by Terra Little
Chapter 4
Court was in session.
Late, Olivia ended her call, dropped her cell phone inside of her clutch and snapped it shut. After hopping down from her corner seat on the vanity, she checked her makeup one last time in the mirror over the row of sinks in the fourth-floor ladies’ room, then unlocked the door, swung it open and hurried down a long corridor, toward a bank of elevators. Thankfully she caught up with a small group of people waiting at the far end of the corridor just as two elevator cars arrived. She glanced at her watch and hurried toward the empty one.
She’d been gone for twenty minutes, which, given Shannon’s current mental state, wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but it couldn’t be helped. Her cell had rang at the worst possible moment—in the middle of the courtroom, just as the bailiff was giving the order to rise for the judge’s entrance. But sending the call to voice mail wasn’t an option. In the first place, she’d cashed in way too many favors in exchange for the callback to start looking a gift horse in the mouth now, no matter how bad its timing was. In the second, she was getting desperate.
Settling Shannon’s legal issues with the FBI was definitely a top priority, but as far as Olivia was concerned, so was solving the mystery of where her friend would live after the dust settled and her life was her own again. The FBI had searched Shannon’s South City duplex apartment immediately following the heist and, for a variety of reasons, she hadn’t gone back there until the day before yesterday. The problem was that, sometime between then and yesterday evening, when she and Shannon had gone there to gather a few of Shannon’s things for court this morning, the place had been completely ransacked. Ripped clothing, pieces of shredded furniture and shards of broken glass were everywhere, in every corner of every room. In her line of work, she’d seen her share of search scenes, certainly enough of them to know that, even without the FBI’s vehement denials of responsibility, what they were looking at was most likely not the work of any law-enforcement agency that she’d ever heard of.
Under the circumstances, sending Shannon back there to live was out of the question. But the alternative—taking her back to Carrington Consulting headquarters to stay—didn’t hold much appeal for Olivia, either. She hadn’t counted on the limitations that Shannon’s presence would place on her daily workflow or the amount of personal attention that Shannon would require. Since Shannon had been staying with her, Olivia had given Harriet more time off in the past few days than the retired school principal had apparently known what to do with. Harriet was ready to get back to work and, truthfully, so was Olivia. But if they hoped to get any real work done in the near future, Shannon had to go.
She’d been up half the night last night, coaching Shannon through her latest anxiety attack and making phone calls. Wondering about the whos, the whats and the what the hells behind the break-in, and convincing herself that she was better off not knowing, especially since Shannon seemed to have no clue as to who might be responsible or why. Frankly she was exhausted, but as of a few minutes ago, her mission had been accomplished, so the bags underneath her eyes were worth it. A new apartment had been rented in Shannon’s name—Olivia had called in the mother of all favors in order to pull that one off so quickly—and a team of cleanup technicians was on location at her old one, dealing with the disaster there. By the time Olivia delivered Shannon to her new address later today, her personal effects, along with what could be salvaged of her furniture, would be there waiting for her.
Everything was under control.
Or at least it would be, once Shannon’s pending charges were resolved.
Alone in the elevator car, Olivia breathed a sigh of guilty relief, pressed the button for the fifth floor and stepped back to wait for the doors to close. When five long seconds passed and they still hadn’t moved, she frowned at her watch and pressed the button again. It figured that everyone else had chosen the second car, which of course was long gone by now.
“Thank God,” Olivia murmured when the car suddenly jerked as if it had just received a surge of energy and the doors began slowly gliding closed. Relieved, she tucked her clutch underneath her arm, glanced at her watch again and leaned a hip against the nearest handrail to wait out the rise. A moment later, she scowled as a large hand and then a giant, wing-tipped foot appeared in the space between the doors just before they would’ve closed. The doors froze in place, vibrating ominously for several seconds, and then slowly began reversing directions. “Oh no! Look what you did!” she shrieked as she watched first the doors disappear and then several of the buttons on the operating panel light up, one by one. She was so busy staring at the thing in horror that she barely noticed the body attached to the offending body parts breezing past her and joining her in the car.
“Ma’am, if I had time to look, I would,” a deep, honey-dipped voice drawled from somewhere behind her. “But I don’t, so...” It came closer. “Do you mind?”
She jumped a full foot when one long arm reached around her from behind and pressed the button for the fifth floor. Ironically enough, it was the one button that should’ve already been glowing but wasn’t.
Olivia’s voice, when she finally managed to find it, was crisp. “As a matter of fact, sir, I do mind—” But the moment that she whirled around to confront her offender, anything else that she might’ve said died an instant death on her plum-tinted lips. As if she’d just run face-first into an invisible wall, she came up short and then instinctively took a step back. Suddenly the elevator car seemed much, much smaller and she couldn’t quite remember exactly how pissed she was supposed to be. Or, for that matter, about what specifically.
“Oh...” she heard herself say and then felt her face catch fire. Several tense seconds passed as she stared up at the man standing in front of her and tried to think of something else to say. In the end, all she could come up with was: “My God, you’re huge.” Which of course only made her face burn hotter and his eyebrows disappear into his hairline. She was staring and she couldn’t seem to make herself stop. It was just that he was quite literally the adult version of every childhood nerd that she’d ever seen, with a dash of post-pubescent Harry Potter thrown in for good measure, and the visual was...interesting.
Above his silk bow tie and matching suspenders—both of which were a conservative blue paisley print—and the discreet leather pocket protector that was neatly tucked into the breast pocket of his soft blue dress shirt, his Adam’s apple bobbed prominently in the column of his neck. A little higher up, his ears protruded slightly from the sides of his close-shaven head, expressive brown eyes blinked down at her from behind rounded, metal-rimmed lenses and the ghost of a unibrow filled the space between his thick, naturally arched eyebrows.
Instead of a cape, his suit jacket was neatly folded and draped over one arm, and in place of a magic wand, there was an ion-plated watch on his wrist, tasteful gold cuff links in his French cuffs and stylish derby shoes on his long feet. He looked like his areas of expertise were quantum physics, vintage action figures and, possibly, Impressionist art. Like he’d grown up wearing headgear, collecting pet rocks, watching Saturday-morning cartoons and building model spaceships.
Back then he would’ve been cute, maybe even adorable, but in the here and now, given his towering height and booming voice, he was almost...mythical. Except that both his suspenders and his bow tie were Hermes, his high-tech watch was a Bvlgari masterpiece and the way his tailored navy blue suit fit his frame positively screamed Brooks Brothers. She recognized good taste when she saw it, and she didn’t quite know what to make of the air of bourgeoisie surrounding him, but at the moment, nothing about it was especially hard on the eyes.
You’re staring, Olivia.
“I’m sorry,” she said, forcing herself to blink first and then look away. He was much larger than she was and she wasn’t under any illusions about her ability to overpower him, if it came down to that. “That didn’t come out right. Wh-what I meant
was—”
“I know what you meant.” He waved a giant, dismissive hand and then reached around her to press the button again, this time a little impatiently. “Look, in a few minutes’ time, we’ll part ways and in all likelihood never cross paths again. So it doesn’t really matter what you meant to say, does it? I, for one, would just like to get to where I’m going before the day is out.” He reached for the button again. “Does this thing work?”
“Maybe it would if you’d stop randomly pushing buttons and give it time to catch up with itself. It’s not a keyboard.”
“Gee, it isn’t? I didn’t know.”
“Please don’t ask me why I find that hard to believe.” She caught herself just as she was about to swat his hand away when he would’ve pressed the button again and immediately threw up her own in defeat. Physically assaulting perfect strangers was a clear sign that it was time to come up with a plan B. “Okay. You know what? Why don’t I just step out and let you have the elevator to yourself? I’ll catch the next one.” But the car chose that exact moment to kick into gear, the doors gliding closed at her back.
Dammit.
“Too late,” he murmured as she spun around to see for herself.
Tight-lipped, she re-tucked her clutch underneath her arm and cleared her throat. Neither of them spoke as the car lifted off and began a shuddering journey to the floor above it. The bell signaling their arrival to the fifth floor rang and, a few seconds later, the car jerked to an unsteady stop. After several more seconds of staring at the closed doors expectantly, it occurred to Olivia that they should’ve opened by now. Now it was her turn to reach for the button and press it repeatedly. “What the hell?” she wondered aloud when nothing happened.
“I knew I should’ve taken the damn stairs.”
She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Yeah, well, it’s too late for that, too, isn’t it?” She reached out to press a button on the operating panel, only to snatch her hand back when the floor began vibrating underneath their feet. Thinking that the elevator was about to kick into gear once again, she pressed the button for the fifth floor once more. In response, the floor of the elevator suddenly dropped several feet beneath them. Shaken, she reached for the nearest handrail and held on for dear life. “I’m going to die in an elevator? Really, God?” She looked up and shook a fist at the ceiling. “A freaking elevator?”
A dark chuckle floated across the width of the elevator, and Olivia’s eyes swerved over to its owner in silent reproach. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” she practically spat at him. “You obviously haven’t been to the movie theater lately,” she went on, feeling herself getting more and more worked up. “Because if you had, and you’d seen the same movie that I saw, then you wouldn’t be laughing right now.”
“You mean the cheesy, cinematic train wreck that’s supposedly loosely based on actual events? Please. I saw it last week.”
“Then I’m sure you can understand why I’m concerned.” How was he not seeing the similarities between the two of them being trapped together on an obviously demon-possessed elevator and the scene in the movie in which a group of people were trapped together on an elevator that had eventually caught fire and burned its occupants alive?
“Actually, no, I can’t.” She gaped at him. “If you recall, the elevator fire in the movie was caused by a ball of fire being hurled at it by a minion from the dark side, who’d been sent to planet earth by aliens who intended to take over what was left of the planet’s natural resources. Somehow I don’t think that scenario applies here. Unless of course—” he added, spreading his arms diplomatically and cocking a brow at her “—you happen to be the Catholic nun with secret supernatural powers that the minion was after, in disguise.”
Put that way, Olivia could hear the silliness of her own argument. “You’re right, of course,” she conceded, pressing a hand to her chest and taking a deep breath. She hated closed spaces. “I’m being silly.”
“A little,” he conceded with a shrug. “I think a much more rational explanation is that we’re just stuck between two floors. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just a little caught off guard.” Honestly, she had passed caught off guard a few terrifying seconds ago and was now firmly planted in the middle of shaken the hell up territory, but she wasn’t about to admit that to a complete stranger, especially not one whom she was trapped alone inside of an elevator with. “What about you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, removing his cell phone from his trouser pocket and pressing a button. “I’m going to send my colleague a text, asking him to alert building maintenance.” She watched him begin texting, completely unprepared for the moment that he paused in the middle of typing and his gaze flickered up to hers over the rim of his glasses. “You aren’t in any danger of fainting or hyperventilating, are you?”
For the second time in as many minutes, Olivia found herself at a disadvantage. But for his generous mouth and his thick, curly, reddish-brown hair, he might’ve been mistaken for a white man. In fact when he’d first stepped into the elevator and she’d caught a glimpse of him in her peripheral vision, that was exactly what she had thought he was. It had taken a second or two of staring at him to notice that his curls were coarser than most and springy, valiantly fighting against the confines of his low-cut, trendy hairstyle and this close to winning the battle. To notice that his skin was more the color of sweet milk than skim, more butter-cream and honey than alabaster, and that it was infused with the slightest hint of mocha. She wondered which of his parents was responsible for it, and if it was the same parent who’d given him his incredible mouth. Which, she realized with a start, was moving right now.
Snap out of it, Olivia.
She shook her head to clear it. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I was asking if you needed an ambulance.”
“No...no, I’m fine.”
My God, he’s good-looking, she thought as her nipples hardened to pearls inside the lace cups of her bra and the beginnings of arousal simmered in her belly. But...oh, come on now. Really? No way in hell was she attracted to him. She couldn’t be. Could she?
No way. If ever there was a poster child for the type of man that she was definitely not attracted to, this man was it. What was the matter with her?
On second thought, maybe she did need an ambulance.
Chapter 5
Or sex, a little voice in the back of Olivia’s mind interjected. Maybe a hot, sweaty round of great sex is what you need. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
She quickly calculated dates and times, and then stifled an incredulous groan when she realized that a little over a year had passed since the last time she’d had an encounter of any kind, let alone one that had ended with an orgasm. With Elise away so much, finding time for anything other than work was becoming more and more difficult. She hadn’t been on so much as a date in how many months—six? Eight? Ten? How pathetic was it that she’d lost count? To make matters worse, the only reason she was able to pinpoint the last time she’d had sex with any degree of accuracy was because the date just happened to coincide with the last time she had visited her parents in London. Which, coincidentally, was right before Elise and Broderick had eloped.
Well, at least one of them was getting some. The other one, Olivia mused ruefully, was clearly losing her damn mind.
“You’re sure about that ambulance?”
“Positive.”
* * *
Cooper wasn’t so sure about that. She looked like she was about to hurl any second now, and her purse didn’t look like it could hold much. He debated moving closer to check on her but then changed his mind when his cock threatened to show its support for the idea with a standing ovation.
Done texting, he put away his cell phone and glanced at his watch. A second later it chirped, signaling an incoming text, and he took it out again. “They’re saying that i
t’s going to be at least a half hour before maintenance can get to us.”
“What? Why?”
“Apparently ours isn’t the only stuck elevator in the building today,” he drawled, setting his attaché case down on the floor, at his feet, and then squatting down next to it. “They’ll get to us as soon as possible.”
“I’d better text my friend and let her know what’s happening.”
Expecting to wait at least twice as long as the estimate that he’d been given, Cooper pinched the creases in his trousers and lowered himself to the floor to sit. There, he stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles, relaxing against the wall at his back. A second later he threaded his fingers in his lap and watched her over the rim of his glasses as she took out her cell phone and began typing as she paced back and forth across the width of the elevator. Several minutes into it, after she had finally finished texting and put away her phone, he cleared his throat. “Something tells me that you’re not a fan of closed spaces.”
She froze in place, staring down at him as if she were just now realizing that he was there. “I’m not.” She resumed pacing. “When I was eleven, I accidentally locked myself in a closet and it was hours before anyone found me. Then, when I was fifteen, a group of bullies locked me in a dark supply closet at school, and if it hadn’t been for the night janitor, who didn’t report to work until eight o’clock that evening, I’d probably still be there.” She cut him a look when he snorted. “Then, in college, I hid in the trunk of a friend’s car as part of a prank gone wrong, and she didn’t remember that I was in there until the next morning, so—”
Cooper took off his glasses, dropped his chin to his chest and pinched the bridge of his nose to keep from laughing out loud.