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She swallowed hard and forced air into her lungs.
“This is a problem from Hillcrest, I’m assuming?” she asked, trying to find her feet.
“Yes, but don’t go getting too fussed about it. Old Hank Hillcrest is a dyed-in-the-wool sexist and he’s got some pretty wacky ideas. One of those is that the magazine’s outlook is too feminine.”
Claire frowned. Too feminine? Over half of the magazine’s content was aimed at offering heavy-duty building projects to experienced DIYers, along with reviews of new hardware and building products. In fact, the only feminine parts of the magazine were the decorator segments, and a small cookery section which was designed to showcase Hillcrest’s kitchen products.
She said as much to Morgan, and he nodded his head sympathetically.
“Claire, I know all this. They know all this. Hell, even cranky old Hillcrest knows all this. But he just doesn’t have it in him to let this go without putting his sticky fingerprints all over it. So, as I said, I had an idea.
“You probably don’t know this, but Jack started out his career with us in the Homes and Decorating division, writing up projects for our DIY titles. Over the years, he’s branched out, moved on. But I bet I wouldn’t be wrong if I suggested you still keep your hand in with a bit of DIY work here and there, right, Jack?”
She found herself turning to look at Jack, all the words of protest catching at the back of her throat. She was going to be sick. She was truly going to puke her guts up all over Morgan Beck’s polished walnut desk.
“Sure, Morgan, I’ve got a few projects on the go. But it sounds to me like you’ve got a done deal with Hillcrest already. And by the looks of things, Claire’s put in all the hard yards on this project,” Jack said.
Underneath the sick feeling and the anger and the dread, she managed to be surprised at this response from Jack. He actually sounded uncomfortable, reluctant.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, people. I’m not suggesting for a moment that Claire be cut out of this thing. We would never do that to you, Claire—please be assured of that.”
Morgan took a moment to simply make eye contact with her, his faded blue eyes powerfully sincere. She held his gaze, wanting him to see she had what it took to survive this last hiccup.
“What exactly are you suggesting then, Mr. Beck?” she asked carefully.
“I want to assign Jack to Welcome Home as an associate editor for a while—six months, tops. Just so he can have a few meetings with old man Hillcrest, shoot the breeze, all that stuff Jack does so well. It’ll be purely window dressing. Jack’ll write up a few articles, and then we’ll just downplay his involvement until he simply disappears altogether.”
She tried to get her head around it. They wanted to give half the credit for her magazine, based on her concept, sold to the client by her, to this crinkle-shirted lothario slouching next to her?
“This…this really…” She struggled to find a way to finish her sentence that didn’t have the word “sucks” in it.
“I’ve got to agree with Claire, Morgan. Surely we can just tough this out? Once Hillcrest have the first edition of their new magazine in hand, they’ll be so dazzled they’ll forget any objections,” Jack said.
Morgan nodded, almost as though he was giving Jack’s suggestion some thought.
“We’ve gone over all this, Jack, believe me. What I’m suggesting is painless, simple and foolproof. I think we can all work together to pull this off, don’t you?”
There was no mistaking the sudden glint of steel in Morgan’s eyes now. She found herself fixating on the small tufts of hair remaining on his otherwise bald head. She’d always thought of them indulgently as pseudo teddy-bear ears, but now she realized he probably cultivated them to cover the scars from where he’d had his twin horns surgically removed.
“I’ll leave the details of all this up to you two, and I know I can rely upon you both to be discreet about this…arrangement.”
Somehow she managed to find her feet. Her legs felt numb and heavy, and the distance between her chair and the doors leading back to the reception area seemed a mile off. Morgan leaned forward and shook her hand, again going for the meaningful eye contact. He’d probably look that way as he was pushing her out of a lifeboat on the Titanic—deeply moved, but completely committed to saving his own backside.
Anger trickled into her frozen limbs. She lifted her chin, aware she must be looking like a stunned mullet. Although it felt as though her face might crack, she forced her lips into a curve that she hoped resembled a smile.
“I’m sure we can smooth this over,” she said, and she was amazed at how professional and calm she sounded. As she turned toward the door she glanced just once at Jack Brook, and she saw surprise and something else—respect?—in his deep blue eyes before she fixed her attention on the double doors ahead and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
Just get me out of here, just get me out of here, just get me out of here, she begged herself, already aware that her mask of calm was about to dissolve. To show any weakness in front of these men…She’d rather charge at the plate-glass window behind Morgan’s desk and take a dive down to the sidewalk.
Jenny looked up and smiled at Claire as she approached, and again Claire dragged her lips into a smile.
“See you later, Claire,” the assistant said.
The rest of the office geography assumed the visual equivalent of white noise as Claire honed in on the ladies’ sign at the end of the hall and simply walked.
She had no idea what had happened to Jack Brook, but she had no intention of hanging around to discuss details with him—or worse, to listen to some mealymouthed vote of sympathy.
The veneered surface of the restroom door felt smooth and cool beneath her fingers and at last she was alone. She couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror, afraid all of her emotions would be painfully obvious: disgust, disappointment, anger, betrayal.
God, when would enough be enough in this world? When would her achievements measure up for these people? When would her skills and talents be acknowledged?
She threw her handbag and briefcase onto the marble vanity and at last faced her reflection in the mirror. To her surprise she looked calm. Cool. Hard. Determined.
She snorted. The great irony of her life was that a childhood of insecurity and disappointment had helped her build a tough fortress of impenetrability as an adult. So now when she was disappointed, no one ever knew. Except for her.
Angry tears burned at the back of her eyes and she clenched them shut for a moment. She would not cry. She hated that when she became angry one of her first responses was to feel tears coming on. It felt weak, ineffectual—a child’s response to being thwarted or hurt. If she were a man, she wouldn’t be in here being a big sooky-la-la. If she were a man, she’d be off somewhere kicking a hole in a wall or punching up some innocent bystander in a bar.
Inspired, she took a step toward the wastepaper can and gave it a good, solid kick. It slid across the tiled floor and slammed into the far wall, toppling to one side and spilling out a morning’s worth of scrunched-up paper towel and tissue.
“Hah!” she said out loud.
As an expression of her anger and hurt and disenchantment, it felt woefully inadequate.
And now there was a pile of tissue all over the floor. Unable to stop herself, she knelt and scooped the scrunched-up paper back into the bin.
Just like a man, she mocked herself.
The outer door swung open and one of the finance directors’ assistants entered the room. Claire shot to her feet, smiled awkwardly, then entered a stall as a way of avoiding explanations.
She waited until the other woman had left, then emerged to wash her hands. Patting them dry, she checked her watch: a good five minutes since the meeting had ended. She could head for the elevators now and be confident of avoiding Jack. She could ride the elevator all the way down to the foyer, and just keep on walking. She’d always planned to come back to the office after her appointment with Hillcrest and work late, as usual, but now she impulsively decided to take the rest of the afternoon off. Perhaps if she went for a really punishing run she could lose some of the anger coiling in her belly.
And then she could return to Beck and Wise tomorrow and show them that she wasn’t going to let them beat her.
It felt like a plan. If only she didn’t still want to scream at someone.
Her hand shook a little as she reclaimed her bag and briefcase, and she took a deep breath before exiting. To her relief, the waiting area near the elevator bank was empty, and she pressed the call button stiffly. A car eased its doors open almost immediately, and she stepped in and pressed the foyer button.
The doors had almost slid to a complete close when a tanned arm shot into the narrowing gap. The doors automatically bounced open, and she gritted her teeth as Jack stepped into the car.
She refused to look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her as the elevator gathered momentum and sped downward.
Silence stretched between them. She kept her eyes glued to the floor indicator, just wanting an out from the elevator, this day, her life.
“Look—” he began to say, but she cut him off.
“Spare me. You’ve never liked me, and I’ve never liked you, so don’t bother mouthing some empty platitude at me, okay? Of all the unpalatable aspects of this deal, you I find the most difficult to swallow.”
She’d planned on exiting grandly into the foyer on these cutting and deeply satisfying words, but all of a sudden the lights flashed once, then blackness descended at the same time that the grinding shriek of metal-on-metal filled the car and the elevator shuddered to a halt.
3
“WHAT THE—?” Jack exclaimed.
“What’s happening?” Claire demanded at almost the same time.
“Probably just a freak glitch,” he said into the darkness, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded.
“You’re an expert on elevator technology now, are you?” she asked sharply.
He couldn’t see her, but he rolled his eyes at the corner he guessed she was occupying.
“No, I’m being optimistic. Would you prefer I start reciting the Lord’s Prayer and scribbling my will on the back of an envelope?”
Silence. Good. He was sick of her attitude and misdirected anger. As for that dig she’d made just before the elevator went crazy…It had been a long time since someone had told him to his face that she didn’t like him. And he was surprised at how much it annoyed him.
An emergency light flickered to life above them and he moved to the control panel. The pale, inadequate glow allowed him to find the compartment which hid the emergency phone, and he pried it open and reached for the receiver.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” he asked, suddenly aware that his heart was pounding faster than usual.
Okay, so this was a bit scary. And maybe he should forgive Claire for being a tad shrill. He glanced across at her as the continuing silence on the other end of the phone sunk in. Her face was pale, taut. Frightened.
“Nothing,” he said.
As if she didn’t trust him to know the difference between a live phone and a dead one, she crossed to take a listen herself. He leaned against the side wall, elaborately casual as he waited for her to confirm his initial assessment.
“You’re right,” she said.
“Wow, that must have really hurt,” he couldn’t resist saying.
She shot him a look that would have turned lesser men to stone.
“What, didn’t expect to have to actually stay and cop the consequences of all that mouthing off?” he asked, for some reason feeling really angry with her now. “I know you probably prefer to just hit and run, but unfortunately we appear to be stuck for the short term.”
He watched, fascinated, as the color flooded back into her cheeks and her eyes burned with an angry light. Pretty impressive, a part of his brain acknowledged. She even drew her shoulders back and inhaled sharply, and, for the first time ever, he found his eyes dropping to her suit-encased chest.
“It’s easy for you to stand there all smug and confident. Did you just have your idea taken away from you and handed to someone completely undeserving? Did you just get treated like some token office bimbo? No. Because you’re a man. A racquetball playing, big-game-fishing, bungee-jumping man with a stupid red sports car and the right equipment between his legs to get ahead in this company.”
If he’d been a cartoon, his hair would have been streaming back from his head as if he’d just stepped out of a wind tunnel. Whoa, but this was one angry woman. And he could see her point, really he could. But he didn’t like the way she was sighting her feminist crosshairs directly on him.
“Listen, I had nothing to do with what just happened in that meeting. You think I want anything to do with this? And if we’re talking about tokenism, I’m the one who’s being wheeled in as the token male on this project for appearance’s sake. How do you think that makes me feel?”
“Don’t you dare mock me!” she warned him.
“Then don’t you blame your problems on me,” he countered. “I can’t see why you’d make me the bad guy in all this. Contrary to your belief, I have never disliked you. I barely know you.”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically, her whole attitude one of disbelief.
“I know what you said about me,” she shot at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard.”
Genuinely baffled, Jack raised his hands in the air, palms up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have better things to do than spend my spare time hanging around talking about you.”
That got her! The color was back in her cheeks, and she glared at him fiercely.
“You called me prissy! So don’t you dare stand there pulling that Mr. Innocent act,” she hissed at him.
Jack frowned. What the hell was she going on about? He’d been speaking the truth when he said that he didn’t spend his time sitting around talking about her.
“Sorry, but I think you’ve got that wrong, lady,” he said bluntly.
“Really? We’ll just have to ask my good friend Katherine Kirk when we get out of here then, won’t we?”
Although his expression didn’t change, Jack felt a moment of doubt. Now that she mentioned it, he could vaguely remember having a beer with Katherine some time ago after work. He’d just had a run-in with Claire in an editorial meeting and come out second best….
He made a mental note to thank Katherine for dumping him in it.
Claire was waiting for his response, hands on her hips.
“Well? What do you have to say to that?”
He shrugged. He’d said it, might as well own it. It wasn’t as though it wasn’t true. “Prissy might have been overstating it. You can be pretty anal, though.”
She made a hissing sound, kind of like a kettle about to blow its top, then opened her mouth to retaliate just as the phone rang. They both jumped, startled. Praying this was good news, he reached for the receiver with alacrity.
“Hello?” he asked, feeling her eyes on him, sensing her hopes, like his own, beginning to rise at this contact.
“This is Ted Evans from Security. I’m making contact to ascertain the exact number of persons in lift number six,” an officious voice asked.
“Well, Ted, there are two of us, and we’d sure as hell love to get out of here.”
Claire made an exasperated noise that he guessed was supposed to signal her wholehearted agreement.
“Two. Right. Well, uh—Who am I talking to?”
“Jack. Jack Brook.”
“Right. Jack. You’re the one with the red Porsche, yeah? Nice little number,” Ted said, his tone all male appreciation. “It’s an early 2002 model, right? The one with tiptronic transmission? Very nice.”
Jack reined in his frustration. This guy didn’t seem to have a real tight grasp on the urgency of their situation.
“About the elevator, Ted,” he hinted.
He glanced up as Claire shifted restlessly, a frown creasing her forehead as she no doubt wondered what was going on. He could imagine her reaction if he told her Ted wanted to talk cars.
“Well, we’ve got a bit of a situation here, Jack. There’s been a major power blackout across this whole part of town—something about a fire at the power plant—and most of the building’s services have shut down. Air-conditioning, security systems, elevators. You know.”
Jack rolled his eyes. Claire shook her head with confusion.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He tried to look reassuring as he returned his attention to Ted.
“So there are other people stuck in elevators?”
“Sure are. Only two of the twelve cars were empty. Elevator four has ten people in it,” Ted reported with relish.
Jack grimaced. Ten people would make for a cozy lift compartment. Thank God it was just him and Claire. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted her frown deepening. On second thoughts, maybe a cozy, friendly elevator wasn’t such a bad option….
“So how long are we talking here? Half an hour? Ten minutes? What?” he asked, deciding it was time to force Ted to the point.
“Can’t tell you that just yet. We’ve contacted the manufacturer, and they’re sending a team out.”
Jack tried to control the sinking sensation in his gut.
“So…we could be talking hours here,” he said reluctantly.
He could feel Claire stiffen even though she was as far from him as she could get.
“That’s not good enough,” she said, striding across to pull the receiver from his hand.
“Who am I talking to?” she demanded.
He resumed his lounging position against the wall. He was all for making a little noise if it was going to get them rescued sooner, but he wished her the best of luck up against the remarkably prosaic Ted.
Jack inspected his fingernails as Claire quizzed the security guard, trying to suppress the swell of satisfaction he felt when she returned the receiver to its cradle a few minutes later, her shoulders slumped: she hadn’t gotten any further than he had.
“Could be worse. Could be ten people in here,” he said lightly, taking in her white face.
She was silent as she crossed back to her side of the space, but he could see her hands were shaking as she brushed her hair back from her face.
Damn. He took a deep breath, then let it out. She was scared. Anyone could see that. And as much as she probably deserved for him to simply ignore her, he couldn’t turn his back on her distress.
“Listen, I’m sure they’ll have us out of here soon. I think I remember reading somewhere that elevators have manual override functions where they can just winch us down.”
He kept an eye on her, noticing her chest was heaving a little now.
“Ah, Claire, you wouldn’t happen to be a little claustrophobic at all, would you?” he asked.
She was concentrating fiercely on the carpet in front of her toes, completely unresponsive now.
Okay. He tried to think of something to say or do to help her out. Not being afraid of anything himself, he found it difficult to understand this sort of thing.
“I learned this meditation technique once at a temple in India—” he began to say tentatively, but then Claire slumped against the wall and began sliding down it and he realized she’d fainted.
He leaped across the distance between them, catching her before her head hit the ground. Her hair was soft and silky against his hands, and he could smell her shampoo as he gently guided her onto the carpet. Vanilla. Nice.
A quick once-over revealed that her skirt had ridden up a little, and that her legs were skewed awkwardly, but her eyelids were flickering now and he decided he’d rather stick his head in a crocodile’s mouth than be caught adjusting Claire Marsden’s clothing while she was semiconscious. Still, he couldn’t help noticing that the shortened skirt length belied his previous impression of her legs. Not bad. As a rule, he preferred tall, slim, model-esque women, but Claire’s legs were really something of a surprise. Almost as though she could read his mind, Claire made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, and then her eyes popped open.
CLAIRE CAME OUT of the empty darkness and opened her eyes, blinking rapidly as she tried to reorient herself. Where was she? What had happened? She felt the ground under her back. And why was she lying on the carpet? And then Jack’s face loomed over her and she found herself staring into his concerned blue eyes.
“You okay?” he asked, and it all came flooding back.
They were trapped in an elevator. With no hope of escape for hours. A dizzying tide of fear rushed back up at her and she clamped down on it fiercely. It had been years since she’d allowed this childish terror of enclosed spaces to master her. But while she could suppress it for the short trip up to the fifteenth floor each day, being stuck in a tiny elevator car for several hours was more than her powers of self-control could manage. She’d been grimly hanging on to her calm ever since they’d ground to a halt, but the news that they were going to have to settle in for a long wait had been too much.
“Claire? You all right?” Jack asked again.
He looked funny upside down, she noted, feeling a little detached as she tried to keep her fear at arm’s length. Like an alien, his mouth where his eyes should be…
“Hello? Are you in there?” he asked, waving a hand in front of her face.
At last she snapped her attention back.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I think.”
“Afraid of small spaces?” he asked simply.
“Since I was a kid,” she admitted, hating telling him, of all people.
“Ever fainted before?” he asked, clearly trying to ascertain the extent of her phobia.
“No. But this is the first time I’ve been stuck in an elevator,” she said, managing to dredge up a small smile.
He blinked at her, and she realized that this was probably the first time she’d ever done anything except glare at Jack.
“You have lips.”
Her turn to blink. “I beg your pardon?”
He shook his head, made a forget-it gesture in the air with his hand. “Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes. Nothing? She didn’t think so. “You said I have lips. What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
He sighed, scanned the roof as though looking for inspiration, then shrugged. All of this upside down, him hovering over her prone body.
“It’s just that most of the time when you see me you have no lips,” he said.
She stared at him. “I assure you, these are not detachable,” she said.
He looked skeptical. “Except when you see me. Then they disappear. Like this.” He gave an example, thinning his lips into a prim, ungenerous line.
“I do not do that,” she said, even as she felt her mouth assuming the usual tense expression she wore around him.
Damn him.
“You’re doing it right now.”
She stretched her mouth wide and forced her lips to assume a more relaxed expression.
“Happy?”
“That’s better,” he said approvingly.
She could feel her lips thinning again at his smug response.
“And there we go again,” he observed.
She closed her eyes for a moment. This was insane. She was trapped in an elevator with the company’s number-one playboy having a conversation about her lip posture while lying flat on her back.
“Feeling faint again?”
She blinked, recognizing that the fear that had been lapping around her knees had receded to toe-height.
“No. I feel…better.”
He looked pleased and a little proud. He’s been distracting me, she suddenly realized. With that thought came an abrupt awareness that her legs were sprawled out inelegantly and her skirt hiked up on one side. She reached a hand down to rearrange her skirt even as she moved to sit up. A heavy male hand landed in the middle of her chest.