When Ice meets Fire (and Trips on Her Dress)

"Love doesn't knock. It crashes. Usually into expensive suits."

---

Three Hours Earlier – Blackthorn Enterprises

"Someone tried to hack our hospital donation server last night."

Lucien Blackthorn didn't look up from his tablet.

"Motives?" he asked, voice cold as surgical steel.

"No demand for ransom," said Kade, shifting uncomfortably. "Whoever did it didn't steal money. They just… looked around."

Lucien's brows lifted slightly. "Looking around inside my system is still breaking in."

Kade hesitated. "And they left a message."

Lucien's eyes flicked up. "Go on."

Kade tapped his phone and read aloud, "'Not all angels have clean wings. Ask your keynote speaker tonight.'"

A beat of silence.

Lucien's jaw tightened.

"Background check her again," he said. "All of it."

---

Present Time – Blackthorn Gala

Elaina Rivers hadn't meant to come.

She'd faked a fever. Faked a flu. Considered faking her own kidnapping.

But Tara—the nurse with a God complex and glitter eyeshadow—threatened to drag her in by the elbows wearing a tutu if she bailed.

So now here she was.

In a dress that whispered bad decisions and heels that wanted her dead.

The gala sparkled like a fairy tale written by someone drunk on champagne and generational wealth.

Gold chandeliers. Laughs that smelled like Botox. And the kind of floral arrangements that cost more than her car.

Elaina adjusted her dress for the fiftieth time. "Why does this thing feel like it's trying to strangle my dreams?"

Daisy, her co-conspirator in medical chaos, grinned beside her. "Because you look like a goddess and the universe isn't ready."

"I should be in bed. With my weighted blanket. Watching true crime and eating cereal."

"Elaina," Daisy said, turning her toward the ballroom doors, "You are the hospital's golden girl tonight. Give your speech, eat the shrimp, don't fall in love with the wrong billionaire."

"Oh, please. Like that would ever happen."

Cue: The doors opened.

And the universe laughed.

Lucien Blackthorn stepped inside like sin in a suit.

---

From Across the Room

He moved through the crowd like gravity obeyed him. Dark tailored suit, expression carved in frost, and eyes that could melt steel—or freeze it.

Elaina forgot how lungs worked.

"That's him," Daisy whispered. "Lucien Blackthorn."

Elaina blinked. "The iceberg king? That Lucien?"

"That's the one who funds half the hospital."

Elaina's mouth moved before her brain. "Daisy… I think I'm in love."

"You've never met him."

"He's a vampire king in exile. You can feel the tortured backstory radiating off him."

"You are projecting."

"I want to hand him a cup of cocoa and say 'you're safe now.'"

"You need therapy. Maybe two kinds."

But Lucien Blackthorn was no fantasy.

He was stormclouds and command and the quiet power of a man used to owning the room.

He didn't smile. Didn't wave.

He made eye contact with no one—until, impossibly, his gaze flicked toward her.

Just for a moment.

Then gone.

Elaina nearly dropped her champagne.

---

Meanwhile – At the Other End of the Ballroom

Kade leaned in, whispering. "That's her. Elaina Rivers. The one who's speaking tonight. And maybe the hacker's target."

Lucien didn't react. "She tripped entering the hospital gala last year, didn't she?"[Yes ,last year both were there too but Elaina was too busy tripping herself that she didn't notice him.moreover she didn't know a man named Lucien Blackthorn existed]

"Three times. One was into a dessert table."

Lucien's gaze was unreadable. "She doesn't look dangerous."

"She looks like trouble wrapped in lace."

"Same thing."

---

Back to Elaina… and Gravity's Betrayal

Fueled by a second glass of champagne and the distant echo of her dignity, Elaina marched toward Lucien Blackthorn with every intention of saying something intelligent.

She didn't even get the chance.

Her heel snagged the carpet.

Time slowed.

She lurched forward.

And slammed directly into a wall of man.

Lucien's arm caught her on reflex, firm and unyielding.

She clung like a kitten thrown at a glacier.

"I—Hi—Tripped—not stalking—Elaina Rivers—speaker—not drunk—okay maybe slightly—"

Lucien looked down with all the emotion of a bored thunder god.

"You're the speaker?"

"Yes," she squeaked. "Please don't fire the hospital."

A blink. "Why would I—?"

"I panicked," she muttered.

Lucien gently detached her hand from his sleeve. "Watch your step."

Ouch.

She laughed nervously. "My feet hate social events. They're rebels."

Silence.

Lucien simply gave her a polite, lethal nod and turned away like she was a mildly interesting breeze.

---

Daisy Returned Like a Judgmental Ghost

"So? How'd that go?"

"I just tripped into Mount Everest and wanted called him King Charming but he left before that."

Daisy blinked. "Did he laugh?"

"He breathed."

"Elaina. Baby. You need to stop falling for men who look like emotionally constipated Greek statues."

"I love him."

"You don't even know him."

"I know his energy. I'm telling you. He's emotionally constipated but secretly wants love. I am that love. We're a sitcom and a tragedy waiting to happen."

Daisy sighed. "This is worse than the orthopedic surgeon you tried to flirt with using bone puns."

"That was just casual flirt but he laughed."

"He was under anesthesia."

---

Later – In the Car

Lucien tapped his phone.

Kade leaned from the front seat. "She's clumsy, brilliant, loved by patients. A little messy."

Lucien's reply was crisp. "Not my type."

"But you looked at her like you were… processing."

Lucien didn't respond.

Outside the window, the city passed like a blur of neon and shadows. But his mind remained tangled in a voice—awkward, warm, a little chaotic.

And a warning.

Ask your keynote speaker tonight…

He closed his eyes briefly.

Was Elaina Rivers just an eccentric doctor? Or something else?

And He realised the hacker earlier was none other than this chaotic doctor. But he decided to let it slide cause eventually she did not mean any harm.

---

Back at Her Apartment – Midnight

Elaina flopped on her bed dramatically.

"I am never going to recover."

She tossed her heels into the corner like a declaration of war.

"I touched him. I touched Mount Glacial CEO. And I survived."

She buried her face in a pillow. "God, please let him have at least noticed me."