Page 3 of Sucker For You

Fresh anxiety convulsed her stomach.

No.

Knocking the faucet on again, she flicked water over her face and neck.

Not tonight, not tonight.

Mascara was now smeared across her cheeks. But after a few chilly plunges, the pressure in her temples and her gut eased a little. Dark pinpricks cleared from her vision. She was left to confront not the skull-splitting pain of a headache, but her own reflection. Threads of pale hair had slipped loose from their knot and clung against her jaw. Her eyebrows and eyelashes had faded back into invisibility. Her skin and dress were stained with wet cosmetics.

Chase couldn’t see her like this.

No one could.

No one could suspect her of being anything except transcendently happy tonight with her handsome, charming neurologist fiancé. Despite blotting herself and the counter with a wad of scented paper towels, she looked as if she’d been crying.

Would anyone believe her if she quite truthfully denied it?

They all wanted her smiles. Not her tears. Or screams.

When the exterior door into the lounge swung open a minute later, she ducked into a toilet stall. She stayed there as the second door ricocheted hard off its stopper, followed by two sets of footsteps entering the bathroom.

“Is there anyone—”

“No, looks empty.”

The voices were muffled with kissing, sloppy with saliva, reeking of alcohol: a man’s deep breaths and a woman’s pitchy gasping.

A zipper slid down.

Foil crinkled.

Squatting on the lid of her toilet so that her rickety heels wouldn’t peek out under the stall door, Isabel exhaled through her nose while the couple proceeded to enjoy themselves up against the sinks (a faucet squeaked on), the walls (a paper towel dispenser excreting its goods joined the moaning), and even the doors to the row of stalls (disgusting).

“Yeah, baby—”

“Uh,uh—”

How much was the woman exaggerating her delight at being slammed up against a toilet stall? Isabel considered this while the partitions quivered. . . before eyeing the lock to her own stall with more concern. The couple was now thrusting against her door. Its lock vibrated under their rhythm, the metal slide rattling inch by inch from its catch. She angled herself to reach for it.

But not fast enough.

A vigorous onslaught jolted open the lock.

The door swung inward, revealing the coupled pair to her, and her to them: a caterer with familiar stilettos, thighs wrapped around Dr. Chase Meyer Jr.’s hips.

What?

Horror and revulsion pulsed through her.

No, no, no!

Averting her eyes from Chase’s gaping belt, she stumbled down off the toilet, out of the stall, shuddering when she couldn’t avoid brushing her body past theirs in her rush for the exit.

Chase caught at her arm. “Babe—”

Her muscles reacted instantly and instinctively, twisting to rid themselves of his touch—and then she wrenched open the lounge door. She crashed past orchids and armchairs, toward the club’s ailing aquarium and dining room.

“Bella, wait!”