Chapter 1

ONE

N atalie Grant’s phone buzzed with its fifteenth reminder of the evening. She silenced it without looking, focused on arranging her cutlery with scientific precision. The quiet clink of silver against the pristine tablecloth provided a soothing counterpoint to the chaos in her mind—equations, molecular structures, tomorrow’s meeting with the mysterious new CEO of Vale Corp.

“Earth to Natalie.” Lillian’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Did you hear anything I said about Nick’s surgery, or are you still mentally reorganizing your periodic table?”

Natalie blinked, looking up from her place setting to find her younger sister’s bright green eyes fixed on her with familiar exasperation. Their parents’ faces held matching expressions of fond resignation across the intimate table at Le Bernardin. Her mother’s perfectly manicured nails tapped against her water glass—the universal signal for pay attention or I’ll start talking about your biological clock again .

“Sorry, I...” Natalie ran her fingers through her loose blonde waves, a nervous habit she’d never quite conquered. “I’ve got this breakthrough percolating, and the compound ratios?—“

“Are absolutely fascinating, I’m sure.” Eleanor Grant’s tone carried the practiced patience of a mother who’d spent decades redirecting her genius daughter’s attention back to the present moment. “But perhaps we could focus on family during family dinner? Unless you’d prefer I tell everyone about the time you tried to calculate the optimal trajectory for throwing your peas when you were five?”

“Mom!” Natalie straightened. “I was conducting important research on projectile motion.”

“You were trying to hit your brother with vegetables using mathematical equations.”

“And I succeeded.” Natalie grinned. “That’s called peer-reviewed research.”

Richard Grant chuckled, his salt-and-pepper hair catching the warm restaurant lighting. “Now, Eleanor, you can’t blame her for being distracted. Not with Vale Corp acquiring the company. Marcus Vale’s quite the business powerhouse—revolutionizing multiple industries, especially in biotech. Did you know their latest neural interface prototype?—“

“Richard.” Eleanor’s stern look silenced her husband mid-ramble. “Not you too. I swear, it’s like living with a family of brilliant goldfish. Ooh, science! Ooh, research! Ooh, look, more science!”

“Sorry, dear.” He winked at Natalie. “The science gene runs strong in this family. Though I still think Nat got an extra dose. Remember when she tried to optimize Santa’s route using advanced algorithms?”

“I was eight!” Natalie protested. “And that route would have worked if reindeer actually defied physics like the stories claim.”

“You made poor Nick cry when you proved mathematically that Santa couldn’t visit every house in one night.”

“He became a heart surgeon. He got over it.”

Lillian snorted into her wine glass. “Yeah, after trying to prove you wrong for three straight Christmases. I still have his crayon graphs somewhere.”

Natalie smiled, grateful for her father’s inadvertent rescue from the attention spotlight. She picked up her wine glass, hoping the conversation would drift to safer topics than her perpetual distraction or childhood attempts to apply science to everything.

No such luck.

“Speaking of proving things,” Lillian’s lips curved into a mischievous smile, “I know this brilliant neurosurgeon who’d be perfect for you, Nat. He’s doing amazing work with spinal cord regeneration, and he actually understands what you’re talking about when you go off on one of your scientific tangents.”

“Unlike the quantum physics guy?” Natalie raised an eyebrow. “The one who tried to explain string theory to me using pasta metaphors?”

“That’s not fair. He tried his best.”

“He compared quantum entanglement to linguine, Lil. Linguine . He said, and I quote, ‘If you cook two pieces of linguine in the same pot, they become eternally connected, like quantum particles.’ I nearly choked on my garlic bread.”

Eleanor dabbed her lips with her napkin, hiding a smile. “Well, he certainly showed... creativity.”

“He showed something, all right.” Natalie shook her head. “Did you know he also tried to explain black holes using meatballs? I haven’t been able to eat Italian food since.”

“At least he was memorable,” Richard offered. “Unlike that biochemist who spent the entire date talking about his mother’s cat.”

“Or the physicist who calculated the tip using differential equations,” Lillian added.

“That one wasn’t so bad,” Natalie mused. “His math was solid.”

“He took forty-five minutes, Nat. The waitress had to bring him scratch paper.”

“I don’t need help finding dates.” Natalie straightened her shoulders. “I’m perfectly capable of meeting people on my own. I’m focusing on the product launch right now. The new formula could revolutionize genetic compatibility testing, and with the company transition?—“

“You should focus on your work.”

The table went silent. Even the ambient restaurant noise seemed to pause. Natalie nearly dropped her fork, certain she’d entered some parallel universe where her mother—Eleanor “I have your wedding planned down to the centerpieces” Grant—had actually suggested she prioritize her career over finding love.

“I’m sorry.” Natalie made a show of cleaning out her ears. “Did you just tell me to focus on work instead of dating? You? The woman who once tried to set me up with my own Uber driver?”

“He had a PhD in computational biology!”

“He was taking me to a conference! And you somehow got his number and invited him to Thanksgiving!”

Eleanor shrugged, the picture of innocence. “I’m simply saying the right man will come along when the time is right.”