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She glanced at his neck again. His trachey scar, thick and ugly, dominated the finer L-shaped scar. The thought that he might never have made it was suddenly appalling. She couldn’t help herself. She lifted her hand off the armrest and slowly reached out.
The roughness of his stubble grazed her fingers, and she shivered as they came to rest against his scar. Her other hand reflexively encircled her own throat as she pressed the puckered flesh gently, feeling it give a little.
‘Does it hurt?’ she asked quietly, mesmerised by the feel of it.
Alex didn’t dare move, didn’t dare even breathe as her finger brushed against his skin. It was such a fleeting caress, but he couldn’t remember being more affected by a woman’s touch. ‘No.’
His voice sounded huskier than ever, and she felt the rumble of it vibrate through her fingertips. His neck was warm, and she could see the bound of his pulse at the base of his neck. She stroked the pad of her thumb against it.
‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. We’ll soon be beginning our descent into Cairns. If you could follow the instructions of the cabin crew we’ll have you safely on the ground in about twenty minutes.’
Isobella blinked. She withdrew her hand, his skin suddenly scorching, and sat back, acutely aware of how close their heads were.
‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ she said, mortified, her face flaming. She stared at her hand in her lap, trying to fathom how it had ended up on Alex’s neck.
‘Don’t be.’
She glanced up at him. His blue gaze was gentle. And then Red came along and asked them to place their seats upright, and Isobella was glad to see her for the first time. Even her attempt at flirting didn’t irk—especially when Alex politely declined her invitation to drinks later that night.
It shouldn’t matter to her who he flirted with. But suddenly it did.
It was the worst kind of insanity.
CHAPTER FOUR
THEtop-floor suite Isobella had been allocated was breathtakingly sumptuous. A king-sized four-poster bed, Balinese-style, with a filmy white canopy that floated down the sides dominated the room. Layers of fat pillows, dark cane lounge chairs and earthy seagrass rugs added to the decadence.
A rattan ceiling fan circulated lazily, billowing the bed’s curtains. Dark wooded occasional tables were scattered throughout, displaying stone Buddhas. Vases of frangipani and rattan lamps added unique touches.
It had been years since she’d stayed in such luxury, and, looking around the room, she realised that a small part of her missed the trappings of her former life. The thought irritated her. She had done better work in the last few years than in all the years she had posed for cameras.
The conference centre was on the Cairns ocean front, and the one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view from her balcony was magnificent. She stepped out, admiring the tranquil swell of the ocean, the waves undulating rhythmically against the shore. The cloudless sky was fairy-floss blue, and it was hard to believe that a low pressure system was hovering a few hundred kilometres out to sea.
Isobella inhaled a breath of salty air, turning her face towards the sun. She thrived on her cloistered life in the lab but, like any good indoor plant, occasional exposure to the sunshine was vital for life. She just wished it hadn’t been Alex who had uprooted her and was now firmly planted in the next-door suite.
She wandered back inside and unzipped her bag, planning to unpack and then fire up the Internet and continue her literature search. On the top, carefully folded with a note pinned to it, was the dress that Carla had wanted her to wear to dinner the other night.
Isobella grimaced, detaching the note. Carla was nothing if not persistent.
This has cocktail party written all over it. Dance with McHusky for me. I dare you.
She touched it. The material felt cool and soft against her fingers. Tempting. Seductive. She felt like Alice, confronted with the ‘eat me’ note. Or Eve, staring down the serpent. Damn Carla and her meddling.
Isobella ignored the dress, pushing it aside as she pulled all the other garments out and deftly hung them in the wardrobe. It only took a few minutes, and she zipped the bag up again, still containing the dress and her scraps of underwear, stowing it on the luggage rack. Even if temptation got the better of her the dress would be too crinkled to wear. And Isobella made it a policynever to iron.
A sea breeze blew through the open balcony doors as Isobella sat at the desk and booted up her laptop. She could log on to work via her remote access password and continue where she’d left off. She felt resentment at being removed from the lab bubble in her blood. Every day away from her microscope was one day further from their goal.
