Anne Fraser - Top-Notch Men!

She felt her tension increase slightly. There was a hint of something in the CEO’s tone that made her blood feel a little cold in her veins. ‘What are you saying, Patrick?’ she asked.

‘Look, I know he’s a damn good intensivist but I can tell you right now he only asked you out last night to keep you away from the unit. He doesn’t want you messing with the Lowe boy.’

‘Come on, Patrick, that’s an outright lie,’ she said, but the black, long-legged spider of doubt was already crawling insidiously across her mind as she recalled Joel’s totally-out-of-the-blue dinner invitation. They had barely been seated at the table when he’d brought up the topic of her study and the dangers of involving Kate and Tommy Lowe in it.

‘Go and ask him,’ Patrick challenged her. ‘He won’t deny it. He doesn’t want you to interfere with how the unit is being run. The press attention has been damaging enough. They’re making the unit sound as if anyone can walk in on any patient in there. And if they get to hear of you waving crystals or scented candles about, we’ll be a laughing stock.’

‘But you said—’

‘I know what I said and I still stand by it. I do think your project has potential but I’m afraid I’m with Joel Addison on this particular case. There’s just too much at stake. Just keep that in mind if he asks you out again. He could be operating under false pretences.’

‘Don’t worry, I will,’ she said, and after a quick goodbye stuffed the phone back in her pocket.

Joel was returning to his office after the X-ray review meeting in the radiology department when he encountered Allegra stalking up the corridor towards him, her face looking like a brewing storm.

‘Just the person I was hoping to run into,’ he said with a smile. ‘Got time for a quick coffee in my office?’

Allegra gritted her teeth. ‘Why? So you can keep me out of the unit and away from my project for a little longer?’

He frowned at her tone. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Surely you don’t need me to spell out your own despicable motives for you.’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.’

She gave him a glowering look. ‘Why did you ask me out for dinner last night?’

He met her glittering green gaze head on. ‘Why does any man ask a beautiful woman out for a meal?’

Allegra had to force herself not to be mollified by his compliment and injected even more venom into her tone. ‘If you were any other man, I would have answered that you wanted to get to know me, but I am well aware of your real reasons for taking me out.’

‘All right,’ he said with a crooked smile. ‘I admit it. I had an ulterior motive.’

There was a three-beat pause.

‘Well,’ she said with a dark frown, ‘aren’t you going to come clean?’

He took her by the hand before she could stop him and pulled her into a storeroom off the corridor and closed the door. She opened her mouth to rail at him but his mouth came swooping down and covered hers with a hot drugging kiss that left her breathless and totally disorientated in the dark, suddenly intimate confines of the small room. His body was pressed so tightly against hers she could feel the small buttons on his shirt through the thin cotton of her top and his belt buckle against her stomach. She had trouble containing her reaction to him. It seemed to come from deep inside, out of reach of her brain, which insisted she remove herself from his embrace.

He lifted his mouth from hers and flicked on the light switch near her left shoulder, his dark eyes smouldering with desire as he held her gaze.

‘You had no right to do that,’ she said, wishing her voice had sounded a little more strident and infuriated, instead of breathless and weak.

‘You asked me to explain my motives. I thought it best to demonstrate them instead.’

‘What you just demonstrated is your incredible gall. You only asked me out last night to lure me away from the unit so don’t bother denying it.’

‘I’m not going to deny it.’

She glared at him furiously. ‘How dare you pretend to be attracted to me? That is so low.’

‘I’m not pretending anything, Allegra.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she tossed back. ‘You’ve been against me from the start. I should have guessed you were up to something when you dropped that dinner invitation into the conversation so unexpectedly.’

‘I admit it was a little spontaneous but—’

‘Spontaneous?’ She felt like stamping her foot in fury. ‘You deliberately lured me away from the unit.’

‘I asked you out to dinner, for God’s sake.’ His voice began to tighten in anger. ‘Is there a law against that these days? What is it with you? I asked you out because I’m attracted to you and I want to get to know you, but if you’re not interested, fine. Maybe I’ll take my chances with that internet dating thing after all.’

‘I hope you end up with a psychopathic crackpot,’ she returned bitterly.

‘Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time,’ he said, and, brushing past her, clicked the door shut behind him.

ICTU was quieter than normal due to the high level of security. Relatives of patients were being asked to limit their visits and to submit to a bag search, and the staff also had to comply with security measures—bag and locker searches, and a permanent security guard in the unit.

Kate had now been moved into one of the isolation rooms and was under police guard. Tommy was still showing no signs of waking, and the nurse on duty for him, Bethany Gladstone, relayed the neurosurgical plan for a repeat brain CT and an EEG.

‘Has the father been in today?’ Allegra asked.

‘He’s been in and out,’ Bethany said. ‘He should be back any time. He was going to have a bite to eat.’

Allegra looked at the unconscious child on the bed and wondered how anyone could think of food when their only child was hovering precariously between life and death.

‘He’s a bit of a detached sort of bloke, don’t you think?’ Bethany said. ‘The father, I mean.’

‘Why do you say that?’

The nurse gave a little shrug. ‘I don’t know … He just doesn’t seem to be all that keen on hanging around here.’

‘It’s tough on parents,’ Allegra said. ‘They don’t always cope with the emotions of it all. It doesn’t get much worse than this—the thought of losing your only child.’

‘Yeah, I guess so,’ Bethany said. ‘What’s your plan with him?’

‘Tommy, you mean?’

Bethany nodded.

Allegra looked at the little boy for a moment. ‘I’d like to speak to the father about Tommy’s history. The things he loves—books, movies, that sort of thing. I want to feel as if I know him in order to find ways to get through to him.’

‘His father doesn’t seem the type who knows his son all that well. Some dads are very hands on, sitting and talking to their kids, holding their hands, stroking them and so on. I don’t think Mr Lowe has touched his son once the whole time I’ve been on duty.’

‘Not all fathers are the same,’ Allegra said. ‘Besides, you know how some people can’t cope with illness and the prospect of death. They come in here and totally freak out when they see all the machines, while others react with calm.’

‘Yeah, well, I think Mr Lowe needs to take lessons on fatherhood from Jonathon Sprent’s father. Ever since that young man has been in here with that spinal injury his dad has hardly left the bedside, neither has his mum. That’s what I call perfect parenting.’

‘How is he doing? I haven’t had much to do with his case.’

‘Anthony Pardle did a spinal decompression and things are looking a little more hopeful—he’s had a tingling sensation in his legs.’