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‘Ring my wife,’ Reg whispered to Isobella, pulling the oxygen mask aside.
‘Yes, I will.’ Isobella nodded, her anxiety increasing at the grey tinge to Reg’s skin.
‘I’m going with him,’ Alex said to her.
‘I’m so sorry about the symposium,’ Reg groaned as they locked the stretcher into place.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Alex dismissed. ‘Nothing is more important than getting you better.’
‘You can ride in front,’ the paramedic said to Alex as she slammed the back doors.
Alex nodded. He turned to Isobella. ‘Well, that’s one way to break up a party.’
Isobella gave him a weak smile as his voice scratched along her taut nerves. The adrenaline that had surged into her system during the crisis was making her even more sensitive to its sinful eroticism.
‘Thanks for your help tonight.’
‘It was nothing,’ she dismissed.
He nodded. The ambulance engine roared to life. ‘I need a favour,’ he said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.
Isobella hesitated, wary of the sudden gleam in his too intriguing eyes. ‘Okay…?’
‘I need you to come to Cairns with me.’
Isobella blinked.What the—? ‘No.’
‘It’s not a request.’ Alex grinned at her increasing look of horror. ‘I’ll have the tickets transferred,’ he said, turning away.
Isobella gaped at him, watched him climb into the cab.No way. No way was she going away for a week with him.
Absolutely not.
CHAPTER THREE
‘GOODmorning, this is your captain speaking. Thank you for joining us today on Flight 103, bound for sunny Cairns. We’re currently cruising at an altitude of…’
Isobella closed her eyes and let the announcement flow around her, still unable to believe she was sitting in a first-class seat, with Alex’s arm occasionally brushing against hers.
‘So you’re just going to ignore me for the next two hours?’
The sound was low and husky near her ear, his warm breath fanning her cheek. Isobella gripped the arm of her chair and cursed her body for the blatant physical reaction his voice evoked.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, mustering a quiet resilience. ‘Yes.’
Alex laughed as Isobella shut her eyes again. He examined her face. Her bone structure really was magnificent. Not even her horrible glasses could disguise the classic features. ‘Anyone would think I’d asked you to Outer Siberia instead of on a first-class ride to one of Australia’s premier tourist destinations.’
Isobella felt the slow flare of goosebumps individually prick at her skin and the languorous hardening of her nipples within the confines of her pink Chantilly lace bra.Must he speak?
‘Most women would be ecstatic.’
She opened her eyes and pinned him with a hard stare. Did he think she was going to fawn all over him? Use this time away to get cosy with him?She was here under duress and this was strictly business. ‘I’m not most women.’
That one he’d already figured out for himself. In the four days he’d been in her company she hadn’t acted like any other woman he knew. She didn’t flirt, lean in when she talked to him, pat him on the arm or even smile at him. She did her job with ruthless efficiency and avoided him like the plague.
He regarded her seriously ‘Yes. I can see that.’
Isobella wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or insulted, and she was annoyed that she even cared. She shut her eyes, removing his impossibly sexy face from her vision, and wished it was as easy to erase him from her thoughts.
‘I’m really grateful that you’ve stepped into the breach like this.’
As if he had given her a choice. ‘Yes, well, Reg’s heart attack and triple angioplasty could hardly have been anticipated,’ she said magnanimously. She had to remember that Alex was her boss. It washis project she was working on. Giving him a piece of her mind, though very appealing, wasn’t wise.
‘Still, I hope it didn’t inconvenience you too much.’
She opened her eyes to find his cerulean gaze disconcertingly close. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
Alex nodded. ‘I’d feel better had you not taken so much persuasion,’ he said derisively.
Well, tough. He’d known she hadn’t wanted to come. She wasn’t in the business of making a grown man feel better about himself.
Her eyes shut again, and Alex suppressed a smile. Did nothing ruffle her? On one hand he admired her single-mindedness, but on the other…
