Читать книгу Changing Constantinou's Game - Jennifer Hayward - Страница 8

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.

Been there, done that. She squeezed her eyes shut. She was not that Izzie anymore—the terrified, unsure eighteen-year-old who’d walked into that audition and blown the biggest opportunity of her life. She would not go back there. Ever. Particularly not when today, facing her mortality, she’d suddenly had a crystal-clear vision of how short life could be.

A shaky sigh escaped her as she leaned back into the smooth leather. What was she doing, anyway? If those emergency brakes hadn’t deployed, she and Alex would have been smashed to smithereens. Worrying about a job was just nuts! But to be fair, she’d spent her whole life worrying. On a low, chronic level that couldn’t be good for a person. About keeping her job. About how she looked. About what the future held. And right now, that seemed like a very, very stupid way to live.

Alex dropped down in the chair beside her. “You okay?”

She nodded, her brain settling into an oddly lucid state. “Actually,” she said slowly, “I am.”

He gave her a long look as if he was trying to decide if she’d lost it. Then handed her ticket back with some scribbles on it. “The best Grace could do was an eleven-thirty tomorrow morning.”

She did the calculation in her head. If she left here at eleven-thirty, she’d land in New York around one-thirty. Maybe, just maybe, James could get the execs to stay later.

“Thank you,” she murmured, sliding the ticket into her purse.

“No problem.” His gaze sharpened on her face. “What did the paramedic say?”

“He says I’m fine...just to keep an eye on my head.”

“You mean have someone keep an eye on you,” he corrected. “For at least twenty-four hours probably. Any of those girlfriends of yours live in London?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure I’m fine. I’ll just book a hotel, get a good night’s sleep and it’ll all be good.”

His dark brows slanted together. “You don’t fool around with a head injury, Isabel. It’s serious stuff.”

“I don’t have a head injury. I have a bump on my head.”

He gave her a dark look and raked his hand through his hair. “Give me a second. I’m going to see if I can find a nurse or someone who can keep an eye on you.”

“No way I—dammit—” she cursed as he turned on his heel and strode off, already talking into his phone. She didn’t need a nurse. She needed to get back to New York.

He came back five minutes later, his frown deeper. “My assistant couldn’t find someone on such short notice.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” she said, trying not to look relieved. “I’ll make sure I keep an eye on myself and if I feel the slightest bit strange, I’ll go to the hospital.”

“No, you won’t.” His eyes darkened to a forbidding cobalt-blue. “I have plenty of space at my place in Canary Wharf. You can stay with me.”

Her jaw dropped open. Her stay with him at his place? Umm...no. “That’s very nice of you,” she said, “but I can’t impose like that.”

“You need to be watched.” He reached down and picked up her bag. “I don’t know about you but I need a hot shower and something to eat. Let’s go.”

She shook her head. “Alex, I—”

“Isabel. I had a friend suffer a massive hemorrhage after he hit his head. We all thought he was fine. He died that night, at home alone.”

“Oh.” She stared at him, scared silly.

“Exactly. You’ve had a brutally traumatic day, you look like you’re going to pass out, and I’m the one responsible for you whacking your head. So do me a favor and stay at my place so I don’t have to spend the night worrying about you expiring in a hotel room.”

And what was she supposed to say to that? Suddenly, staying alone in a hotel room seemed the height of stupidity. The thing was...despite how she knew instinctively she could trust him, despite how he’d taken care of her in that elevator, she didn’t know him. He could be an ax murderer for all she knew. On the other hand, she knew that was ridiculous. As a reporter she lived by her instincts, and her instincts told her she could trust Alex.

“Just say yes,” he muttered. “I’m out of patience.”

She chewed on her lip. “All right. If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble...”

A rueful smile curved his mouth. “I have a feeling you are trouble, Isabel Peters. Having you stay with me is not.”

But Izzie wasn’t at all sure that was the truth. Seated in the low, sleek sports car Alex had parked in the underground lot, her pulse raced as fast as the high-performance engine rippling beneath her. It might have been the way she couldn’t look at his muscular thighs on the low bucket seat beside her without remembering how that hard, male muscle had felt under her hands. Or the fact that despite his abrupt dismissal in the lobby earlier, there had been a spark between them in that elevator. Unless she was totally deluded...which had been known to happen when it came to her and men.

Tired of watching Izzie sit on the sidelines in Italy, her girlfriend Jo had finally staged an intervention. “You have to engage with men to catch them,” she’d advised caustically. “We aren’t participating in immaculate conception here.”

Izzie was clear on that. She just happened to be very, very bad at engaging.

She darted a sideways glance at the hard profile of the drop-dead-gorgeous man beside her. Could he actually be attracted to her? Or was she just kidding herself about that chemistry in the elevator? A man like that could have any woman he wanted. Why would he want vanilla when he could undoubtedly savor crème brûlée any day of the week?

The left and right sides of her brain warred with each other. Suddenly she was very, very tired of being Izzie the responsible. The girl who never took a risk. And it occurred to her that until she did, she might never know who she really was.

A flock of butterflies swooped through her stomach on a wild roller-coaster ride. Did she have the courage to find out tonight whether vanilla cut it? And if so, would it go down as the single most stupid thing she’d ever done? Or the best?