and Alex looked up to find the waiter holding a portable automatic defibrillator. At this particular moment it was worth more than the Holy Grail.
Alex grinned as Isobella kept up her chest compressions. ‘Yes, sir, it most certainly will.’ He relieved the waiter of the treasure.
Alex wasn’t overly familiar with this type of unit, but he knew that once switched on it gave audible prompts and only delivered a shock if it deemed the patient’s rhythm warranted it. It was designed for lay people to use, and at the moment it was Reg’s best chance. Alex knew that early defibrillation was crucial to ensure the best outcome in this rapidly deteriorating situation.
He worked around Isobella, tearing Reg’s shirt open and slapping the two adhesive pads in the indicated positions on Reg’s cold, clammy chest. The automated voice on the machine asked them to cease CPR while it assessed the rhythm. They waited for the machine, and Alex tried not to notice the way Isobella’s blonde fringe had fallen forward in his peripheral vision.
The machine prompted him to deliver a shock, and asked everyone to stand clear. ‘Stand clear,’ Alex said, raising his voice, cursing the gravelly wobble and the havoc the increased volume wreaked on his damaged vocal cords.
He put his arm out in front of Isobella’s chest and urged her back further. The last thing he wanted to do was to electrocute her. ‘Stand clear,’ he repeated to the crowd as his finger hovered over the button.
When Alex was satisfied no one was in contact with Reg’s body he hit the green button, and Reg’s body arced as the electricity charged through him. The machine re-evaluated and prompted another shock, and Alex delivered the second one.
Finally Reg moved. He gasped and moaned and the entire restaurant seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Welcome back, Reg,’ Alex murmured as he helped Isobella roll the big man on his side.
He looked at her and she gave him a relieved smile. A totally candid, non-guarded, elated smile. It was exhilarating. He grinned back, pleased beyond measure to be finally seeing the real Isobella. It was only the wail of a siren breaking between them that stopped his sudden impulse to lean over and kiss her soft full lips in triumph.
The paramedics pushed through the crowd, and then it was a blur of activity as they applied oxygen and hooked the patient up to their own monitor. Reg was throwing worrying ectopics and having short runs of ventricular tachycardia as the paramedics hastily inserted an IV and administered some GTN spray under his tongue.
‘Let’s scoop him and go,’ the female paramedic said. ‘I don’t like the look of his rhythm.’
Isobella and Alex assisted, and they had him on the stretcher and were loading him into the back of the ambulance in two minutes.
‘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
‘GOOD morning, 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 was his project she was working on.
