Sucker For You

Chapter 1

Crash, went the waves.

Crash, went her heart.

Ripples of kelpy air stirred the San Francisco Bay as its tides encroached on the city’s shoreline.

The surf exhausted itself under the balcony of the St. Francis Yacht Club, and its spumy exhale blew upward from a mussel-crusted sand spit, mingling with the heat of bodies and champagne that issued from a set of double doors leading into the club’s private dining room.

The sea breeze feathered over Isabel Wright’s shoulders and along her bare back.

It was cold and comforting against the hot beat of her pulse, filtering through her ivory sheath dress where she stood in a sliver of shadow beyond the chandeliers and candle centerpieces behind her.

In the ten minutes she’d been gone from her wedding shower, the noise had escalated, increasing with the amount of champagne being circulated among the celebrants.

Loud. Crowded.

Breathe.

But everyone—guests, the Meyers, especially her fiancé Chase—would expect her, and the glittery halo circling her fourth finger, back on Chase’s arm soon.

Photographs, congratulations, and introductions were necessary tonight.

This was their final public showcase before the wedding at the end of September; Chase was scheduled to fly to the Las Vegas headquarters of BioPulse Pharmaceuticals on Sunday.

She’d return inside after just another minute spent calming her anxious heart, staring at the floodlights that winked through ribbons of fog from Alcatraz Island. . .

“Bella, babe!”

Drawing a last breath, she turned from the water, into Chase’s arms.

“What are you doing out here?” His wide, white smile, not to mention his dark hair and sharp jaw, could have given palpitations to most women (and dentists of all genders).

One hand cupped her elbow to guide her into the dining room.

The other toyed with the crystal embellishments on her dress, where its plunge exposed her spine.

She returned his smile but didn’t answer, and he didn’t pause.

“Let’s get you some champagne. I’ve got people for you to meet.”

Plucking two chilled flutes from a waiter, he steered her by a gifts table laden with bulging envelopes and packages, by his mother discussing the approaching East Bay Garden Society gala with a group of well-groomed women, and toward a knot of guests in business suits.

Chase passed both flutes to Isabel while he exchanged handshakes with the men and more smiles with the women, before folding his arm around her again.

“Babe, these are the guys from BioPulse. Guys, Bella. You met Dan and Chad when you were modeling for one of the Ceretobicin brochures, right?”

Several of the men looked familiar. Most of the pharmaceutical and medical representatives she’d met over the past few years tended to blend together, however.

These people at tonight’s wedding shower were no different.

Fortunately, Dan, Chad, and their colleagues spared her the need to enter their conversation, because Dan—or maybe Chad—winked at Chase and raised a glass.

“Is she going to be the face of our ataxia drug, too?”

“What’s corporate calling it now? Hydromotinzate?” from one of the women.

“Had to get the name trademarked before clinical trials start next year.”

“Now Marketing needs a visual.”

Their scrutiny turned back on her.

She swallowed and forced her own smile to stick under their attention.

After all, this smile was why no one expected her to speak much.

Not when she was so quietly attractive on Chase’s arm, calling attention to him without drawing interest to herself—and anyhow, with her hair twisted into an intricate chignon, she had nowhere to hide.

But she’d never meant to feature in BioPulse’s brochures for an experimental migraine medication, let alone Hydromotinzate, a drug that reversed loss of muscle control.

She didn’t want to do another marketing shoot.

So maybe it was fortunate that before she had to mumble a denial, or before Chase could make promises on her behalf, a photographer pushed a lens into their group, demanded a “Cheese,” and snapped a picture.

Flash.

The harsh, disorientating explosion crashed over her. Black spots swarmed her vision.

“Beautiful, beautiful!”

N-no—breathe.

She bit her tongue, and didn’t drop her glass.

If her lurch ran her into Chase’s shoulder, it also saved her from a caterer’s passing tray, the bearer somehow navigating in stilettos while serving an obscene amount of seafood: potato cakes topped with smoked salmon and crème fra?che, cucumber-prawn cocktail cups, and tiny crackers with mackerel paté.

The sight turned her stomach. Again: breathe.

She tucked her forearms against her ribs when a second photographer swooped around, followed by another caterer, then guests with jostling shoulders and more unsteady footwear.

Breathe, breathe. As the conversation continued, she touched her lips to her glass to avert any additional questions directed her way by the BioPulse representatives.

But there weren’t any. Not when the champagne flowed and there were endorsements to discuss.

“Marketing’s aiming to recruit healthy Phase One participants in January, with trials for safety and tolerability starting in late March.”

“Executives are gunning for a fast launch.”

“Any candidates, Meyer?”

“I’ve been talking up Hydromotinzate to UCSF’s head of neurology,” Chase said, with his patented grin and a slug of bubbles. “I’ve got a potential roster.”

“And it’s still only September!” A clap on Chase’s shoulder reverberated through Isabel’s body, too. “Glad we stopped by. Also, congratulations. Now—after this thing’s over, any plans?”

Why were the BioPulse reps here?

Maybe Karen Meyer had invited her son’s colleagues—doctors in the San Francisco Medical Center’s neurology ward, a few hospital administrators, and the pharmaceutical representatives—to make up for Isabel’s own lack of approved additions to the guest list. She could number the people she knew tonight on little more than five fingers.

That included Chase, his parents, plus Chase’s younger brother, Ethan (“awkward loner”)—a soft-spoken physicist with a firm handshake and a service golden retriever—whom she’d met that afternoon, and Ethan’s partner, Dr. Erin Monaghan (“ball-buster”).

Ethan and Erin had barely stayed for the toasts before vanishing into the yacht club’s pool room. When Isabel had slipped away to the balcony, she’d spotted them elbowing each other over the felt-topped table to take shots, arguing and laughing about momentum, velocity, and who wasn’t playing fair.

She’d left the pair trying to retrieve a cue ball from Ethan’s dog, and retreated.

Now she scanned the dining room, seeking any other familiar faces while Chase’s networking continued, peppered with interjections about San Francisco’s best nightlife options.

None. But the photographers were getting bolder as the alcohol poured freely.

The noise level kept rising, Chase downing yet more champagne while discussing the red tape of conducting experimental drug trials at UCSF.

“Working in a private practice will make these kinds of trials easier. Better and faster care for patients, and more—”

“—lucrative for you.”

“A good deal all around. UCSF’s got so much bureaucracy, and I know I can—”

She didn’t hear the rest of his plan. Not when a new photographer thrust a camera straight into her face.

Flash.

Her vision sizzled a second time. A vein of feverish warmth crept over her scalp, under her eyelids.

No—not tonight!

She exhaled slowly, fighting her own heartbeat. “Chase, I’m going to. . .”

“Can you grab a couple more prawn cups, babe?”

Nodding, she slipped from under his arm, before immediately ducking lower still to dodge a catering tray of bruschetta slices topped with baby octopus tentacles. The meat was flushed red and scarred with grilling.

“Oops, sorry!”

Bile surged into her throat. She’d get the prawn cups later. “Uh—bathroom?”

“Down the hall on your right.”

She swerved to avoid additional photographers, through the dining room doors, and past a decorative aquarium in the hall.

The water burbling through its pump smelled sour, recognizable as the scent of sea anemones in distress.

The tank’s LED lighting was tropically bright.

But maybe the water chemistry was the wrong pH for its organisms? She almost paused.

Her temples throbbed.

No—no time to waste by searching for crushed coral additives.

“Sorry,” she whispered while she pushed through the club’s recessed bathroom door, into a lounge with piped-in classical music and orchids, then through a second door to the stalls and sinks. She fumbled in her clutch. Her clammy fingers located a medicine bottle.

“Ceretobicin: Patent Pending.”

She tapped out a pill for BioPulse Pharmaceuticals’ experimental migraine medication and washed it down with water from the tap.

Her hands shook. Splashing droplets speckled the sink’s marble counter.

The cold seized in her throat. She drank again.

She couldn’t afford an episode. She couldn’t afford the blindness and the excruciating nerve pain.

Not tonight.

The expiration date on her medicine vial was August of next year.

Her visa expired in that same month.

Karen had scheduled Chase and Isabel’s shower for the first night of September.

Their wedding was booked at the Officers’ Club in the Presidio for the thirtieth.

Isabel’s own immigration timeline was unforgiving, too strict to admit disruptions or delays; Chase’s irritation with the United States’ protracted red tape processes wasn’t unfounded.

Because even if everything went according to Karen’s plans and her own, there were still ten months of paperwork and waiting after the ceremony before she would be safe, could be sure—

Fresh anxiety convulsed her stomach.

No.