by Amy Andrews
“What?” Steffy asked.
“If we could find something skinny to stick up through that hole and attach a sign …”
Steffy frowned. “You mean like a flag?”
“Yes,” Bill said brightening. “Yes.”
“There’s some dish towels in Dayzee’s storeroom. And I have a pen …” She grabbed her voluminous bag and hunted through it, then cried out triumphantly as she brandished a pen in the air.
Bill grinned. “Thank God for women and their obsession with handbags.”
He got to his feet, his shin throbbing where it had been injured. Some narrow conduit piping stuck out from the rubble and he put his foot on it and worked the length back and forth, trying to get it to snap off.
Steffy came back from the storeroom with a plain orange dish towel. “What should I write?” she asked as she watched him work the pipe.
“How about, ‘Two survivors in Dayzee’s?’”
Steffy transcribed it onto the cloth, making the letters big and fat and hopefully noticeable from a distance. She held up the flag just as the pipe snapped off and about two meters came free.
“Good. We just need to attach it to the end now.”
Steffy thought for a moment. “There’s a pair of scissors in the first aid kit.”
Bill joined Steffy on their makeshift bed and they cut a small hole in the fabric at each end of one of the cloth’s short sides and threaded the pipe through to make a crude flag. It was a snug fit but Steffy didn’t want to leave anything to chance, securing the fabric to the pole with some tape as well. If the fabric somehow worked loose and didn’t flap in the breeze then it was useless.
“Okay,” Bill said when Steffy was satisfied. “Now let’s wrap the towel around the pole, shove it up through the hole and then it should unfurl when it’s on the outside.”
Steffy nodded, winding the towel as instructed. When it was ready, they both looked at the mound of rubble again. She knew one of them was going to have to go up there far enough to poke the pipe out of the hole and then anchor it down among the debris on their side.
Bill stood and held his hand out. “Once more into the breach,” he said.
But Steffy shook her head and stood next to him. “You’re already injured and you and I both know that I’m lighter and therefore at less risk of disturbing anything important.”
“Maybe. But it’s dangerous and the gentleman in me just can’t let you do it.”
Steffy raised an eyebrow. “Since when have you ever been a gentleman, Bill Spencer?”
“What can I say? Life and death bring it out in me.”
Steffy rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’ll go up the way I went up before; it’s obviously more stable.”
“It’s not in a direct line with the hole though,” Bill pointed out.
“I know,” Steffy said, then shrugged. “I knew my yoga would come in handy one day. Don’t worry, I’ll be up and down before you know it.”
“Okay,” Bill conceded. “Just … be careful and come straight back down if there’s any movement.”
Steffy would be lying if she didn’t admit, after Bill’s fall, to being terrified that one wrong foot would bring everything down on her head—she wished she could be as fearless as she appeared. She wished her heart wasn’t racing and her hands weren’t sweaty and trembling.
Regardless of those things, she got the job done and scurried back down again like the hounds of hell were chasing her.
Bill grinned. “My hero.” He passed her the bottle of water she’d started at breakfast. She took it with shaky fingers and guzzled all but a few mouthfuls.
“You okay?” he asked.
Steffy nodded. “What’s for lunch?”
They ate some tinned Atlantic salmon with crackers and Steffy was so hungry she didn’t care that caviar was usually more her style. It tasted great and satisfied the gnawing hunger pains in her stomach.
“So what else you got in that bag?” Bill asked as he sipped at his water.
Steffy looked at her handbag. “All kinds of things,” she said, dragging it closer again. “My purse. My diary. A full tin of mints.” She pulled them out and slapped them into his hand. “Should be about a week’s worth of minty freshness for both of us there,” she said. “Some deodorant, a small bottle of perfume.”
Bill held out his hand for it. “Chanel,” he noted. “Very French.” He pulled off the lid and sniffed the nozzle then reached across for her hand. She eyed him uncertainly but let him take it and he turned it over and sprayed perfume on her inner wrist then lifted it to his face and sniffed. “Suits you,” he murmured, holding her gaze.
Steffy’s breath caught in her throat. His lips grazed her wrist and her belly muscles dissolved to jelly. She opened her mouth to say something but he let her wrist go and said, “What else?”
Steffy blinked as her mind grappled for control over her body. “Ah …” She dragged her gaze from his and looked into her bag. “An e-reader,” she said pulling it out.
“That could come in handy here,” Bill said, wondering what kind of books Steffy read. Was she a literary reader or did she prefer the kind of books that a lot of women felt comfortable only reading on electronic devices? His loins stirred at the thought.
“And this,” Steffy said, pulling out the printed and stapled pages of the proposal she’d shoved in at the last minute yesterday.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s the proposal for Eye on Fashion. The one I was supposed to be presenting to you today.”
“Ah,” Bill said. “May I?”
Steffy shook her head. “They’re just my notes. I have a proper hard copy all bound and pretty and a PowerPoint presentation to go with it.”
“Do you honestly think any of that matters now?”
Steffy went to protest again then laughed at herself, at the absurdity of it. “I suppose not, no.”
“You worked hard on this, right?” he asked and she nodded her head. “So present it to me now.”
Steffy frowned. “I don’t think it’s really the time, do you? I’m really not in the right frame of mind and I’m definitely not,” she said, looking down at herself, “dressed for it.”
He shrugged. “You’re wearing French perfume.” Steffy rolled her eyes and he smiled. “Okay, look. We’ve got time to kill, you’ve worked hard on this and I hate to be the harbinger of doom, but we may not get out of here … Do you want to waste all that hard work?”
“If we die in here it won’t matter whether I’ve shared it with you or not,” she said.
“True. But given our circumstances, I’ll probably be more likely to say yes.”
Steffy cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’ll humor me and then recant as soon as we see blue sky again?”
Bill grinned. “Nope. If I say yes, we’ll shake on it and that is my word.”
Steffy regarded him for a moment or two to try to ascertain his seriousness. He looked very sincere. And suddenly she was glad for it. It would give them something to do, something to talk about to pass the hours, take her mind off their situation.
“Okay,” she said. “But if you say yes, I want it in writing.”
Bill held out his hand. “Deal.”
*
Steffy spent the next few hours presenting the proposal. At first she felt naked without all the bells and whistles of a boardroom, without her power suit and her PowerPoint, and the laser thingy she pointed at the screen to highlight something. But as she progressed and became engrossed in what she was saying and she and Bill started to have a conversation, she forgot about the technology she’d come to believe she couldn’t live without.
She knew the facts, she knew the figures, and no whizz-bang PowerPoint presentation in the world could ever convey the passion that ran as deep as a well inside her over this project.
By the time she was all talked out and Bill was all questioned out, Steffy felt high. Giddy. Breathless.
She knew she’d don
e well. She knew she’d excelled.
“Well?” she demanded when he just sat there, his back against the door frame, looking at her like he was trying to get her measure.
Bill nodded slowly. “You’ve convinced me,” he said.
Steffy blinked. “I have?”
He nodded. “You have.”
“So … that’s a yes?”
Bill smiled. “That’s an ‘I’ll take it to the board with my highest recommendation.’”
Steffy grinned then. “Really?”
Bill grinned back. “Really. I think you’re right. I think it’ll work. And if being stuck in a collapsed building has taught me anything, it’s that there’s a lot more to life than idle gossip.”
Steffy clapped excitedly and bounced up and down very enticingly where she sat. He held up his hand. “I still have to get it through the board.”
Steffy nodded enthusiastically. “I know.” She understood the whole executive process—she’d been on the Forrester Creations board for years. But she also knew that Bill’s board always fell into line with what Bill wanted, mostly because his business instincts had never led them wrong.
“Okay then.” Bill grinned then held out his hand. “Deal.”
“Oh no,” Steffy said, searching through her handbag. “In writing.”
She pulled a pen out of her bag then ripped a page out of her diary and handed them to Bill.
Bill took them but he scrunched up the piece of paper and watched her eyes widen. Then he reached over and grabbed her hand, the same one he’d sprayed the perfume on, and clicked the pen.
“Bill,” Steffy protested as he placed the nib against the skin of her forearm.
“Shh,” he said and started to write.
Steffy’s breath got huskier and huskier as he scrolled writing up and down the length of her forearm. She could feel his warm breath stirring the fine hairs on her arm, and her pulse tripped at her wrist. This shouldn’t be a turn on, but it was.
When he finished, he clicked the pen off and handed it back to her. “Good enough?” he asked.
Steffy looked down. I, Bill Spencer, promise to take Steffy Forrester’s proposal for Eye on Fashion to my board and promise to sack any member who votes against it.
And then he’d signed it.
Steffy bit down on her lip as his words trailed fingers over long forgotten muscles deep inside her. She nodded. “Good enough.”
Chapter Nine
“The sirens aren’t getting any nearer,” Bill said as he got up for the umpteenth time to prowl around the area of Dayzee’s that was left. Night had fallen so he’d flicked on his flashlight.
Steffy, who had thankfully charged her e-reader before going to Dayzee’s yesterday, looked up from it. They’d heard sirens all day but she’d been trying not to think about how distant they were. “No,” she agreed. “I’d have thought we’d have heard sounds of activity outside by now.”
Bill didn’t answer as he looked down at her face, illuminated by the electronic screen. He’d have thought they would have too. People knew where they were, for crying out loud. It only confirmed his worst suspicions—it was a mess out there. He prowled some more.
“I could murder a cup of coffee,” he said eventually.
Steffy raised an eyebrow but didn’t look up from the screen. “Suffering withdrawals?”
Bill held out his hand and shone the flashlight on it. “Steady as a rock.”
Steffy smiled. “You forget how much I know you need coffee.”
Bill grunted. There was no point dwelling on what he couldn’t have. He should just be grateful to be alive. And he was. But … “I think the waiting, the doing nothing, is going to drive me mad,” he said.
“Maybe you could look upon it as a chance to get some work done for a change without a million interruptions,” Steffy said. “You’ve read my report through several more times and made extensive notes on the back.”
Bill grunted again and checked his watch—seven o’clock. “Do you want to eat now?”
Steffy nodded. “Sure.”
“What do you want?”
She shrugged. “Surprise me.”
Bill came back ten minutes later with two tins of spaghetti, a Twinkie each and a bottle of wine. “Look what else I found,” he said.
Steffy squinted in the gloom. “A deck of cards?”
“Yep. Now we can play strip poker,” he said as he sat.
Steffy rolled her eyes. “Oh goody.” She took the wine. “Are we going to drink this now?”
“Might as well. Or did you want to keep it for a special occasion?”
“So captivity makes you a comedian. Lucky me.” She looked down at the label. “No glasses,” she lamented.
Bill took the bottle off her, cracked the lid, raised it to his mouth and took a mouthful. “Mmm,” he said, pushing the bottle toward her. “Wine appreciation, quake-style.”
“Such a romantic,” she said as she took the bottle from him and took a swig. If she had to be trapped in a collapsed building with a man who oozed sexuality all over the place, maybe being tipsy was the only way to cope.
Bill ripped the lid off her tin and shoved a plastic spoon into the spaghetti. “Eat,” he said.
“Wow, you do know how to show a girl a good time.”
“Just say the word.”
Steffy put the bottle down and took the tin, ignoring the invitation and they ate in silence. When they were done, Bill removed the cards from the packet. “Poker?”
“As long as it’s not the strip variety.”
Bill grinned and she shuffled the cards. “Aw gee, you take all the fun out of being trapped in a collapsed building.”
“We can’t play by the light of these flashlights,” Steffy reminded him.
Bill stopped shuffling. She was right. The cards were probably better left for the daylight hours. But he needed to do something, otherwise he was going to forget all about Liam and his feelings and put his hands all over Steffy. Now that the initial shock at their situation had worn off and the immediate threat to their lives seemed to have passed, Bill had been excruciatingly aware of who he was trapped with. And how much time they had to spare.
Last night he’d been exhausted from the jetlag and the adrenaline rush in the aftermath of the quake. Holding Steffy close as they’d slept hadn’t been anything other than giving another human being comfort, and taking a little in return.
But now? They could have a lot of nights to fill and he could think of just the right way to fill them.
“Good point,” he said. “Hang on.”
Steffy watched him stand and head for the storeroom. He came back in under a minute with the lanterns. “Cards by lantern light,” he said, and placed the lanterns in the debris to the right and left of them, switching them on.
“And you accused me of not being romantic,” he said, turning to face Steffy.
Steffy shook her head. “Be still my beating heart.” But there was something very intimate about the low light. And yes, had their situation not been real and quite terrifying, she may even have classed it as romantic.
“Thank goodness Dayzee stocks for the end of the world,” Bill said as he returned to sit on their bedding.
“I don’t think she’s ever forgotten her time on the streets,” Steffy said.
Bill picked up the bottle of wine, raised it in mock salute. “Lucky us,” he said and took a mouthful. Then he shuffled the cards. “Let’s play.”
*
An hour later the wine was gone. Steffy’s head buzzed nicely and she was actually enjoying herself. No mean feat, considering the direness of their situation. But there hadn’t been an aftershock since the one that had landed Bill on his butt and between his charm and the marvelous relaxing effect of the wine, Steffy was feeling very mellow.
“I think we should make it interesting,” Steffy suggested. They were fairly evenly matched in their poker-playing skills and the buzz was making her reckless as well as mellow.
“So you do want to play strip poker.” Bill smiled.
Steffy swatted his arm playfully, ignoring the spike in her pulse at the suggestion. “No, I mean, for money or something.”
Bill liked the sound of “something.” Watching Steffy, heir to the Forrester fortune, sitting cross-legged in jeans and a T-shirt, getting a bit tipsy had gotten under his skin. She’d laughed easily, bantered playfully and her card skills had been impressive.
“Okay, sure, money. You’re good for it right?”
Steffy ignored his teasing. “Nah. That’s boring,” she said. “What about …” She looked around. “Animal crackers,” she said. “Dayzee has a few boxes of them in her storeroom.”
Bill regarded her for a moment as another idea formed. He leaned in toward her slightly. “How about something more … interesting,” he asked, his voice low.
Steffy leaned in too. “Like clothes?” she whispered dramatically.
“No.” Bill chuckled. “How about if I win a hand I get to ask you a question and you have to tell me the truth.”
Steffy sat back. “And if I win?”
“You get to ask me one.”
“So, it’s like truth or dare,” she clarified. “Except with no dare?”
“Well,” Bill said, his gaze dropping to her mouth, “we can do dare as well if you’d prefer.”
Steffy’s head may have been buzzing but she wasn’t that far gone she couldn’t see the inherent danger in Bill daring her to do something. Best to steer clear of that one.
“I think we’ll just stick with truth.”
Bill grinned and pushed the cards toward her. “You deal.”
He won the first hand and there was no beating around the bush. “Did you like it when I kissed you in the limo the day you got back from Paris?”
Steffy blinked. “Are you sure you don’t want to start with something easier? Like the combination to the Forrester vault?”
Bill grinned. “Is avoidance your way of saying no?”
“No.”
“So it’s a yes,” he prompted. “You did enjoy it.”