Page 19 of The Medic (Dominion Hall #6)

SLOANE

T he yacht rocked beneath us, a slow, rhythmic lull that should’ve felt luxurious—soothing, even. But nothing about this moment felt easy. Not with my body still trembling, my hair in his fingers, my mouth swollen from the kind of kissing that rewired your DNA.

We lay tangled on the oversized bed in the stateroom, sheets kicked to the floor, salt air curling through the open window. His chest rose and fell beneath my cheek, steady and warm, his heart beating loud enough to anchor me.

But I couldn’t stop thinking.

Not about the sex—we’d both survived and scorched from that.

Not about Marshall—he was out of my mind already.

But about the moment it all shifted. The second I’d realized the man I’d dismissed at the airport—the quiet one with the truck and the oil-smudged jeans—was also the one who’d wrecked me in silk sheets under a chandelier.

“You really had no idea?” I asked, my fingers tracing his ribcage.

“Nope,” Charlie said, voice gravel-soft. “None.”

I lifted my head, met his gaze. His eyes were still stormy, still watching me like I was something worth figuring out.

“And if you had known?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Just dragged his thumb along my jaw in a motion that felt like both a kiss and a confession.

“I would’ve thought I was hallucinating.”

I gave a half-laugh, half-sigh. “I was awful to you.”

“At the airport?” he asked. “Yeah. A little.”

I winced. “God, I was such a?—”

“Brat?” he offered.

I raised an eyebrow. “I was going to say ‘entitled nightmare,’ but sure. Brat works.”

His mouth quirked, but he didn’t let me off the hook.

“You looked at me like I was the lowest of the low,” he said, not unkindly. Just honest. “Like I wasn’t even worth a thank you.”

I closed my eyes, embarrassment prickling. “I was expecting a driver in a suit. Not a man who looked like he’d just rebuilt a motorcycle in a thunderstorm.”

“And yet,” he murmured, dragging a finger down my back, “that same man had you begging at a masquerade ball.”

I groaned and buried my face against his chest. “Please don’t ever say that sentence out loud again.”

“Why? It’s a good one.”

“Because it proves I’m an idiot with no instincts.”

He shifted so we were nose to nose, nothing but breath between us. “Or maybe,” he said slowly, “your instincts are just starting to work again.”

I swallowed.

Because it wasn’t just that he’d surprised me.

It was that he’d seen me.

Not the curated version—the glossy socialite, the brand-ambassador-on-demand, the polished heiress who knew how to hold court with a smile and a scandal-proof laugh.

He’d seen the cracks.

And he hadn’t looked away.

“You judged me, too,” I said, voice low. “At the airport.”

His eyes softened. “Yeah. I did.”

“What’d you think?”

He hesitated. Then: “I thought you were everything I didn’t want.”

That stung—but only for a second.

“And now?”

He brushed a strand of hair from my temple, his hand warm and certain. “Now I’m trying to figure out how the hell to want anything else.”

Silence fell. Not awkward. Just full.

My heart thudded against my ribs like it wanted to escape.

Because this wasn’t how things were supposed to go. I wasn’t supposed to leave a country club lunch with my ex and end up on a yacht with a man I couldn’t even categorize. I wasn’t supposed to unravel this quickly, or want to.

But I did.

God, I did.

“Charlie,” I said softly, afraid the next words might ruin everything. “Who are you?”

He went still for a second—one long, bracing beat. Then he rolled onto his back, eyes on the ceiling like he was looking for the version of himself that would make sense to someone like me.

“That’s a long answer,” he said. “You sure you want it?”

I nodded, fingers splayed across his chest. “I’ve got time.”

And so he started.

Not all of it. Not yet.

But enough.

And I listened.

Because for once, I wasn’t performing. I was choosing. Maybe I was finally choosing right.

He was quiet for a moment, like he was picking his words carefully—not to impress, but to tell the truth. A rare thing in my world.

“You asked who I am,” he said, his voice even, his thumb brushing a slow arc over my shoulder. “I’m Charlie Dane.”

The name hit like a dropped champagne flute—shocking, and then quickly obvious in retrospect.

I blinked. “As in the Danes?”

He nodded.

I sat up a little, pulling the sheet with me like armor. “Jesus. That explains the helicopter.”

He smiled faintly. “Among other things.”

I stared at him, mind reeling. I’d heard the name before, of course.

Anyone who grew up with money in the Southeast had.

The Dane family had a reputation that preceded them—part Southern dynasty, part military legend, with enough mystery baked in to keep Charleston’s rumor mill spinning for decades.

“But …” I shook my head. “I thought I would’ve been warned.”

He lifted a brow. “Warned?”

I gestured vaguely between us. “If my mother knew a Dane brother was single and not clinically insane, she would’ve thrown me at you like a bouquet.”

He huffed a laugh, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Maybe she has a type she prefers.”

My lips parted, then curved slowly. “Oh, my God. She probably thought ex-military men were too dangerous. Too rough. She wants someone with a weak handshake and a trust fund addiction.”

“Guilty on only one count,” he said, flexing his fingers in mock offense.

I snorted. “You know what I mean.”

He nodded, eyes scanning my face. “Yeah. I do.”

I stared at him, all of him, this man who somehow held both fire and stillness, rage and restraint.

I’d been raised to value pedigree. Profile.

Power. And yet no amount of finishing school had prepared me for a man who could throw someone against a wall one minute and hold me like I was breakable the next.

“So … the Danes,” I said. “I mean, I’ve heard stories. Y’all are like Southern folklore wrapped in Calvin Klein.”

That earned a real laugh from him.

“I’m the youngest,” he said. “Seven of us. Raised in a house where discipline was God and Dad was Zeus. We all served in the military—different branches, different paths. When we came back, we stayed close. Tight.”

“And now?” I asked.

“Now we run a few things. Properties. Security consulting. Private aviation, tech. Family holdings that keep expanding whether we like it or not.”

“So … you’re that kind of rich.”

He gave a slight shrug. “We were wealthy before we ever knew it. Then we got dangerous.”

I exhaled. “Right. That tracks.”

The silence that followed was weighty, but not uncomfortable.

I rested my hand on his chest again, right over his heart.

“I misjudged you,” I said. “More than once.”

He met my gaze. “Me, too.”

And there it was. A truth sitting between us.

I’d misread him completely. Seen him through a filter I’d never questioned. Because in my world, you were either polished or powerful. Rarely both. And never real.

But here he was—unapologetically all three.

And I wanted more.

He reached for my hand and laced our fingers together, then brought them to his mouth.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he murmured against my knuckles. “Not once.”

I swallowed hard.

“Same,” I whispered. “And it scares the hell out of me.”

He nodded. “Good.”

I let the silence stretch, our fingers still laced, the weight of everything unspoken filling the room like steam. Outside, the yacht cut through the water with elegant ease, but inside, my heart was an unsteady thrum.

He stared up at the ceiling again, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening, thoughtful. “Truth is,” he said, voice low, “I didn’t grow up with money.”

I blinked. “But you’re a Dane.”

He nodded once. “Yeah. Now. But back then?” He let out a breath. “We didn’t live in the mansion or have family crests carved into silver. We were just another military family trying to keep it together while Dad was deployed and Mom …” He trailed off.

I waited.

“She left when I was young. No warning. No goodbye. Just packed a bag and disappeared into whatever life she thought was better than ours.”

My breath caught. “Charlie …”

He shook his head, not for comfort, but to keep the facts from turning into grief.

“Dad tried his best. But he was a soldier, not a nurturer. He raised us like a unit. We trained. We fought. We learned to patch wounds and bury pain. That’s how we survived.

That’s how we became the Danes people talk about now. ”

My fingers squeezed his. “So your brothers …”

“Are everything,” he said. “Ryker, Marcus, Elias, Atlas, Silas, Noah. We’ve all seen shit—been through wars, loss, betrayal. But they’re my family. They’re the ones who showed up when it mattered.”

I didn’t realize I was crying until his thumb brushed a tear from my cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “That you went through that. That you didn’t have what I had.”

He gave a small, tired smile. “Yeah, well. Life doesn’t hand out even deals. But Dad did the best he could. And when he died …”

His voice shifted, dropped to something weightier.

“He left us money. More than we knew he had. A lot more. No one’s figured out exactly how he built it—not fully.

There are pieces. Properties. Shell companies that suddenly weren’t so shell.

Some ties to old government contracts that got buried deep.

Elias is still digging. We think he started something big before we were old enough to understand it. ”

I watched his face as he spoke—steady, but with the kind of tension that comes from carrying something too big for too long.

“We weren’t raised with wealth,” he continued. “But now? It’s like we’ve been handed this empire we didn’t build. Some of my brothers—Ryker, Elias—they wear it well. Like they were always meant to be powerful. But me?”

He exhaled, looking out the window at the stretch of endless water. “I still don’t know what to do with it. The suits. The clubs. The money. It feels like a costume I haven’t earned.”

I rested my hand on his chest again, fingers splayed. “You’re not pretending. You’re carrying it.”

His eyes flicked back to mine. “I was at the country club today because Elias told me to be. Said I had to meet with the family attorney, finalize some of the trust paperwork I’ve been avoiding. Said leaving it undone made us vulnerable.”

“And you hate the club scene,” I said, remembering his discomfort, the sharp contrast between his presence and the polished tables and pressed collars.

He nodded. “I’d rather be working with my hands. Mending broken bones and setting tourniquets. Or flying. But I went anyway. For them.”

And suddenly, so many things clicked. The blunt edges. The quiet strength. The way he’d carried himself like he didn’t owe anyone anything—but still showed up, anyway.

For his brothers. For the legacy.

For more than just himself.

He looked at me then, and something in his gaze cut deep. “You think you had it easier?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

“Your life looks good on paper,” he said. “But I see it. The weight. The performance. The way you wear that polished smile like a uniform.”

I nodded, because he wasn’t wrong.

“My parents love me,” I said. “I don’t doubt that. But they don’t see me. Not really. They see the version of me they curated. The one who fits into their world of fundraisers and foundation galas. I was born into a life where appearances weren’t just important—they were everything.”

I laid my head on his chest again, heart aching in ways I didn’t expect.

“I used to think being raised with money meant I was lucky,” I said. “But it turns out, legacy can be just as lonely as abandonment.”

He kissed my forehead, slow and firm. “You’re not alone now. You’re mine.”

It was a simple thing. A quiet thing. But it cracked something in me wide open.

I lifted my head, met his gaze, and for the first time in years, I felt seen. Not marketed. Not molded. Just me.

Raw. Uncertain. Real.

“I don’t know what this is,” I whispered. “You and me. But it doesn’t feel small.”

He shook his head. “It’s not.”

And then he kissed me again.

Not like a Dane. Not like a Carrington.

But like a man who’d seen war and a woman who’d survived expectation—and both of us still wanting more.

The boat rocked gently beneath us, but the world felt perfectly still.