Page 17 of The Medic (Dominion Hall #6)

SLOANE

T he women’s lounge at the Isle of Palms Country Club was the kind of place designed to soothe egos and blot lipstick. Quiet as a chapel, trimmed in blush velvet and brass, with a faint scent of Chanel and generational denial.

I locked eyes with myself in the gilded mirror above the marble counter and gripped the edge until my knuckles paled.

Breathe. Don’t break.

Outside, I’d played the part. Perfect posture. Polished replies. A smile so tight it could’ve sliced glass. But the second Marshall walked in like some golden god from my worst memories, the air had gone rancid in my lungs.

I didn’t come in here to cry—I didn’t cry—but I needed a beat. A moment without judgment, without Marianne's syrupy voice or my mother’s silent coaching across the table. A moment without his cologne creeping into my bloodstream.

Behind me, a stall door clicked open. A woman I didn’t recognize stepped out, paused at the sink, and caught my eye. Something about my posture must’ve given me away.

The quiet panic. The fight winding its way up my throat.

“You okay?” she asked, not unkind.

I forced a small nod. “Fine. Just needed a minute.”

She hesitated. Then her gaze flicked past me—and shifted.

Footsteps.

I turned just in time to see him walk in.

Marshall.

The woman blinked, surprised, but when he smiled and murmured something polite—too smooth, too confident—she lowered her gaze and slipped out without another word, the door swinging shut behind her like the end of a scene.

And then we were alone.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at me like I was something he already owned.

“What are you doing?” I asked, voice low but sharp. “This is the women’s lounge.”

He had the audacity to chuckle, stepping closer, as if the air between us hadn’t been poisoned years ago. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you in worse places, Sloane.”

That did it. I straightened, every inch of me snapping to full alert.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He shrugged, glancing at the door, then back at me with that same cocky, controlled smile. “I just wanted to talk.”

“No,” I said, stepping back. “You wanted to control the narrative. Same as always.”

That smile faltered. Barely—but I saw it.

“You’re still angry,” he said, tilting his head like I was some unruly child. “I get it. But you can’t deny the chemistry.”

“You’re right,” I said, my voice turning cold. “I can’t deny it. It was there. Right until you twisted it into something cruel.”

I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Not here. Not with him standing too close, his shadow long and familiar.

But the floodgates had cracked.

“You played perfect in public, Marshall. You made everyone believe you were the golden boy. Our friends. Strangers at fundraisers. But behind closed doors? You weren’t charming.

You were calculated. You didn’t yell. You condescended.

You didn’t hit. You humiliated. Quietly.

Expertly. And always with a smile. Thank God I never introduced you to my parents.

Although, that might have made today more interesting. ”

His eyes darkened. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” I said, my voice steady. “What wasn’t fair was the time you made me leave a gala because you didn’t like the way I laughed at someone’s joke.

What wasn’t fair was you deleting my friends’ numbers from my phone.

You always had a reason. Always spun it into some concern.

But it was about control, and you know it. ”

He stepped forward again. Too close.

I didn’t back down.

“Sloane,” he said, his voice dipping, “we were young. People make mistakes. I’ve grown. You’ve grown. Don’t act like we didn’t have something good.”

My jaw locked. “We didn’t have something good. We had something toxic. And you’re not in here because you’ve grown. You’re in here because you saw the look on my face and realized you weren’t in control anymore.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but I wasn’t done.

“I see you, Marshall. Not the shell you parade around in your fucking country club blazer. I see the man who needed me small so he could feel big. The man who ghosted me when I finally started to push back.”

He bristled at that, finally dropping the act.

His smile vanished.

“I didn’t ghost you,” he snapped. “You iced me out. With your independence, your sarcasm, your constant need to prove you were smarter than me.”

“No,” I said softly. “I just stopped shrinking.”

We stared at each other for one blistering moment, and the silence pulsed with all the things we’d never said.

Rage. Resentment. Regret.

And then—just as I drew in a breath, just as I prepared to leave this cursed room and this man and the memory of who I used to be—the door creaked.

And in walked the man from the ball.

His eyes swept the room once, sharp and stormy, and then landed on us—on me, on Marshall, on the tension thick enough to slice.

And everything changed.

Because he didn’t walk like a gentleman. He walked like a reckoning.

He didn’t walk like someone who needed permission. He walked like he’d already taken it.

That body—broad, coiled, commanding—moved through the blush-toned haze of the lounge like it wasn’t a powder room but a battlefield. And when his eyes found mine, something inside me locked into place.

It was definitely him.

The man from the ball.

The one who’d held me like a secret and fucked me like a promise. No mask now. No tux. Just dark jeans and a jacket, mouth set like he was one wrong word from wrecking someone.

Marshall turned.

“Can I help you?” he asked, all fake civility and puffed-up posture.

My mystery man didn’t answer right away. He just looked at me. Not in the way men looked at women in country clubs or over cocktails. But like I mattered. Like I wasn’t a showpiece or a pawn or a problem.

Like he remembered me.

Except … he didn’t.

Because I saw it in his eyes—confusion. Tension. He knew me. But not from the ball. Not from the bedroom.

He thought I was someone else.

And I realized—too late—so did I.

Oh, my fucking God.

I remembered now. That jaw. That voice. The truck.

He was the man from the airport.

Charlie. Just Charlie .

The one who’d picked me up when my driver didn’t show and hadn’t even flinched when I’d rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache. The one who’d driven mostly in silence, stoic and brooding, like he belonged in another life entirely.

I stared at him, heart punching against my ribs.

He was both. The man from the ball and the man from the truck.

And he had no idea.

“Didn’t realize this was a unisex bathroom,” Marshall sneered, trying to puff up beside me like a preening rooster. “Unless you’re here to powder your nose.”

Charlie’s gaze didn’t leave me. “You okay?”

Two words. Low. Steady.

They hit harder than Marshall’s entire existence.

I swallowed. Nodded once.

Marshall took a step forward, clearly not liking the attention shift. “She’s fine. We’re having a conversation.”

Charlie finally turned to him. The effect was instant.

Marshall straightened, instinctively pulling his blazer tighter, like that could protect him from whatever was brewing behind Charlie’s eyes.

“That so?” Charlie asked, voice smooth but lined with something sharp. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you followed her into the ladies’ room.”

“Do you work here?” Marshall snapped. “Because if not, I’d suggest you?—”

He didn’t finish.

Because Charlie stepped closer, and the space between them shrank to something dangerous.

“I don’t work here,” Charlie said calmly. “But I don’t need a paycheck to call out a predator.”

Marshall scoffed. “This is rich. You think you know something?”

“I know what cornering a woman looks like,” Charlie replied. “And I know what fear smells like.”

“I’m not afraid,” I said, voice quiet but firm. “But I am done.”

Marshall turned to me, mouth opening, but I raised a hand.

“I came in here to get away from you, Marshall. Not to relive every manipulative second of our relationship. You don’t get to hijack this moment. You don’t get to hijack me.”

Something flickered in his eyes—hurt or fury or both.

He reached for my wrist.

Charlie moved faster.

He caught Marshall’s arm mid-air, grip tight enough to turn knuckles white.

“Don’t,” he said.

One word. Deadly.

Marshall yanked his hand back like he’d been burned.

“This is ridiculous,” he spat, adjusting his collar like the problem was a wrinkle and not his personality. “You two deserve each other.”

He stormed out, blazer flapping, ego limping behind him.

Silence fell, thick as the tension that still clung to the walls.

I didn’t speak.

Neither did Charlie.

Finally, I broke the silence. “You’re him.”

His head tilted slightly, trying to piece together whatever puzzle I’d just spilled across the floor.

I stepped closer, every nerve raw.

He wasn’t just the man from the ball.

He was the one who’d picked me up from the airport in a beat-up truck and a T-shirt, quiet and unreadable, while I’d sat in the passenger seat silently judging him. I’d assumed he was blue-collar, beneath me.

And yet—he was also the man who’d arrived at Lydia Langford’s masquerade in a helicopter.

The man who’d left without a word after wrecking my body and my sense of reality.

The man who stepped in on King Street like violence was second nature and protection was instinct.

The same man. All of them.

And I had no idea who the hell he actually was.

He didn’t fit into any of the boxes I’d spent my whole life perfecting. He wasn’t Palm Beach or Charleston. He wasn’t a debutante’s husband or a socialite’s arm candy. He didn’t brag, didn’t ask, didn’t explain. He just did. Moved. Acted.

Protected.

And I’d treated him like an afterthought. A ghost. A mistake.

My cheeks burned with the memory of how dismissive I’d been, how certain I was of my superiority. Now the certainty was gone, knocked out of me by one long look and a lifetime of misjudgment.

He was more than I’d guessed. More than I could categorize.

I didn’t know what to do with that.

My words were soft as they tumbled out. “I was wearing a red dress. At the Langford ball.”

His eyes widened—just a fraction. But it was enough.

Everything shifted.

“You,” he said, like the word had gravity. “Sloane. You were the woman in the red dress?”

I nodded. “And you were?—”

“Leaving in a hurry,” he finished, voice suddenly rougher. “Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“Neither did I.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward.

It was positively electric.

What did this mean for me? For us?

“What the hell just happened?” he asked finally, glancing toward the door like he might still chase after Marshall and break his jaw.

I let out a breath. “Closure. Kind of.”

He looked at me then—really looked—and something passed between us that had nothing to do with bathrooms or masquerades or carefully plated salads.

Something that felt like fate—unfinished and inevitable.

I had no idea what was about to happen next. But I knew this: the game had changed. And so had I.

In an instant.