“This is going to sound unbelievably corny, Lark. I’ve been in relationships—I’ve even been married—but I’ve never found my soul mate. I guess my deepest fear is not finding that person.”
“Not finding your true love,” she said.
He nodded and looked down, bashful about his admission.
Her heart pounded. It was beautiful and a little scary, like going ninety miles an hour and driving with one hand—on a cliff-top road with a beautiful view.
Delicate bowls of black sesame ice cream covered with black truffles were placed in front of them. Instead of reaching for his spoon, Trip reached out and placed his hand over hers. He parted his lips to say something and then seemed to think better of it.
“Ten-second rule,” he said instead.
Lark could hardly taste her dessert, and it was still incredibly delicious.
Chapter Five
JESSICA
Don’t let anyone see how you make the secret sauce.
—“How I Lied about My Name and Discovered My Truth,” a TED Talk by Jon M. Wright
Hearing the lock unlatch, Jessica pushed open the tinted-glass door and stepped into a sleek all-white lobby. The only color—a pale-blue shadow—emanated from the Cancura logo spanning the back wall above the security desk. Jon’s frequent references to his company as a “start-up,” plus Jessica’s drive through the bustling, trendy West Loop, had led her to expect something a little more low-key. Instead, she’d had her name checked against a clipboard before parking in a lot ringed by tall black fencing, then presented herself to a video intercom at the front door. The building itself was a four-story brick warehouse identified by address only.
She had rehearsed her introduction, hoping her lofty new title would roll easily off her tongue—I’m Jessica Meyers, the director of medical monitoring and consulting—but that had been unnecessary so far. Her name had been enough for the guards in the parking lot and lobby, both older gentlemen who looked every bit the retired cops they probably were.
“ID?” this one simply asked, scrutinizing her Arizona driver’s license much more carefully than any TSA agent ever had, even running it under a black light. If this was how visitors and new hires were received, Jessica wondered how full-time employees were authenticated before entering the belly of the beast: key cards, laminated photo IDs, fingerprint and retina scans, or all of the above?
“I’m supposed to see Olivia Zsofka,” she said, offering the name of Jon’s executive assistant while the guard squinted at the state-seal hologram.
Then again, he seemed to know that already. Turning a touch screen toward her, he picked up the phone. “I have Ms. Meyers here to see Olivia.”
Jessica Meyers, she tapped into the electronic register. Under Title, she resisted the urge to add, Girlfriend of Jonathan Wright.
While she waited on a chrome-and-white-leather couch, feeling like an impostor, her chest tightened with panic and doubt. Throughout her residency, Jessica’s career fantasies had centered on an oncology fellowship followed by private practice. And then Jon had materialized in her world with his magnetic charm and a rationale that couldn’t be denied: Why spend your life fighting battles on your own when you can join me and win the actual war on cancer?
Their connection at the reception following his Phoenix presentation on the cutting-edge nanotechnology he’d developed—where he claimed to have noticed her in the crowd—had been immediate.
He’d been entirely accessible as he joined a group of residents so they could ask further questions, all of which he answered thoughtfully and patiently—especially hers.
“I’m curious about the results of your clinical trials.”
“You and me both,” he said, checking his phone. “I’m expecting a call from the director of one of the nephroblastoma studies any second.”
“You’re that far into development?”
“Things are happening at a mind-blowing speed.”
That had been more than apparent during his talk, when he’d immediately captured the audience’s attention by leading off with, Years ago, I had a simple idea: What if detecting childhood cancer was as easy as getting kids to take chewable vitamins?
Then, for a laugh, he’d crunched and swallowed a Flintstones vitamin, joked about how he preferred the orange flavor to grape, and delivered the kicker. My company, Cancura, is about to make this a reality. Health-care professionals can give their patients the world’s most sophisticated diagnostic tool to eat alongside their cereal. A short time later, our patented Revelate device will deliver the results without so much as a needle poke. What we’re talking about here is painless detection, long before the disease produces a single symptom. Cancer is curable when we catch it early enough.
“Won’t the kids’ teeth or stomach acids destroy the nanobots or whatever they’re currently being called?” asked a male resident with a superior air.
Jon had dispatched the question by saying, “We’re talking about particles that are much smaller than atoms. Have you ever gotten an atom caught in your teeth?”
That got a laugh.
“Where are you headed from here?” he’d asked when suddenly it was just the two of them. She felt stunned to even be in his orbit.
“I’m doing an oncology fellowship at Duke.”
“Too bad. I have a feeling you’d be a perfect fit at Cancura.” He smiled. “But I meant for lunch.”
Their relationship, working and otherwise, began at that moment. The romance was less of a whirlwind and more of a tornado—they’d gone to his hotel room that very night, where the sex was amazing and the intimacy even more so. Clearing his schedule and hers after spending a leisurely morning in bed, Jon proposed a hike to the top of Camelback Mountain, something Jessica had never gotten around to doing despite her years in the city. They timed it for sunset, and as she watched lights winking on across the valley with Jon holding her hand tightly,
