitter, almost soundless. "She's right. I was a nightmare. And she still saved me. Didn't even hesitate. Then wrote me off like trash."
Jade's smirk faded. He straightened, setting his own glass down.
"So what?" he said. "She's a doctor. Saving people is literally her job. Doesn't mean she has to like you. Doesn't mean you have to like her back."
"But I do," Isadora whispered, the admission slipping out before she could catch it. She looked away fast, back to the city lights. "I fucking do. And I hate that I do. She looked at me like I was nothing. No pity. No fear. Just… facts. And now I can't stop seeing her. That posture. That hair. The way she stands like the world owes her nothing. Like she's above all of this." She gestured vaguely toward the ballroom behind them. "Above me."
Lexi reached over, brushed a strand of dark hair off Isadora's face with surprising gentleness.
"Then stop pretending you hate her attitude," Lexi said softly. "You don't. You're obsessed because she didn't break for you. Everyone else does. Family, staff, dealers, us sometimes. She didn't. That's rare. That's… addictive."
Jade nodded slowly. "She's not some party girl you can buy or bully. She's solid. Unmovable. And yeah her body's a goddamn weapon. But it's the rest of her that's got you twisted up. The control. The disgust. The hate. You want to crack it. Make her feel something. Make her look at you again not as a patient, not as a Ravencroft, just as… you."
Isadora's fingers tightened on the railing until the metal bit into her palms.
"I heard her say she hopes she never sees me again."
Lexi's lips curved small, wicked. "Then make her see you."
Jade leaned closer, voice dropping to match the wind.
"Or walk away," he said. "Forget her. Go back inside, smile for the cameras, play the perfect little bloodline heir for one more night. Let her hate you from a distance. Safe. Easy."
Isadora's laugh was hollow.
"Safe and easy stopped being options the second she looked at me in that hospital bed."
She pushed off the railing, straightened her blazer sharp shoulders, rolled sleeves, the white shirt crisp against her skin. The bruises from the yacht restraints peeked out at her wrists like faint badges.
"I'm not done," she said quietly.
Lexi's grin returned slow, approving.
"That's our girl."
Jade lifted his glass in a mock toast to the night sky. "To the mature bitch who doesn't know what's coming."
Isadora spoke first, voice low and edged with something raw she rarely let show.
"I don't like her," she said, the words tasting like a lie even as they left her mouth. "I just wanna make her feel small. That no one gets to say I'm disgusting. No one gets to look at me like I'm something to be pitied and scrubbed clean. Especially not her."