Page 15 of The Medic (Dominion Hall #6)

SLOANE

T he parking lot of the Isle of Palms Country Club smelled like money and fresh-cut grass.

The kind of place where Teslas parked themselves and linen jackets stayed miraculously unwrinkled, even in ninety-degree heat. I sat in the back of Daddy’s town car, fingers curled around the handle of my Dior bag like it might keep me tethered to earth.

The driver—some man I didn’t recognize, which meant he was new—pulled to a slow stop beneath the portico and opened the door with a rehearsed smile.

“Miss Carrington,” he said.

I slid out, heels hitting the pavement like punctuation, and immediately regretted the sharpness of my outfit. White blazer dress, gold buttons, sunglasses that screamed limited release—perfect for a country club meet-cute. Or a photoshoot. Or a funeral, if you asked my soul.

My mother descended behind me in a floral silk wrap that floated like she was above gravity. Daddy adjusted the cuff of his monogrammed shirt and gave me an encouraging glance.

“You look lovely,” he said, tucking his phone into his inside pocket. “Elegant. Approachable.”

“Like a political wife or a showroom mannequin?” I asked, too brightly.

Momma’s smile didn’t falter. “Darling, you know we mean it as a compliment.”

“I always know what you mean,” I said under my breath, pushing my sunglasses higher up my nose.

We were escorted inside—past the hostess desk, past the smiling staff trained to notice wealth before names—until we reached the veranda. Shade-drenched, fan-cooled, and so perfectly manicured it felt more like a movie set than a dining patio.

The Hartsfields weren’t there yet.

“Right on time,” Daddy said approvingly, checking his watch. “Gives us a chance to settle in.”

He pulled out a chair for Momma like a scene from a manners book, and she sat with her usual champagne composure. I followed suit, arranging myself like furniture—legs crossed, back straight, chin slightly lifted. Presentation before emotion. Always.

They were a perfect pair, my parents. Not in the fairy-tale sense, but in the way two people who understood the rules of power could be perfectly matched.

He made decisions; she made impressions.

They rarely touched in public, but they didn’t have to.

Their language was subtler—lingering glances across fundraisers, coded nods across dining tables, the occasional brush of fingers when no one was looking.

Love wasn’t loud for them. It was legacy.

Steady, stylish, and so quiet it could almost be mistaken for cold.

I didn’t want that. Not exactly. But sometimes I wondered if I even knew how to want something else.

Something with mess. With teeth. With risk.

The kind that didn’t play well in press clippings or society pages, but still made you feel like you’d been struck by lightning.

“I know you don’t love this,” Momma said after a moment, reaching for the lemon water the server brought without being asked. “But it wouldn’t hurt to be open.”

“To what?” I asked, folding my hands in my lap. “A life of beige linen and dinner parties with people I actively avoid?”

“To someone who might surprise you,” she replied gently.

Daddy took a sip of iced tea, then set it down with a thoughtful clink. “Sweetheart, this isn’t an ambush. You’re allowed to say no. We just thought—well. He’s … promising.”

“They all are,” I murmured. “Until you realize they care more about their hedge funds than the woman sitting next to them.”

Momma tilted her head. “You sound like you’ve already decided he’s a bore.”

“I sound like someone who’s been through this dance before.”

Daddy looked at me then—not the way a strategist looks at a chessboard, but the way a father does when he’s trying to figure out where he might’ve gone wrong. His eyes softened. “We want you to be happy, Sloane. I know it doesn’t always feel like that, but it’s true.”

I blinked. The words felt almost too generous for the heat, the setting, the conversation I thought I was bracing for.

Momma reached for my hand across the table, her fingers cool and elegant, her grip surprisingly firm. “And maybe … we want to make sure someone is looking out for you when we’re not.”

That landed somewhere deep. Somewhere tender.

My chest tightened as I looked between them—this poised Southern power couple who had spent their entire lives building a legacy, curating a life of comfort and clout.

They loved me, I didn’t doubt that. But their love came wrapped in velvet expectations and gold-plated futures.

It was warm, but it was heavy. And it didn’t always leave room for me to breathe.

Sometimes I used to imagine what it would’ve been like if I hadn’t been the only one.

I’d begged for a sibling when I was younger—someone to share the weight, to roll their eyes with me behind Momma’s back during etiquette lessons or sneak chocolate truffles from the dessert tray before charity galas.

I used to picture a big, messy family with noisy dinners, hand-me-down stories, and the kind of inside jokes that came from years of shared chaos.

I wondered what it would’ve felt like to have a brother who teased me or a sister who whispered secrets across satin pillows.

But instead, it had always been just me.

Just Sloane Carrington—perfect, polished, and profoundly alone in a house built to entertain but not to nurture.

Before I could say anything else, the server returned to say the Hartsfields had just pulled in.

Momma re-applied her lipstick in one smooth stroke. Daddy straightened his collar. I took a deep breath.

Let the next performance begin.

The Hartsfields arrived with the kind of breezy confidence that only came from generations of inherited property and zero personal scandals.

Phillip and Marianne, both in their sixties but clinging to their forties with Pilates and peony facials, stepped onto the veranda in coordinated blue and cream—tasteful, nautical, forgettable.

Marianne carried a straw clutch the size of a novel and wore pearls like they were her birthright. Phillip offered a practiced smile, the kind that came with decades of board seats and country club diplomacy.

“Sylvia, Thatcher,” Marianne cooed as if we were old friends instead of old obligations. “Sloane, darling, you look positively radiant.”

I stood to greet them, cheek-kissing Marianne and shaking Phillip’s hand with just the right amount of grip—firm enough to suggest capability, soft enough to suggest demureness. The balancing act I’d been trained in since childhood.

“You’re too kind,” I said, letting my voice lilt upward on the word kind like it might cover the disinterest I couldn’t quite suppress. “Lovely to see you both.”

We exchanged the usual pleasantries—how mild the weather had been lately, how divine the chef’s fig and chèvre crostini was at the last event, how the garden was holding on just a little longer this year, wasn’t that something?

I nodded, smiled, contributed when required.

Polished, poised. A porcelain doll with a heartbeat.

Once we were all seated and a round of sparkling waters had appeared as if conjured, Marianne folded her napkin into her lap and delivered the line I knew was coming.

“Well,” she said, “Marshall sends his apologies. He was pulled into a business call, poor thing, but he’ll be joining us shortly.”

Marshall.

Of course, his name was Marshall. It practically came with its own trust fund and a closet full of khaki.

“Business never stops,” Phillip added with a chuckle, like that made him more charming. “Especially not in real estate development.”

My smile stayed frozen in place. “Naturally.”

Momma patted my hand under the table like I was a filly about to be trotted out for inspection.

“We were just saying how excited Sloane is to reconnect with Charleston,” she said, eyes sparkling with layered meaning. “And how much she’s been enjoying her time here.”

I blinked at her. Was that what we’d been saying?

Phillip turned toward me, his expression benevolent in the way men get when they think they’re offering you a gift. “You know, Marshall just finalized the acquisition of a beautiful estate off Tradd. Historic, of course. He’s very preservation-minded. That’s something rare in young men these days.”

I gave a tight-lipped smile and fought the urge to ask if Marshall also recycled and called his grandmother on Sundays. Because if we were building a fantasy man out of bullet points, we might as well go for sainthood.

“You must be so proud,” I said instead, sipping my water like it might wash away the discomfort. “Charleston’s fortunate to have someone so … invested.”

Phillip beamed.

And I sat there, wrapped in white linen and polite applause, feeling like a prize mare being gently led into auction. All I was missing was a ribbon around my neck and a certificate of lineage.

The conversation rolled on—about the renovation permits, the rising interest in Southern coastal portfolios, the gala at the Battery Museum next month.

Every now and then, a glance would flick toward the patio doors, anticipating Marshall’s arrival like a groom in a Jane Austen novel who was running just fashionably late enough to build suspense.

But I wasn’t fooled.

I knew what this was.

A setup. A transaction. A strategic alignment of legacies wrapped in designer charm. I could practically hear the mental ledgers being updated across the table. A Carrington-Hartsfield union.

Elegant. Traditional. Marketable.

And yet all I could think about was the man who hadn’t introduced himself. Who hadn’t made polite conversation or asked about my family tree. Who had taken what he wanted—my breath, my body, my thoughts—and vanished like smoke.

Marshall might show up in a freshly pressed blazer and say all the right things.

But he’d never make me feel like I was on fire.

Suddenly, the club’s veranda doors opened with a discreet whoosh, followed by a subtle rustle of movement behind me. I didn’t turn right away—partly because I was mid-nod at Marianne’s latest monologue about the Battery Museum’s restoration efforts, and partly because I was bracing.

But then I heard the voice.

“Sorry, I’m late,” it said, smooth and confident and just cocky enough to curdle my blood.

I froze.

Because I knew that voice. Had known it in bedrooms and in bars, in whispered lies and shouted fights. In tears I never admitted I shed.

I turned.

And there he was.

Marshall fucking Preston.

My ex.

The one who’d taught me exactly how charming a man could be before gutting you like a debutante’s reputation. Tall, golden, with a smile that could sign legislation and a soul like scorched earth.

I hadn’t expected him. I’d expected a Hartsfield—some buttoned-up heir with a double name and a house on Legare Street. But Preston? That wasn’t even the same bloodline.

Until I remembered—Marianne’s maiden name was Preston. Marshall must have been her nephew through her side of the family, not Phillip’s. A technicality that suddenly felt like the punchline to a very bad joke. I had no idea that snake of a man was related to Phillip and Marianne.

He looked even more polished than I remembered—navy sport coat, tan slacks, hair like he’d just stepped off a yacht commercial. Every inch of him screamed Southern gentleman.

But I knew better.

He saw me.

And for half a second, the smile cracked.

Just a flash—like lightning far off on the horizon—but I saw it. A flicker of something behind his eyes.

Recognition. Panic. Calculation.

Then it was gone.

“Mr. Preston,” Daddy said, standing to shake his hand. “Glad you could join us.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Marshall replied smoothly, shaking Daddy’s hand and then Momma’s, like he hadn’t once called me a fucking burden behind closed doors. Like he hadn’t ghosted me in D.C. after a year of empty promises and passive-aggressive silences.

And then—because the world was cruel, or ironic, or just had a fucked-up sense of humor—he turned to me.

“Sloane,” he said, like we were strangers at a gala, not two people who’d once shared a bed and a breakdown.

“Marshall.” I kept my voice as even as my heartbeat wasn’t. “It’s been … a while.”

He smiled. “Too long.”

Too long?

I wanted to throw my water in his face and ask if ghosting counted as time management, but instead I sat back down like the well-trained show pony I was.

Momma gestured to the chair beside me. “Why don’t you sit here, dear?”

Of course. Right beside me.

Marshall took the seat, his knee brushing mine, casual and calculated.

And I smiled.

Because I could already feel the mask cracking. The fury bubbling under the surface of my ribcage.

And because I knew— I knew —this lunch was about to become very interesting.