Julian stopped at the door, his hand still on the doorframe. A woman in seven-inch heels was rushing towards him, her face a mask of panic. Her name was Megan Hayes, a very close friend of Stella Lane.
"You must be the one who saved her," Megan said, her voice trembling with gratitude. "I can't thank you enough. Please—let me know if there's anything we can do. Medical bills, a reward, anything."
Julian's expression remained impassive. "Not necessary," he said, his voice flat. He didn't break stride. He walked past her and down the corridor, disappearing into the stairwell without another word.
Megan stared after him for a moment, stunned, then turned and burst into the hospital room, slamming the door against the wall.
She stood in the doorway, her chest heaving. Her usually impeccable makeup was slightly smudged, and her seven-inch heels looked like they'd been through a war zone.
Her eyes landed on Stella, pale and small in the oversized hospital bed, a thick white bandage wrapped around her lower leg. Megan's face crumpled.
"Oh, honey." She rushed to the bedside, her heels clicking frantically on the floor. She grabbed Stella's hand, her own fingers trembling. "Are you okay? I heard about the fire, I was calling and calling, I thought..." Her voice broke, thick with fear and fury.
The genuine panic in Megan's eyes was the first warmth Stella had felt in hours. A knot of tension in her chest loosened slightly. She squeezed Megan's hand back. "I'm okay, Meg. Just a cut."
Megan's gaze darted around the sterile room, her sharp eyes missing nothing. She sniffed the air. "It smells like expensive cologne in here. Cedar and something...smoky." Her eyes narrowed, landing on the glass of water and the crisp white card on the nightstand. "Someone was here. I passed a man in the hallway—was that him?"
Stella's gaze dropped. "A stranger. He pulled me out of the fire. His name is Julian."
Megan's phone was in her hand before Stella finished the sentence. "Okay, we need to find him. Pay his medical bills if he was hurt, a reward, a thank you gift basket the size of a Fiat. What's his full name? I'll run a search."
The image of Julian's cold, assessing eyes flashed in Stella's mind. The dismissive way he'd left the card. This was not a man who wanted a gift basket.
"Don't," Stella said, placing her hand over Megan's phone. "I don't think he's the kind of person who wants to be found. I already tried—he refused anything when I offered."
Megan reluctantly lowered her phone, but her expression quickly hardened into a familiar scowl. "Fine. Then let's talk about the person who should have been here." She bit out Preston's name like it was a curse.
She tapped furiously on her screen and then shoved the phone into Stella's hand.
It was a blurry video, probably filmed by a guest fleeing the party. But the image was sickeningly clear. Preston, his face a mask of heroic concern, bursting from the smoke-filled entrance, Breanna cradled safely in his arms.
Stella stared at the screen. The icy fist around her heart squeezed tighter, a dull, throbbing ache. Her fingernails dug into her own palm, the sharp pain a welcome distraction. She didn't realize she was drawing blood until Megan gently pried her fingers open.
"That absolute bastard," Megan seethed, her voice a low hiss. "That worthless, spineless, piece of garbage. I'm calling Page Six. I'm calling the Daily Mail. By morning, every person in this city will know that Preston Walton left his fiancée to die so he could save his little tramp of a stepsister."
"No."
The word was quiet, but it cut through Megan's tirade like a shard of glass.
Megan stared at her, confused. "What do you mean, no? Stella, he abandoned you."
Stella finally looked up from the phone, and the look in her eyes made Megan take an involuntary step back. The hurt was still there, deep down, but it was now overlaid with a sheet of ice. It was a cold, clear, calculating look Megan had only seen her use in the most ruthless of boardroom negotiations.
"Public humiliation is too quick," Stella said, her voice devoid of emotion. "It's messy. It makes us look like victims. I am not a victim."
A shiver went down Megan's spine. This was a different Stella. The soft, accommodating woman who had spent the last three years trying to fit into the Walton family mold was gone. In her place was someone harder, sharper.
"What do you want me to do?" Megan asked, her tone shifting from concerned friend to efficient executive.
"First, make sure no one knows I'm here. Not the Waltons, not the Lanes, no one. I want every record of my admission to Mount Sinai scrubbed. I was never here."
"Done," Megan said, her thumbs already flying across her tablet. She had the best PR crisis team in the city on retainer. Within minutes, Stella Lane would officially be a missing person.
"Second," Stella continued, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and gritting her teeth against the pain in her calf, "get me out of here."
"Where will you go?" Megan asked, rushing to support her. "Your apartment with Preston is a crime scene, and I doubt you want to-"
A bitter, humorless laugh escaped Stella's lips. "I will never set foot in that apartment again." She looked at Megan, her eyes burning with a new, dangerous light. "I'm going home. My home."
Megan understood immediately. The private apartment on the Upper East Side that Stella had bought before her engagement.
"I'll get the car," Megan said, already moving towards the door. "Meet you at the service exit in ten."
The door clicked shut, leaving Stella alone in the silence. Her gaze fell on the white card still lying on the pillow. Julian.
She picked it up, the sharp edges pressing into her fingertips. She ran her thumb over the embossed name, the memory of his cold eyes and his even colder warning echoing in her mind.
Don't trust your life to a coward.
The Lincoln Town Car moved silently through the congested streets of Manhattan. Stella leaned her head against the cool glass of the window, watching the city lights blur into streaks of gold and red. With Megan's help, she had slipped out of the hospital unnoticed, a ghost in the machine.
When she finally pushed open the door to her apartment, the air was cool and still, smelling faintly of dust and disuse. It was a minimalist space of glass and steel, the complete opposite of the stuffy, antique-filled penthouse she had shared with Preston. It was hers.
She sank into the low-profile sofa, the soft leather a welcome comfort. She pulled out her phone.
Thirty-seven missed calls. All from Preston.
His name glowed on the screen, a name that once made her heart flutter. Now, it just made her stomach turn. A wave of physical revulsion washed over her.
She didn't decline the call. She didn't even silence it. She simply turned the phone over, placing it screen-down on the glass coffee table, and let it vibrate itself into oblivion.
She looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the glittering, indifferent skyline of Manhattan. The city was a beast, and for the first time, she felt ready to become one too.
They would pay. Preston, Breanna, all of them. They would pay for every second of terror, every moment of betrayal. She would make sure of it.
