A Bride To Redeem Him

Her eyes widened, her scowl deepening, and she faltered backwards just as he’d known she would, giving him the perfect opportunity to reach forward and halt her fall, hauling her body closer to his as he did so.

‘You did that deliberately,’ she said irritably, though he noticed that for all her objection she remained in the light circle of his arm, though she could have pushed him away if she’d really wanted to.

It only served to fuel Louis’s desire. He could tell himself that this was all part of his plan and that he was still in control, but he knew that somewhere along the line, that had ceased to be entirely true. He could no more explain this attraction as he could fight it. He’d been attracted to women—plenty of women, though nowhere near in the disgusting numbers that the papers so deliriously hypothesised—but never like this. Never on a level that he knew wasn’t merely about the physical.

‘I can’t seem to help myself,’ he drawled, his tone intended to conceal just how unexpectedly close to the truth that statement was.

Even now, as his eyes took in the rapid pulse at her neck, the stain of lust spreading over her skin, the sudden huskiness in her voice, doing something as simple as drawing a breath suddenly became an arduous hindrance.

He leaned forward and she stepped back. Right up against the stone balustrade, allowing him to place an arm on each side and effectively cage her.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered. Hardly a protestation of his position. Still, he needed to be sure.

‘Making sure you don’t run away.’

‘I’m not running away.’ He recognised that hoarse desire in her voice. He’d heard it plenty of times before. But never with anyone who made him as hard as she did.

Like he was some hormone-charged teenager.

‘You know my reputation,’ he ground out. ‘You should be running.’

‘I know your reputation,’ she concurred. ‘But right now I don’t know anyone else who can help me stop your father.’

It was hardly the rebuttal he realised a part of him had been hoping for. As if he hoped she might see past the bad-boy exterior to the honourable man he knew had probably died a long time ago.

Pathetic really.

Louis had never wanted, never sought anyone else’s approval. He would leave that to his father. Though how he was the only person to see through his old man’s veneer to see that he’d only set up the Delaroche Foundation as a way to earn himself a knighthood, he would never understand. Let Jean-Baptiste revel in his unearned glories as much as the vainglorious old man wanted.

His mother would surely laugh out loud to know that Rainbow House was still a thorn in her husband’s side. Even now.

It was only when he caught Alex watching him curiously, his arms still trapping her in place, that he remembered himself, and banished the unwelcome thoughts from his head.

He pushed backwards, releasing her with a theatrical flourish, exultant when she didn’t go anywhere.

‘So, Dr Alexandra Vardy, how about it?’ He flashed her a wolfish smile, playing the habitually drunk playboy role for all he was worth. After all, why else would a bad boy like him make such a ridiculous suggestion? ‘Want to marry me and stop my father from committing any more of his dastardly deeds?’

CHAPTER THREE (#u166aa01f-f32f-59b7-9752-3d6aa74dba71)

‘SOMEONE PAGED ME?’ Louis burst through the doors of the pre-op room, taking in the unfolding events in one careful sweep.

‘I did. I suspect an anaphylactic reaction in your patient,’ Alex answered quickly but calmly, her attention going straight back to the patient in front of her even as she addressed the anaesthetic technician. ‘Freddie, let’s set up an IV. Start with eight milligrams of dexamethasone and point one milligrams of adrenalin.’

‘What happened?’ Louis stepped over quickly without, she just had time to notice, getting in the way of her staff.

Surprisingly he didn’t wade in, but waited silently for her to finish issuing her brief, perfunctory instructions to her team.

It could be no coincidence that she had suddenly been assigned as part of Louis’s on-call team tonight. She’d been avoiding him for two days since she’d walked—though she still had no idea how her legs had kept her upright after his audacious marriage suggestion—away from away him.

Clearly, this was his way of flexing his authoritative muscle. An irrefutable demonstration of the power he wielded in this hospital. She’d spent the last few hours enacting scenarios in her head in which she had confronted him about it. But right now it definitely wasn’t the time.

‘The patient was clearly hypovolaemic when she was brought in,’ Alex informed him. ‘She was clammy in appearance and tachycardic.’

‘She presented in the emergency department a couple of hours ago following a salpingo-oophorectomy three days ago,’ confirmed Louis. ‘All signs led the resus team to suspect intra-abdominal bleeding, which was when they referred her to us.’

Cool, professional, approachable. No hint that he even remembered what had happened between them on that balcony. How she had been within a hair’s breadth of kissing him, of letting him kiss her. If he’d pushed it that tiny bit further, she knew she would have.

Every spare moment since, she’d wondered why he hadn’t.

Was it insane that every time she’d thought of him, a gurgle of laughter had rumbled within her?

The thing about arrogant men was that they had altogether too high an opinion of themselves to be likeable.

Yet Louis was wholly unaffected by his stark male beauty, and he didn’t take himself too seriously. He made her laugh.

It didn’t fit.

Still, she couldn’t afford to dwell on it. Forget her illicit fantasies about him, he was standing right in front of her, right now, and he was all professional. The way she always prided herself on being.

She pulled her head back in the game, relieved to realise that she hadn’t missed a beat.

‘Yes, I completed the handover twenty minutes ago. She appeared calm despite the circumstances. Blood pressure was one-twenty over seventy and heart rate was eighty-four beats per minute. Intravenous access was difficult, probably as a result of the hypovolaemia and the suspected internal bleeding, but she did have a cannula in situ, which we used.’

‘You used it for general anaesthetic induction?’

‘Right, then we intubated.’ Alex nodded. ‘There was an initial delay of results for the carbon dioxide output but the tubes were in correctly, there was misting and the chest was rising symmetrically. I began manual ventilation, which I thought felt restricted, and when I listened to her chest I heard wheezing. I had already started to suspect anaesthesia-related anaphylaxis, which was when I told them to alert you to the situation.’

There had been no need for Louis to come in. As the anaesthetist, this was within her remit rather than his, but she could understand why he wanted to see for himself. In many respects she was still an unknown quantity to his team. Typically Louis.

‘You’re using her foot—?’

‘To gain additional venous access? Yes,’ Alex cut in, straightening up with a satisfied nod and taking the bag of colloid fluid from her team. ‘Good. Right, let’s start infusing and get her blood pressure back up and her cardiovascular volume. Freddie, start drawing up another point one milligrams of adrenalin.’

But before she could get much further the patient went into cardiac arrest.

‘I’ll start compressions.’ Louis moved instinctively to the table, allowing her to continue administering the adrenalin.

They both knew that while in ordinary circumstances the surgical procedure would be called to a halt, due to the acute nature of the internal bleeding, it wasn’t an option in this situation. She had no choice but to get it under control.

Good thing she’d never been one to crumble under pressure.

Still, it was a relief when Louis confirmed cardiac output had been regained and Alex was able to insert both a central and femoral line, even as she issued further instructions to her team to treat the anaphylaxis before continuing their pre-op procedures.

‘You’re re-administering anaesthesia?’ He frowned, still watching her closely.

Her pride kicked in. She couldn’t help it.

‘I thought I might.’ The tongue-in-cheek tone was clear but now the patient was stable, and after the tension the team had been under a little dark humour always worked to buoy morale. It was just the way hospitals seemed to work, in her opinion.