But feeling it here, in Manhattan, on a floor paid for by donors whose names were etched into glass walls, felt wrong in a way she couldn’t immediately articulate.
Above her, towering in silk and rage, stood Cassandra Whitmore.
“Look what you did to me,” Cassandra screamed, her voice sharp enough to draw blood on its own.
Cassandra Whitmore was a woman accustomed to gravity bending in her favor. At fifty-four, she wore her age like an insult she refused to acknowledge, wrapped in cashmere dyed a shade of pale blue that cost more than most people’s rent. She had checked herself into Meridian Crest’s Sovereign Wing for “nervous exhaustion,” a phrase that translated loosely to withdrawal, scandal, and the slow implosion of a life built on money laundering and social theater.
Seconds earlier, Ava had turned the corner carrying three patient files, already calculating medication windows and discharge notes, thinking about her son Isaiah’s tuition payment due in less than ten days. Cassandra had stormed out of Suite 712 demanding her organic chamomile infusion, furious that it wasn’t at precisely the temperature she preferred.
The collision had been unavoidable, a blind corner and two moving bodies.
Ava had braced instinctively, absorbing most of the impact.
