Page 114 of Sucker For You

Maybe she embarrassed him.

She wasn’t embarrassed. Isabel folded her salt-chapped hands on the tablecloth. A tendril of candle smoke spiraled between them. She waited.

Chase’s smile flickered. When a waiter arrived to take their drink orders, he discussed the merits of various red wines (but without asking their server’s advice; since this conversation wasn’t for her benefit, it must have been a show for the other diners) and selected a Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa. Somehow the wattage of his grin rebounded with the price of the bottle. “And we’ll start with oysters.”

“Sir.”

The Cabernet and the mollusks arrived with discreet speed.

Isabel touched neither, still waiting.

“So,” Chase swallowed a whole bivalve as the hostess passed by toward the restaurant’s noisy, twinkling deck with another couple (suit, diamond) and clinked his glass to hers, “you’ve hada nice getaway for a couple weeks. Some rest and relaxation, right? Wedding planning’s stressful. I get it. But it’s time for you to come back to San Francisco.”

Right?

“Like you’ve come back from Las Vegas?” she said.

“I was supposed to finish my R&D and marketing meetings on Monday. But I needed to see you sooner than that, babe. To—”

They ordered their entrees: king salmon, sunset beets.

“—clear up some misunderstandings.” He poured himself a second glass of the Cabernet.

“Oh.”

“I want you to be happy. I want everything to go back to normal, Bella. Like it used to be. Like it should be. Likeweshould be.”

Normal: her smiles and her silence, their routines together. Chase shining in the spotlight. The glitter of finance and beauty and success—and security. Ceretobicin. The performance of it all.

If they’d been different people, could this act of attraction possibly have led to love?

But they weren’t, and it hadn’t. Just utility, nicely packaged. Mutually beneficial. It had been that, at least.

Happy, though?

“Happy,” she repeated. “What would make me happy?”

“Coming home to the city. To me.Us. Away from—this.” Wine sloshed up the bulb of his glass with Chase’s gesture toward her: otter fleece, bare and unsmiling mouth, naked fingers. Her unflinching gaze over the candle centerpiece, too. “Stress isn’t good for your neural condition, Bella. You need to set the Ceretobicin up for success. You have to take care of yourself.”

“I am taking care of myself.” Flat, no glitter. She wasn’t quiet now, either.

“But—”

Salmon and beets slid onto the table and into their conversation. “Enjoy,” from the waiter, with a jazz-piano tinkle.

“In fact, I’m doing more than that,” she continued. Because honestly, what was the use in delaying the inevitable? It was already very clear that Chase had only come to Monterey to talk at her. Why should she be surprised? She wasn’t. “I’m also caring for one of BioPulse’s experimental octopuses.”

“What?”

“One of the cephalopods that the company is using to test the efficacy of its muscle-control drug. Hydromotinzate. One of the octopuses that it’s been—hurting.” So:what do you want?“I want you to stop that testing,” she told him. Chase was only a spokesman, but an influential one. She asked, “Can you?”

She’d expected to shock him.

She’d definitely expected him to prevaricate.

But Chase just tilted an eyebrow, smiled his indefatigable smile, and without even a whiff of hesitation, said, “Yes.”

“. . . yes?”