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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.
