A/N: Because I keep getting messages about this, Rules of Attraction is back! This is gonna be a little different from the original because it's been, well, a while since I've written it, but I hope you guys like it just the same. And for those of you just now reading this, Lindsay does come in on a later date! For reference on Callie, look up Jodi Lynn O'Keefe and James Denton for Jesse Hunter.

Disclaimer: I own no one of CSI: NY. Just Isabella Pacino and any other character you don't recognize.

Summary: When opposites attract, sometimes, there really are no rules for attraction.

I've listened to preachers, I've listened to fools

I've listened to dropouts who make their own rules

One person conditioned to rule and control

The media sells it and you live the role

Mental wounds still screaming, driving me insane

I'm going off the rails on a crazy train

Ozzy Osbourne — Crazy Train

Isabella Pacino wasn't what some would call a 'people person.' And she definitely wasn't the high-society type. In fact, she avoided even travelling to any sort of crime scene in that area if she could, though she couldn't avoid living in it. She stood outside of a brick apartment building uptown with a grimace. She left early on a first date for this? Jesse Hunter was a very attractive lawyer that she'd met through one of her best friends. After a few months of flirting, she'd agreed to go out to dinner with him. When Isabella received the call to the crime scene, she'd been forced to apologize and had to leave.

"Hey, Pacino, nice legs. What time do they open?" a uniform cracked when she set down her kit. She rolled her eyes and tied her long navy blue coat closed to cover up the red halter-neck cocktail dress she wore.

"When your mother closes hers," she retorted. After all the fuss she'd put into getting ready, it seemed like a total waste to go to a crime scene. She saw uniforms surrounding Flack and pursed her lips. Isabella had worked with the crime lab for two and a half years and she tried to refuse to let herself get sucked in by the womanizer of the New York Police Department. But with the dry, sarcastic sense of humor they both possessed, along with a mutual love of classic rock among other things, it wasn't easy. "What did you do now?"

"Zip it, short-stack, I'm not in the mood. I just chased down a car that's got the bounce-back of a jellyfish," he told her.

"What kinda car was it?" Isabella asked, pulling a notepad out of her coat pocket. She glanced up at him. His dark hair was mussed, his white dress shirt open to show his muscular frame, and he was a bit scruffy. Her face warmed when she caught herself gaping at him. She'd been around attractive people her entire life; what was it about him that turned her from cool and confident into a babbling idiot?

"You're the car buff," he replied. "It just...looked like a James Bond car."

She perked up at that. "An Aston Martin?" she inquired. A blue-collar girl at heart, she knew a lot about a few things: forensics, horses, and cars.

"You're the car buff," he repeated. She grinned at him and wrote down his descriptions of the car as he listed them off.

"Would I have liked the car, Flack?"

"Short Stack, you would have flipped your lid over it."

And until Stella had called Isabella to interview Devon, the night had gone pretty well. Devon Maxford was a spoiled little rich girl in a candy store for raging cop fetishes. Isabella never felt more disgusted of anyone in her life. Even Flack looked a little embarrassed at Devon's gushing of the earlier events.

"What?" he asked her when Devon left the room. Isabella looked up at him incredulously. There were no words of her disgust.

"Nothing. She just doesn't seem to..." she let herself trail off. She shook her head to cut herself from saying what she was thinking. Devon didn't respect him one bit. She treated him like an accessory, like a dog she could cart around in her purse.

"You at least have the decency to cut yourself off. You should have heard how Callie berated me earlier," he commented. Isabella pursed her lips to hold her tongue. Callisto "Callie" Smythe was infamous for saying stuff other people were thinking.

"You don't wanna hear my opinion," Isabella responded. She crossed her arms across her chest, blue-flame meeting dark blue. "Because my mama raised me better than that."

"Let me guess. Whore with a raging cop fetish or just flat-out whore?" Flack snarled. It was her turn to get taken aback.

"I met her all of two minutes ago. What the honest hell would I know about Devon Maxwell or whatever the hell her name is?" she pointed out.

Isabella slammed the door shut to her apartment, growling in annoyance. She kicked off her black and white heels and hung up her coat.

"I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!" she declared to the quiet dimness of her apartment.

If you hate him, then why are you thinking about him again? that little voice in her mind asked. Don Flack was definitely the type of man she couldn't afford to pay any attention.

Ever since she'd met him, he'd had the power to cut her to jelly.

She saw a bouquet of dark red roses sitting in a glass vase on the granite counter-top. As an act of panic, Isabella's grandfather had told Isabella to live in his Park Avenue penthouse and pitch in with utilities. The building had a doorman and she appreciated the sentiment; she needed someone to look after her while she was off the clock. Her name was on a card in the depths of the sweet-smelling blossoms.

"Looks like you made an impression on Jesse," Callie's voice came from the back room. She lived with Isabella and Jess in the spacious five-bedroom space. "He called me up, singing your praises."

"I had a good time with him," Isabella replied, pulling the little card from the envelope, realizing it'd been opened. Sitting by the glass vase was a little white teddy bear with a little red heart perched on its little lap. She read the card aloud. "Isabella. So sorry our enchanting evening got cut short. Looking forward to seeing you again. Love, Jesse."

"Sorry, I had to read it. He got you dark chocolate truffles from Godiva. Didn't I tell you he was a total catch?" Callie said, leaning against the door-frame of her bedroom. Her ivory cocktail dress was loose on her tall, willowy frame and she stood barefoot on the plush white carpeting.

"He was really sweet and gentlemanly to me during dinner," Isabella replied, slipping the card back in the envelope and set it back on the holder. "These roses are gorgeous." It'd been a long time since she'd been spoiled silly on a date without being expected to 'hold up her end of the bargain' later. Jesse had been attentive and flat-out perfect. It didn't hurt that they were cut from the same cloth. The same way she came from a long line of horse breeders and mobsters, he'd come from a long line of cattle ranchers in Tennessee.

"I knew he was perfect for you," Callie crowed. She crossed her arms over her chest, surveying the petite woman before her. "Now if only Flack would listen to me about that whore Devon..."

Isabella's moony expression vanished at the sound of his name. She padded into the kitchen for a bottle of water. "Well, he's a grown man. If he wants to date someone who's clearly a badge bunny, that's his business," she responded.

"Devon's dad and my dad were best friends. I know that bitch like the back of my hand," Callie said sourly. Isabella rolled her eyes again and took a sip of the chilled water. "You met her, too, huh? She'll stab you in the back as pretty as you please. I'm pretty sure you have some down-home sayings about that, right?"

Isabella snorted. "What, just because my cotton ain't as high quality as yours doesn't make me some sorta bumpkin, Cal. I don't think she respects him at all, but I'm not gonna get involved."

"Honey, she doesn't even respect herself. She's the kinda girl who thinks it's a tease to wait till the third date to...you know," Callie said, gesturing wildly with her slim hands. Her blue eyes were glittering in irritation, her dark brown hair let loose from its earlier up-do.

"Dance the horizontal tango?" Isabella guessed. Callie cackled as she turned around to unzip the dress. Isabella pulled the zipper down the track to expose a black lace bra. "I guess a thief interrupted them before they could do it."

"Good. Flack might catch something from her."

When Callie disapproved of something, everyone knew about it. Her belligerence meant that she cared, unfortunately. Don knew that getting an opinionated friend was part of the package when he met Callisto Smythe. It didn't surprise him that she disapproved of Devon. Hell, Devon had her own opinion of the tall, willowy brunette and made it no secret that she detested her.

Stella hadn't voiced her disapproval, but it was in her green-gray eyes as she talked to him, along with Mac.

But Isabella was a different story. She started to say something, but cut herself off. She'd never been good at hiding anything and her pursed lips had said it all. He valued her opinion, merely because she didn't blow things out of proportion. She stated it, then let it go.

Don liked Isabella, he always had. The first thing he noticed when he first met her was her smile. It scrunched up her small nose and crinkled the corners of her pretty blue eyes.

He pulled out his phone and dialed her number. For what seemed like ages, it rang.

"Hello?" a sleepy voice rasped.

"Sorry to wake you up, but I wanted to apologize for jumping on you earlier. I asked your opinion and bit your head off when you almost said what I didn't wanna hear," he told her in a rush. It was three in the morning and his shift at the station started in four hours. Being cranky seemed unavoidable at this point.

"It's fine. I kept my opinion to myself because it wasn't very nice," she murmured.

"And thanks for that," he said.

"Hey, Don?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna go back to sleep now. See you at work tomorrow."

"Alright, short-stack. See you then."