Single Dad Janitor Kissed A Billionaire To Save Her Life — And Then Everything Changed
Then she made a sound.
A high, thin, whistling gasp.
Tom didn’t think.
He ran.
He slid to his knees beside her, the wet mop forgotten in the hallway.
Camille Kensington was smaller than he expected.
Her tailored navy blazer was rumpled, her silk blouse torn at the collar where her perfectly manicured nails had desperately ripped it open.
Her face was flushed a dark, terrifying purple.
Her lips were swelling, turning a pale, sickly blue.
“Hey. Hey, look at me,” Tom said, his voice dropping into the calm, authoritative register he used when Lily woke up from a nightmare.
Camille’s eyes, a piercing, terrifying ice-blue, locked onto his.
They were wide.
Unblinking.
Filled with absolute terror.
Anaphylaxis, Tom thought.
He’d seen it once before.
A kid at Lily’s school had eaten a peanut.
This was exactly the same.
The sudden, violent shutting down of the body.
“Do you have an EpiPen?” Tom demanded.
He grabbed her shoulders.
She was trembling violently.
“Medicine! Where is it?”
She couldn’t speak.
The whistling sound from her throat grew fainter.
Air wasn’t moving.
She managed a jerky, uncoordinated wave toward her leather purse spilled on the floor.
Tom lunged for it.
He dumped the contents onto the carpet.
Lipstick, a platinum card, a mess of receipts, and there—a yellow plastic tube.
He snatched it up, pulled the blue safety cap off, and gripped her thigh.
“This is going to hurt.”
He jammed the orange tip into her outer thigh.
A loud click echoed in the silent office.
He held it there.
One.
Two.
Three.
Nothing happened.
Camille’s eyes rolled back.
Her body went slack, collapsing entirely against Tom’s chest.
“No, no, no,” Tom muttered, tossing the spent pen aside.
He laid her flat on the carpet.
“Come on. Breathe.”
He checked her pulse.
It was racing, a frantic, thready flutter against her neck.
But her chest wasn’t rising.
Her airway was completely clamped shut.
The epinephrine wasn’t working fast enough, or the dose was too old, or she had waited too long to use it.
She was suffocating.
Tom grabbed his radio.
“Frank! Call 911! Floor 50! We have a medical emergency, she’s not breathing! Now!” He threw the radio to the side.
He tilted her head back, lifting her chin to open the airway.
He pinched her nose.
He didn’t think about who she was.
He didn’t think about the millions of dollars in her bank account or the thousands of people she employed.
She was just a body shutting down.
He took a deep breath, sealed his mouth over hers, and blew.
Resistance.
It was like blowing into a brick wall.
Her throat was swollen shut.
Tom pulled back, gasping.
He repositioned her head.
Push harder, he told himself.
Force the air past the swelling.
He sealed his lips over hers again.
He pushed the air from his lungs with brutal force.
Her chest rose.
Just a fraction.
He pulled away, inhaled sharply, and came down again.
Breathe.
It wasn’t gentle.
It wasn’t a kiss.
It was violent, desperate mechanics.
Blood from her cracked lip smeared against his mouth.
He tasted the bitter, metallic tang of whatever she had eaten, mixed with copper and adrenaline.