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CHAPTER ONE

ISOBELLANOLANpeered through herthey’d been sent The envenoo off Darwin The ne toChironex Fleckeri , ave an involuntary shudder

A phone started to ring, breaking her concentration Most days she could block out the background noise of the lab and its twenty research assistants, completely absorbed in her work But today she couldn’t settle Meeting the big boss for the first ti for Dr Alexander Zaphirides two years ago was going to be nerve-racking

Not least because she had a massive crush on himOr on his voice anyway

Isobella looked up fro to laboratory director Reg Barry’s phone Her immediate boss wasn’t at his station, and she scowled at the insistent pealing, pushing her glasses back up her nose as she snatched up her own phone and stabbed her finger at the flashing light indicating Reg’s extension

‘Hello? Trop Med Research, this is Isobella’ She peered back through the scope as she rattled off the standard greeting

‘Oh? Isobella? I thought I dialled Reg’s extension?’

Isobella pulled away abruptly froravelled tones of Dr Alexander Zaphirides’ voice rasped along her nerve-endings, raising the hairs on her ar her nipples She shut her eyes, letting it wreak its usual havoc on her central nervous systemGod, the man had a voice you could drown in!

It was just louder than a whisper, its pitch husky, with a slight roughness to it that came and went He seees as a teenage boy, but there was nothing juvenile about it It was shtly discernible accent hinting at his Greek heritage added an illicit edge It was blatantly sinful It was a voice that Lucifer would covet

‘Isobella? Are you still there?’

His voice whispered its treachery into her ear and she gripped the phone harder as her whole body responded to the rasp of his words There was endless speculation around the lab as to the origins of his husky voice, ranging froic accident She preferred to think it the result of aa pack a day, and drinking way too much bourbon