Out of Hours...Office Affairs: Can't Get Enough / Wild Nights with her Wicked Boss / Bound to the Greek. Кейт Хьюит
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if there was no cure? What if he got out of here and this feeling he was beginning to get—this sort of defrosting feeling coupled with a definite physical interest—what if it didn’t go away? He didn’t want to get to know Claire. He certainly didn’t want to like her, after all the crap she’d piled on him today. But the niggling thought that perhaps he’d misjudged her kept shouting for attention at the back of his mind. That, and the fact that he had an erection that was becoming increasingly difficult to hide.
HE WAS QUITE entertaining, really. But then, if you were going to be a successful playboy, she guessed you’d have to have a fair line in being charming and entertaining. Stock in trade, really.
The movie talk had been fun. And she’d been surprised by how many movies they’d both liked. Of course, she’d expected him to be prejudiced against The Wizard of Oz. Only the truly good and insightful understood how great a movie it was.
She finished stuffing all her bits back into her handbag, and settled once again into her lolling position on the floor. It was getting really warm now. All their talking hadn’t helped things any, sucking up all the available air. For a moment, she wondered about how airtight the lift was and imagined running out of oxygen. The walls seemed to frown in over her and all of a sudden she was finding it difficult to breathe again.
“Claire?”
When she didn’t answer, he nudged her foot with his, forcing her to look up. He tapped his nose, and she nodded as she remembered to follow his technique.
After a minute or so of nostril breathing, she felt the tension in her chest easing.
“Thanks.”
“The nose knows.”
She flapped a hand in front of her face, desperate for a bit of fresh air.
“It’s just so stuffy in here. Now I know how microwave popcorn feels.”
He shot her a look that plainly told her to quit whining.
“I know, talking about it doesn’t make it any better. But surely we could pry the doors open a bit, get some fresh air in?” she suggested hopefully.
But he just shook his head.
“Sadly, I left my pry bar at home this morning. Unless you have one in your bag?”
She huffed at him impatiently, already reassessing the good will he’d generated during their movie banter. Amusing he might be, but scratch the surface and he had a solid core of annoying just waiting to be expressed.
Pushing the wet curls back from her forehead, she rolled her head back on her jacket-pillow and stared at the ceiling. This waiting was bringing new meaning to the word bored. She remembered seeing some pages from the local paper stuffed in amongst the rubble in her handbag, and she reached for them in desperation. Never had reports on the local school fair or lost dogs seemed so enticing. She unfolded the pages and realized with disappointment that they were from the classifieds section of the paper. She remembered now that she’d grabbed them because she needed to arrange for a plumber to look at her dishwasher.
Still, desperate times bred desperate measures, and she found herself perusing every single ad. Plumbers, gardeners, electricians. She found three spelling mistakes and about a million grammatical errors. But who was counting, right? She was about to flip the page when she saw a small photo ad for a car dealership. The flash of red paintwork caught her eye and she squinted, trying to work out what make of car it was in the tiny photo. A Mustang! And a convertible, if she wasn’t mistaken. Excellent. She settled back to enjoy a good ten minutes’ worth of fantasizing about owning a red Mustang convertible. By the time she’d killed a quarter of an hour imagining herself cruising around with the roof off, her practical side was beginning to assert itself. The roof probably leaked, parts would be expensive, and there was nothing at all wrong with her late-model sedan. Besides, she wasn’t a red convertible kind of girl. Sighing, she rolled the pages back up and put them to one side.
“Could I…?” Jack asked, eyeing the paper greedily.
“It’s pretty dull stuff—but you’re welcome to it.” She flipped the paper over to his side of the elevator and tried to think of something else to occupy herself. She’d seen an interview with a guy who’d been held captive by South American freedom fighters once. He’d been locked up on his own for months and months, and he claimed he held on to his sanity and his purpose by having imaginary conversations with his family, acting out both sides in his cell.
She slid a sideways look at the man lying beside her. She’d never hear the last of it if she had an imaginary conversation with her father. The idea was so absurd, she almost laughed out loud. Not the least because she couldn’t begin to imagine what a real conversation with her father might be like. The familiar feeling of anger twined with rejection stole into her belly, and she steeled herself against it. Harry was not a good investment for hopes, emotions and dreams.
The sound of Jack’s stomach growling saved her from further naval gazing.
“Have another mint,” she said, tossing the roll of candy across to him.
She returned to her mindless study of the elevator’s ceiling, her eyes sliding across the familiar configuration of emergency light, utility access and the ubiquitous expanse of brushed steel.
She allowed her heavy eyelids to close, then sat up straight, inspiration energizing her.
“The utility access!” she crowed excitedly, scrambling to her feet.
Jack was staring up at her from his prone position, a shiny scrap of foil from the mint roll curled on his chest.
“Huh?”
“The utility access, in the ceiling. We can open it, let some of this hot air out. Surely there must be cooler air out there in the elevator shaft?” she said.
He liked the idea, she could tell by the way his eyes darkened to a deeper blue.
“Smart thinking, 99,” he said in a really appalling Maxwell Smart voice.
“As an impressionist, you make a great elevator mechanic,” she told him playfully, then caught herself up short.
Was she flirting with Jack Brook? She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes as he eased himself to his feet and brushed himself off.
She had to admit, she’d come a long way from her initial impression of him. He wasn’t as big a swine as she’d always imagined. In fact, he was quite kind, she decided, remembering his deft handling of her claustrophobia. Admitting that Jack Brook was not the devil incarnate she’d always classified him as was like opening herself up to the suggestion that the world might not be flat: too much was predicated on all her previous assumptions and judgments. Their whole past relationship was founded on the basis that she didn’t like him, he didn’t like her, and never the twain should meet.
“Hinges at one end, catch at the other. I don’t think we’ll even need that crowbar of yours,” Jack was saying, and she snapped her focus back to the current issue and away from the scary thought that more than just her claustrophobia was getting a workout in here.
The ceiling was quite high, she suddenly realized.
“Can you reach it?” she wondered out loud, and he gave her a pitying look.
“I think we’ll be fine,” he said confidently.
But when he reached casually for the catch they both quickly saw that even standing on the very tips of his toes, he could only just get his fingertips on the mechanism. He didn’t so much as glance at her once he realized he’d spoken too soon, so she leaned against the side of the lift and watched as he jumped up and down futilely a few times, his hands flailing uselessly against the catch each time he made contact with the roof. He finally gave up and turned to her, a warning expression writ large on his face.
“Don’t say a word.”
“Did I even open my mouth?” she defended