Changing Constantinou's Game
“Yes,” Alex said grimly. “Are we stable?”
“Yes, sir. We had an issue with the generator, but the emergency brakes deployed.”
His heartbeat slowed, his grip on the receiver relaxing. “How long until you get us out?”
“We’re working on getting a crew over there as soon as we can. But by the time we do that and assess how we’re going to get you out of there, it may be a few hours.”
He flicked a glance at the white-faced woman on the floor. “By that you mean...?”
“The car you’re in is stuck between floors. In that situation, we either try to move the car manually from the control room and pry the doors open or we take you out the top. Obviously we’d prefer to do the former, but with the generator out that may not be possible.”
He moved his gaze over the bump on the woman’s face, the fact that he was going to miss his flight a far lower priority than her potential injuries. “The sooner the better.... The other passenger in here with me—she hit her head when we stopped.”
“We’ll go as fast as we can,” the technician promised. “Anything else I can do for you?”
“Hurry up,” Alex muttered roughly and hung up. Telling the guy he owned half the building wasn’t going to make it happen any faster.
The woman watched him with those big brown eyes of hers, her tense expression only this side of full-on panic.
“When are they going to get us out of here?”
He walked back over to her and sank down on his haunches. “They have to get a technician here and see what’s happening. It may take a while.”
Her gaze sharpened on his face. “Don’t they just pry the doors open?”
He hesitated, wondering whether or not to tell her the truth. “We’re stuck between floors,” he said finally. “A generator’s out, which means they can’t move us.”
Her eyes widened, her hands flailing as she sat up and stared at him. “What?”
“Calm down,” he ordered. “They’ll find a way, but panicking isn’t going to help.”
Her throat convulsed. “How long did they say?”
“A few hours.”
“I can’t be in here that long.” She fixed her gaze on his. “I really, really don’t do elevators.”
He took her hands in his. They were clammy and she was shaking like a leaf. “Look—” he said, arching a brow at her. “What’s your name?”
“Izzie.”
“Izzie?”
“Short for Isabel,” she elaborated, distractedly. “But most people call me Izzie.”
“Isabel,” he elected to use instead, his tone firm but reassuring, “I promise you everything’s going to be fine. These guys handle situations like this all the time. They’re going to get a crew over here, figure out how to get us out and in a few hours you’ll be laughing this off.”
She looked at him as though he had two heads.
“Okay,” he conceded. “But you know what I mean. It’s going to be fine, I promise.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her teeth worrying her lip. “You’re sure? We aren’t going to drop again?”
“I’m sure.”
She lifted her chin. “All right. I can do this.”
“Good girl.”
She pressed her lips together. “Since you’re the only thing keeping me sane, you could tell me your name.”
“Alex.” He let go of her hands and pushed to his feet. Located her discarded bag and picked it up. “Anything in here we can use to get the swelling down on your head?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
“Can I look?”
She nodded.
He sat down beside her and riffled through it. The bag was a modern marvel of how much a woman could shove into a few cubic inches of leather. Chocolate, water, books, a brush, a full bottle of aspirin...
“Is there anything you don’t have in here?” he questioned drily. “I’ll never understand why you women feel you have to carry half your lives around with you. There is a drugstore on every corner, you know....”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
He pulled out a lint brush. “Really? You need to carry a lint brush with you?”
A pink stain filled her cheeks. “Have you ever sat on a cat-infested sofa in a black wool skirt?”
“Can’t say that I have,” he drawled. “You’ve got me on that one.” He pulled out a can of still-cold soda. “How about this? It could work.”
“Wait,” she gasped, sitting up. “My flight takes off in a few hours.”
“So does mine,” he returned grimly. “I think we can safely assume we’re not making it.”
“But I have to...” she burst out. “I have that interview in Manhattan tomorrow morning.”
“You’re going to have to reschedule your flight,” he told her, handing her the can of soda. “And hope you can get another tonight.”
She sliced a panicked look at her watch. He glanced at his. Two forty-five. There wasn’t a hope in hell he was making his flight to New York. Which was a problem; with Frank Messer trying to rip his company apart, he was putting out fires left, right and center, and the Sophoros jet was under maintenance at Heathrow, necessitating a commercial flight.
“Ouch.” She winced as she held the can to the now robin’s egg-sized lump on her forehead. He leaned over, tipped her chin up with his fingers and inspected the bump. “You’re going to be black and blue for a while, but hopefully that’s all it’ll be.”
She stared at him with a deer-in-the-headlights expression that should have warned him off, but didn’t. He was far too busy noticing how the lashes on her almond-shaped, exotic eyes were a mile long and how those full lips of hers could take him to the moon and back should she choose to apply them correctly...
And what the hell was he thinking? He let go of her chin and shifted away from her. She was attracted to him. She’d made that clear upstairs in the lobby. And of course he’d noticed her. It had been hard not to. Disheveled, distracted, she’d been jabbering into her mobile phone in a husky, breathless voice that had made it easy to envision her in his bed. That and that body... The kind of curves that would look even better without clothes.
He shook his head and looked in the opposite direction. Not the kind of thinking that boded well for hours in close proximity.
“Alex?”
She was holding out a bottle of water, her cheeks even pinker than before. “Want one?”
He took it, if only to cool down his overheated libido. A paperback spilled out of her bag, a half-dressed woman in the arms of a bare-chested male emblazoned on the cover.
He picked it up. “Do you actually read this stuff?” he demanded incredulously.
“I do,” she said stiffly. “Can I please have it back?”
He ignored her outstretched hand. Turned the book over. “Looks smutty...is that why you women like it?”
“I suppose you have Othello in your bag,” she came back tartly, reaching for it.
He pulled it away. “Actually, Great Expectations. Want to have a browse?”
She gave him a long look. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
He braced his hands on the floor to roll to his feet. She waved him off. “Okay, I believe you. You’ve had your laugh...can I have my book back, please?”
He gave her a considering look. “It is smutty, isn’t it?”
She glared at him. Watched as he flipped pages, stopped to read one, then moved on. He halted at a particularly juicy section. “Oh this is good.” He quoted out loud, deepening his voice to add an over-the-top commentary. “He ran his finger over her erect nipple, making her groan in response...Ellie—” he flicked a glance at her, “who calls their characters Ellie, by the way? Anyway,” he looked back at the book, “Ellie arched her back and—”
“Alex,” she pleaded, dropping the can and lunging for the book. “Give it to me.”
He held it away from her. “I just want to know. What’s the appeal? That a guy’s going to charge in on a white steed and carry you off, and you’ll live happily ever after?”
“I don’t need a man to rescue me,” she muttered, sitting back and wrapping her arms around herself. “I can do my own rescuing.”
“That,” he stated drily, “is up for debate.” He handed the book back to her.
She shoved it in her bag with a decisive movement. He decided to be a humanitarian and move on. “So what are you doing in London? Work or play?”
“I’m doing a favor for my boss.” She grimaced and pressed the can tighter to her head. “It was supposed to be a quick in and out on my way home from Italy.”
“Just your luck,” he grinned. “You picked the one faulty elevator in London.”
“Please don’t remind me.”
“What line of work are you in?”
She took a sip of her water. “Communications... You?”
“I own an entertainment company, based in New York.” He leaned back against the wall, keeping up the small talk he abhorred as it seemed to be putting a bit of color back into her cheeks. “Was Italy work too?”
She shook her head. “I was doing a cooking course with my girlfriends in Tuscany. We rented a villa on the coast, chilled out and learned how to make a mean bruschetta.”
“That will make your man very happy.”
“I didn’t do it for a man, I did it for myself.”
He noted the defensive edge to her voice. “No man in your life, then?”
She set her jaw. “No.”
He wondered why he liked that idea. “How many of you were in Italy?”
“Eight of us, including me.”
He smiled. “The Italian men must not have known what hit them.”
She shot him a sideways look. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I can only imagine the impression eight of you made on the locals...Tuscany will never be the same, I’m sure.”
Her mouth curved. “My friend Jo was a big hit with the Italian men. She’s a bit of a one-woman wrecking crew.”
He gave her a considering look. “I’m sure she wasn’t the only one.”
She blinked. Looked away. Shy, he registered in astonishment. Were there actually any of those women left in Manhattan? It had been so long since he’d met one he’d thought they were extinct.
A loud creak split the air. He dropped the water, his heart slamming into his chest as he braced his hands on the floor. Isabel launched herself at him, wrapping her limbs around him. He held her close as the elevator swayed and groaned beneath them, his breath coming hard and fast.
What the hell?
CHAPTER TWO
“WHAT WAS THAT?”
Isabel screeched the words in his ear, wrapping her arms around his neck in a chokehold. The car rocked beneath them, but this time more gently, without the bloodcurdling creak. He sucked in a breath. “It’s just shifting,” he told her, hoping that’s all it was. “You’re okay.”
Her chest rose and fell rapidly against him. Seconds ticked by. The swaying slowed and then stopped. “Isabel, we’re fine,” he murmured, his heartbeat regulating as he brought his head down to hers. “I promise you, those cables don’t break.”
She drew in a deep breath, then another, stayed pressed against him. As his cortisol levels came down, his awareness of her skyrocketed. Her fingers were dug into his thigh, her light floral scent filling his nostrils. Her thoroughly touchable curves were plastered against him. And God help him, it was making him think improper thoughts. Like how much he’d appreciate those slender fingers wrapped around another part of his anatomy...
She drew back, her face chalk-white. Exhaled a long, agitated breath. Realized where her hand was. He struggled to wipe his expression clean as she lifted her horrified gaze to his, but he was pretty sure from the way her eyes widened and the speed with which she snatched her hand away, she’d known exactly where his head was at.
“I am so sorry,” she murmured. But she was still in his lap, clutching his shoulder for dear life, and he was in severe danger of getting extremely turned on. Worse when she caught her plump bottom lip in her teeth and hell, he wished she wouldn’t do that. He wanted to kiss her, and not the “Sunday walk in the park” variety.
Her pupils dilated, but she didn’t go anywhere. He cleared his throat. “If this was your book,” he drawled mockingly, “this’d be the part where I ravish you in the elevator, no?”
She was off his lap in a flash. She sat back against the wall, her shoulders pressed against the paneling. “Yes, well, that’s why they have security cameras in elevators, don’t they?” she pronounced stiffly. “To prevent that sort of behavior.”
He had to stop himself from laughing out loud. “That sort of behavior? How very Victorian of you.”
She fixed her eyes on the wall opposite her. “I think this elevator’s getting to me.”
She wasn’t the only one. He waved a hand at her. “Think of it as extreme exposure therapy. After this you’ll definitely be cured.”
“Or I’ll never set foot in an elevator again.”
“Let’s work toward the former.” He gestured toward the can that had rolled to the corner of the elevator. “Put that on again.”
She lifted it to her forehead. Stayed plastered against the wall like a modern painting, her white, pinched face a halo against the dark paneling. He cursed inwardly. He needed a distraction or this wasn’t going to be pretty. What in the world would he say to his sister Gabby, who was severely claustrophobic?
“I have an idea,” he suggested. “Let’s play a game.”
“A game?”
“You tell me something no one knows about you and I’ll do the same.”
She lifted a brow. “I’m channeling my sisters here,” he offered grimly. “Humor me. If you go all panicky, it’s not a good thing.”
“Okay.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. “In seventh grade, when Steven Thompson asked me to dance at the school mixer, I told him I’d sprained my ankle.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“I adored him.” She opened her eyes. “I’d idolized him for years. But I thought my sister had put him up to it, like I was some kind of charity case, so I turned him down.” She grimaced. “Turns out she hadn’t.”
“Ouch. So the poor guy got rejected for no good reason?”
She nodded. “I was persona non grata after that.”
“And you females wonder why men aren’t gallant anymore. We stick our necks out for that.”
She gave him a wry look. “I hope you’re using the royal ‘we,’ because I can’t imagine you have ever been rejected in your entire life.”
And that’s where she was wrong. The one time he had been, the only time it had mattered, he’d been left for dead by the woman who’d meant everything to him.
“Nobody goes through life unscathed,” he said roughly. “You should have given the guy a chance. Maybe you scarred him for life.”
“Since he was dating Katy Fielding by the next Monday, I highly doubt it.” Cynicism tainted her voice. “Okay, your turn.”
He thought about it. And for some strange reason, he was dead honest. “I wish I’d made different decisions at times.”
Her gaze sharpened on him. “Is that a general observation or something you’d care to elaborate on?”
Most definitely not. He’d shut the door on that part of his life a long time ago. Never to be opened again. “A general observation.” He rested his gaze on her face. “Sometimes in life you’re only given one shot. Use it wisely.”
Her eyes stayed on his, assessing, inquisitive. Then she let it go with a sigh. “This interview I have tomorrow? I don’t even know if I want the job. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.”
He frowned. “Why don’t you want it? I assume it’s a step up?”
“Fear,” she said simply. “I’m afraid of what happens if I get it.”
“Take it from me,” he counseled, “fearing the unknown is far worse than facing it. I have no doubt you’ll knock them dead, Isabel. Just be your quirky self.”
She looked insulted. “Quirky?”
“Tell me it doesn’t fit.”
“Well...maybe just a bit.”
She jumped as the phone rang. He pushed to his feet, walked over and picked up the receiver. But the news wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Two and a half hours.
He hung up. “We have to sit tight for another couple of hours.”
Isabel’s face fell.
“Think on the bright side,” he said, sliding down beside her and giving her a wicked look. “You can read me excerpts from your book. It was just getting good.”
* * *
Exactly two and a quarter hours later, at about the time Izzie’s flight was scheduled to take off from Heathrow, a rescue team arrived.
She and Alex stood to one side as the crew unscrewed a panel from the top of the car and dropped a ladder down, a burly, safety-cable-laden rescuer climbing in moments later with two harnesses slung over his shoulder.
“Ready to get out of here?” he asked them, a wide grin splitting his face.
“You’ve no idea,” Izzie murmured, flashing a sideways look at Alex. She really wasn’t sure what she would have done without him. She had a sneaking suspicion she would have lost it completely.
“All right then,” the technician said, strapping one of the harnesses around Izzie. “The next floor is about eight feet above us. We’re going to climb up the ladder, out the top of the elevator and up onto the lobby floor.” He snapped the harness into place and stepped back. “Keep moving, don’t look down and you’ll be fine.”
Every limb in her body went ice cold. They wanted her to climb through an elevator shaft?
“I’ll be right behind you,” Alex said quietly. “It’s mind over matter, Isabel.”
Yes, but she didn’t have a mind left! Her legs started to shake; her breath came in short, frantic bursts. “But what if—”
Alex took her hands in his, wrapping his fingers around hers. “There is no ‘what if.’ We’re going to climb out of here and it’s all going to be over, okay?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, absorbing the quiet confidence in his voice, the warmth of his hands around hers. “You’ll stay right behind me?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” She pulled in another big breath and let go of his hands with a decisive movement. “Let’s do it.”
The technician strapped the other harness around Alex. Then they started up the ladder, Alex following Izzie. Her legs were shaking so hard she had to inject every bit of concentration she possessed into each step, her hands clutching the side of the ladder for balance.
“One step at a time,” Alex murmured, anchoring his hands firmly around her hips to steady her. “You’re doing great.”
She didn’t feel great. Her heart was in her mouth, acid stung the back of her throat in the very real threat she might throw up, and she felt as if she was going to collapse in a puddle.
She forced herself to keep moving, her slow climb taking her up to where the ladder emerged from the car. She looked down. Gasped at the endless plunge into darkness.
“Don’t look down,” the technician said, turning around. “Keep going.”
But her legs wouldn’t move. “I can’t,” she whispered. “My legs, they—they’re shaking so much I’m afraid I’ll—”
Alex stepped up on the ladder behind her, his hands digging into her waist. “You can do this,” he insisted firmly. “I’m right here and I’m not letting go. Just put one foot in front of the other and we’ll be out of here in a minute.”
The heat of his hands penetrated the thin cotton of her dress. Sank into her skin, warming her. Grounding her. “Mind over matter, Isabel,” he whispered, his hands tightening. “Move with me.”
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to focus on the strength of his hands around her waist. He would not let her fall. He would keep her safe...
She started climbing again, focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other as they emerged from the elevator, walked across the top of it and climbed the ladder toward the floor above. Step up, make sure her foot was securely on the rung, bring the other foot up. Repeat. She said it over and over again in her head as she did it, Alex’s hands never leaving her waist. And then, someone was reaching down and grasping her by the arms and lifting her to solid ground.
Alex stepped up behind her, the look of grim relief on his face making her knees go weak. “You okay?”
She nodded. Swayed as her shaking knees turned to mush. He closed his arms around her and pulled her close, his chin coming down on top of her head. “It’s okay,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s over.”
Izzie had the strange feeling that once here, she might never want to leave. She buried her face in the rock-solid wall of his chest, her limbs shaking so hard she wondered if they’d ever stop.
“The paramedics are downstairs in the lobby, waiting to check you out,” the burly rescuer said. “Sorry to say, the generator’s still out, so you’ll have to take the stairs.”
Since Izzie never intended to get on another elevator in her life, that was just fine with her. But by the time they’d descended twenty-three flights of stairs and she’d gotten thoroughly poked and prodded by a young medic she was done.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” the medic asked, sticking up four.
She waved her hand at him. “I’m good, really. I hardly bumped it at all.”
“It was a hard knock,” Alex interjected, holding his cell phone away from his ear. “Let him do his job.”
Izzie made a face. “Four,” she sighed. “And I’m not seeing double...no halos, nothing...”
“Any dizziness?” he asked patiently.
“No.”
“Okay, I think you’re fine.” He started packing up his kit. “But you should be watched for the next twenty-four hours to make sure you haven’t suffered any kind of internal issues.”
Izzie nodded. “No problem. I’m going to rebook myself on another flight to the States tonight so there’ll be a whole planeload full of people ready to catch me if I keel over.”
The medic frowned. “Flying isn’t the best idea after an injury like that.”
She shrugged. “I have no choice.”
He gave her a long look. “Do you have someone in London you can stay with if that flight doesn’t happen? Otherwise we can admit you to the hospital overnight for observation.”
She blanched. Spending the night in the hospital wasn’t an option. She had to get a flight. “I do,” she lied. “Thanks so much for your help.”
Alex was still on the phone when she picked up her bag and walked over to him. He held the phone to one side. “We can’t get a flight to the States tonight. Give me your ticket and I’ll have my assistant rebook you on something tomorrow morning.”
Tomorrow? “There must be a flight tonight...a red-eye? I’ll take a red-eye...”
He scowled. “By no flights, I mean no flights, Isabel.”
Oh. She bit her lip, frantically sifting through the alternatives, but coming up with none. “Can you see if she can make it as early as possible tomorrow?” she asked, dragging her ticket out of her purse and handing it to him. “I have that interview in the morning.”
He nodded, took the ticket and started rattling off the information into the phone. She left him to it, collapsing into one of the sterile-looking leather lobby chairs. If she caught a super early flight tomorrow she had a shot at making the interview, given the time difference. But she wasn’t even sure overseas flights left that early in the morning. In fact she was pretty sure they didn’t.
She swallowed hard and removed her fingernail from her mouth before she mangled it. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. What she’d been obsessively working toward for the past four years, coming into the studio at eight when most reporters didn’t amble in until their 10:00 a.m. editorial meeting and working well past when most had left. She, a single girl in New York, had no personal life. Her job was her life. Which was fine, because dating was like some type of ancient torture for her, and in ten years she’d have a flourishing career to point to rather than a series of America’s worst matchmaking stories.
Her stomach dropped. She just hadn’t expected to be taking her big leap now.
An audition for an anchor job in the most high-pressure media market in the country was a daunting task for even the most experienced reporter. Ten times so for someone like Izzie, who tended to burn out like the brightest star when the stakes were the highest.