I hope it doesn’t ever come to turning off Tommy’s ventilator.’ Margaret grimaced. ‘Especially not so soon after Alice Greeson.’
‘It won’t come to that, Margaret,’ Allegra said with determination. ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure of it.’
Allegra had not long finished Harry’s list, which had run overtime due to a complication with a patient, when she received a call from the CEO, insisting on an immediate meeting with him in his office. ‘But I have to get down to ICTU,’ she said, hoping to put him off.
‘Why?’ Patrick’s tone became resentful. ‘So you can have a little rendezvous with the new director? I heard about your cosy little dinner last night.’
Allegra felt her hackles rising. ‘Look, Patrick, I’m sorry but I’m not interested in a relationship with you. What I do in my spare time is my business. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but that’s the way it is.’
There was a tense little silence.
‘It’s all right, I understand, but can’t we just meet as friends?’ Patrick asked, his tone now sounding more than a little emotional. ‘You’ve been wonderful to me lately, that’s why I supported your project so strenuously, apart from the fact that I do think it has merit. I felt I owed it to you for being such a good friend to me when I most needed it. Meet for a drink tonight at the Elgin Street bar at seven-thirty. That’s all I’m asking. Please, Allegra.’
Allegra suppressed a sigh of resignation. Patrick was right. He had gone out on a limb for her and she owed him her friendship at the very least. ‘All right, just one drink. But as friends, nothing else,’ she relented.
‘That’s fine,’ Patrick said. ‘But I still thought I should warn you about getting involved with the new director. You’ll only get hurt.’
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