Out of Her League

Chapter 1

Isabelle

Some people found balance when they exercised. Other people read. Some people wrote. My best friend, Selena, loved photography.

For me, it was the operating room.

The cool air, bright overhead lights, and my thoughts. A steady stream of information and ever-changing circumstances. Moving

with an assassin’s dexterity but a sniper’s precision. Circumstances changed, I adjusted.

After over a decade of training, there was no place on Earth where I felt more capable than in here.

“Blood pressure one-ten over seventy, tracking up,” the anesthesiologist reported from the other side of the patient.

“Almost done here.” I glanced up to my attending, Dr. Thomas. The corners of his eyes—the only part of his face I could see

with everything else covered by masking and surgical garb—lifted. He nodded encouragingly.

I drew back to get a better look at the surgical planes, going through the mental checklist of all the steps in a compound-fracture repair.

In the OR, I was a maestro leading an entire symphony muddled with sounds of bone saw and the occasional cautery. The minutes

melted together and, in that time, every single piece of medical information I’d collected up to that point dovetailed into

an opus.

“He’s ready to close,” I called, glancing up at vitals. Heart rate, steady. Blood pressure, normal. Blood loss, minimal. I

took a quick, proud breath, and my shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit.

Coming out from the concentration felt like landing after a long flight—the palpable thump as the jet’s tires hit the runway

telling you that you were no longer floating.

The serene quiet lifted.

“Good job, Dr. Mercado.” Dr. Thomas helped guide a younger resident into appropriate closure.

Some people sang. Some people danced. I mended mangled bones.

And I was damn good at it.

I matched into the best orthopedic surgery residency in the country. I was always the attendings’ first choice to assist.

I was the first resident in my class to complete cases solo. I wrote the most research.

I had a future, a legacy, waiting for me.

Proof that all the sacrifices I’d made for this career were worth it.

I flicked a quick look at the clock and cursed silently to myself.

“I’m going to head to the floor,” I told Dr. Thomas. He answered with a nod, and I made my way out of the OR.

All the thoughts I hushed for surgery kicked back on. Without the overhead OR lights to dim it, the reality that the world

never paused was glaring.

I turned the corner from the OR anteroom, got changed out of my OR scrubs, and went through my post-op checklist in my head

while also trying to time how long it would take me to get to the bridal boutique.

I walked through the hospital on autopilot, the elevator doors opened, and I was met with the physical manifestation of everything

I had to do.

“We have seven post-ops, three discharges, and that trauma case you just completed is coming up from PACU in a couple hours,”

Ami listed off. She was waiting for me the second I got off the elevator.

Dressed in what felt like a uniform—mint scrubs, the fleece pullover all residents seemed to wear, and a mildly agitated smile—Ami

was the perfect junior resident. Always prepared, every question her juniors had was addressed, and if she didn’t know the answer, she’d expend every bit of energy she had to get the answer on

her own before bothering a senior resident.

“Great.” I threw my fleece over my scrubs, already freezing in the cold hospital air.

“That case you just did, it was the compound fracture, right?” Ami kept in step with me as we made our way down the hall,

her question bursting with at least ten more. “It’s probably a good one to recall for the—”

“Winthrop fellowship application?” I grinned. Ami reminded me of myself. When she reached my level of experience in three years, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.

“It was, and Dr. Thomas let me do the whole case.”

“Wow.” Ami practically mooned over the idea of completing a case start to finish. I was about to start my last year of a six-year

residency. And now, I was leading the surgeries. Surgical attendings acted as a watchful eye while I did what came so incredibly

naturally to me. “If you pioneer a new procedure, what will we call it, since the Mercado Technique is taken?”

My nerves ticked.

“I’m partial to the Isabelle Maneuver,” I joked, but the reminder sent a thorny prickle down my spine. I was the daughter

of two surgeons. My father, in particular, had made such a mark on the field that everyone either expected I’d be exactly

like him or assumed his daughter would fall short.

But I planned to be better. I planned to be the best.

And the prestigious Winthrop Reconstructive Surgery fellowship was how I would do it. It encompassed traumatic, athletic,

and pediatric reconstructive orthopedic surgeries. Deeply rooted in research and innovation, the surgeons who left that program

had entire methods named after them.

“Lucky.” Ami handed me the list of patients, which I gave a quick review as we made our way to the post-op unit. I folded

it lengthwise, then tucked it in my back scrub pocket. “I am itching for more OR time,” she said.

“It’ll be you soon enough.”

We walked over to the nursing station.

“Yeah . . . I know,” Ami said with a little doubt in her eyes, but nodded. “I’ll get the team.”

She walked off to the resident workroom at the corner of the unit to alert the rest of the team—the junior residents and a med student that I was ready to round.

That left me a second to think.

It would take a half hour to round, forty minutes if I ran to the boutique. Thirty if I took a cab that got stuck in traffic.

The subway would be faster, but it was a hot summer day and sweat-drenched was not how I wanted to look showing up to the

Lily Langham atelier.

I looked down at my scrubs. My appearance probably didn’t matter given what I’d be wearing.

I loved my work. Lived for it. Some days, the climb to the top was exhilarating. Others, I made the mistake of looking down

and realizing all that was left behind. Like today, when I was going to be outrageously late to my best friend’s final wedding

dress fitting.

The clock hanging over the nurses’ station taunted me with the idea of Selena at the boutique waiting for me, her defunct

maid of honor.

Again.

I sent a quick apologetic text to her, knowing she was probably expecting it given my record, and sighed.

Ami retightened the ponytail holding her long black hair back and pushed a few stray strands behind her ear. She gave me a

nod that everyone was ready to go.

“Okay.” I looked at the junior residents waiting for me to start. “Let’s begin.”

Sitting neatly behind precisely laid gray stone between a high-end jewelry store and a luxury mid-rise on Fifth Avenue, Lily Langham’s Manhattan atelier was closed to the public when they let me in through the storefront’s double glass doors.

“The bride-to-be is upstairs.” The design associate motioned to the stairwell that led up to the design studio.

I breezed past her and Selena’s bodyguard—who stood as solid as the stone facade next to the staircase—with a quick smile.

“Thanks.”

My best friend since college, Selena, fell in love with the closest thing to Prince Charming to ever exist and Henry Amari

proposed to her at the end of a sun-soaked summer in the Hamptons. Now, ten months later, they were making the final preparations

for the wedding in a few weeks.

This July at a castle in France.

“I’m sorry.” I rushed up the stairs and found Selena standing on a platform in front of trifold mirrors.

“What do you think?” Selena turned immediately when she heard the signature swish of my scrubs as I raced up the stairs.

“Wow!” I almost yelled, startling a few of the designers.

Selena’s long brown hair was loose over her shoulders. She was wearing an empire-waisted wedding gown with delicate lace sleeves

that stood brilliantly against her warm-sienna skin. The V-neck led to a bead-adorned bodice, then billowed into a skirt that

floated elegantly over her figure and trailed behind her. She looked like a romantic heroine from a novel. I took a few disbelieving

steps toward her.

Selena was always beautiful—whether it was in the skin-tight jeans we forced ourselves into as college girls or the office-appropriate dresses she opted for these days. But in this wedding dress, she was dazzling.

“You look like a princess.” I took her hands in mine and squeezed, having trouble believing she was the same person I met

twelve years ago in college. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

“Don’t be.” Selena squeezed my hands back. “I wasn’t alone. Henry’s sister was here for a while.”

“Oh, that’s so nice of her.” Guilt weighed on my chest like a lead apron. I was the maid of honor, yet I couldn’t be relied

on. In my tardiness, Selena’s soon-to-be sister-in-law filled in the gaps.

Selena and I had been pretty much a duo since college. After meeting Henry, Selena’s social circles had expanded dramatically.

His family and close-knit friend group had welcomed Selena in with open arms.

“I’m glad.” I ignored the bitter envy, because it was childish to think I was losing my best friend. She finally had the big

family she’d always wanted, and who was I to begrudge her when I was so hard to pin down these days? It was a feeling I was

getting used to. “The dress is perfect.”

And it was completely Selena. A romantic at heart who had locked it away for so long. This dress was the perfect celebration

of all her dreams coming true.

Quiet set over the design studio.

She looked down and turned her engagement ring on her finger. “I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

“Well . . .” She took a step off the podium and twisted her fingers around the lace along the fitted waist. “Henry’s list for the wedding was too short. He only included around seven people, so I had the planner get all the important names for his side from his mom.”

“Okay . . .”