Chapter 46
Chapter 46:
He leaned down without hesitation and sealed his mouth over hers.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a rescue — forceful, deliberate, and utterly focused. He breathed into her lungs. Her chest rose. He pulled back, drew a breath, and did it again.
Breathe, his presence seemed to demand into hers. Breathe for me.
From the floor, Anson watched. He saw the man he had called a heartless machine, a capitalist vulture, breathing life back into the woman he claimed to love. He saw Dallas’s large hand cradle Eliza’s head with a tenderness Anson had never once possessed.
Dallas broke contact and pressed two fingers to the side of her neck. Thready. Racing. But there.
“Come on, Eliza,” he growled, and leaned in for another breath.
Then Eliza’s chest hitched. A ragged, wet sound tore from her throat. She convulsed, and a shallow, desperate gasp of air moved into her lungs. It tasted of adrenaline and Dallas — sandalwood and scotch.
“There,” Dallas whispered. His forehead rested against hers for one fractured second. “Breathe p>
Color began to creep back into her face. The wheeze persisted, but air was moving.
Down the hall, the noise of radios and heavy boots announced the paramedics. They swept through the crowd, pushing guests aside.
Rе𝖺𝗱 𝗳𝗋𝗼m 𝘆𝘰𝘶𝗿 𝘱𝗁𝗼ոe on
“Step back!” a medic called, reaching for Eliza.
Dallas blocked the hand. He slid his arms beneath her knees and back and rose to his feet, lifting her against his chest as though she weighed nothing.
“I’m taking her,” he said to the room, his eyes moving across the staff with a look that dared anyone to argue. “Clear the way p>
He turned and walked toward the elevators, carrying Eliza as though she were the only thing in the world that mattered. He didn’t look back at Azalea. He certainly didn’t look back at Anson, who remained sitting on the floor, staring at the empty yellow tube beside his polished shoe, understanding, for the first time, just how completely and utterly useless he had been.
The steady, rhythmic beeping of the cardiac monitor was the first thing Eliza heard — a mechanical lullaby, sharp and insistent. The air smelled of antiseptic and floor wax, the universal scent of hospitals.
She blinked her eyes open. The lights were dimmed. Her throat felt raw, as though she had swallowed broken glass. Her thigh throbbed where the needle had gone in.
She tried to sit up, instinct urging her to flee, to find cover.
A hand, large and warm, pressed gently against her shoulder and eased her back against the pillows.
“Stay down,” a voice said.
Eliza turned her head. Dallas was sitting in a leather armchair pulled directly to the bedside. He had discarded his tuxedo jacket. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled to the elbows, revealing forearms corded with tension.
He looked exhausted. There were shadows beneath his eyes, but his gaze was alert — burning with a quiet intensity that made the air feel heavy.
“Water,” Eliza rasped. Her voice was a ruin.