Out of Hours...Office Affairs: Can't Get Enough / Wild Nights with her Wicked Boss / Bound to the Greek

He hauled himself upright, aware that the waistband on his cargo pants had dropped a little with the movement. He patted his complaining stomach, then watched her eyes follow the motion. A small frown appeared between her eyebrows, just for a second, and when he glanced down he realized his scar was showing. Sighing, he braced himself for the inevitable “Wow, how’d you get that?”

It never came. Instead, she turned to her handbag and started rummaging through it. He watched, perplexed, as her frustration grew until she finally just emptied the whole bag out onto the elevator floor. An enormous array of crap spilled out over the carpeted space between them, successfully distracting him from the increasingly hypnotic power her breasts seemed to hold over him. He surveyed the array of purse-rubble disbelievingly. This jumble of junk belonged to Claire “Crisply Ironed” Marsden?

“Wow. You got a spare Learjet or helicopter in there we could use?” he asked as she began pawing through the debris.

“Trust me, it’s all very valuable and necessary,” she said, intent on her search.

He leaned forward to pick up a child-size water pistol.

“Very handy with some clients, I’m sure.” For an insane moment, he wondered what she would do if he squirted her in the breasts with the gun, and then offered to lick the water off. Before he could so much as tighten his finger on the trigger, she reached up and took the water pistol out of his hand.

“It’s my godchild’s. Here they are!”

Triumphant, she held aloft a packet of mints as though she’d just found the Holy Grail itself. Very pleased with herself, she offered the pack to him.

“Help yourself,” she encouraged him.

She was very proud of her mints, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her they wouldn’t put a dint in his appetite. So he peeled off a mint, more than a little bemused by this new side to Claire. This godmother-to-someone’s-child, lover-of-action-movies, owner-of-a-junk-filled-handbag Claire. It didn’t gel with his previous ideas of her at all. If he’d thought about her at all—and he hadn’t, thanks to the boxy suits and the efficient way she had of cutting him dead each time she saw him—he’d have imagined her in one of those minimalist white apartments with everything arranged in tidy, geometric patterns. He’d have bet she made her bed with hospital corners, watched worthy historical dramas on public access TV and listened to opera in the original Italian.

Now he knew that at least some of those assumptions were wrong. For starters, those ugly suits of hers had been hiding an Aladdin’s cave of earthy delights—exhibit A being those spectacular breasts, followed closely by the firm silkiness of her thighs. Plus she had a sense of humor. And she was messy, despite appearances, if her handbag was anything to go by.

Floundering and uncomfortable with this new, far more sexy, human take on Claire Marsden, he tried gamely to cling to his old misconceptions.

“Do you like opera?” he asked, wanting to be able to retreat to familiar, predictable territory. He made a bet with himself that she even knew Italian and had a season’s pass.

She poked out her tongue playfully, something he’d never seen her do before. Who was this woman? And what had she done with the real Claire Marsden?

“Hate it. And I know you’re going to call me a philistine now and tell me how beautiful and moving it is, but I’m just not into it, okay? So sue me,” she said.

She was sucking on a mint, the action puckering her lips a little, and he had to drag his fascinated gaze away from her mouth to respond.

“Bunch of incomprehensible screaming, if you ask me,” he said vaguely, beginning to worry again about Stockholm Syndrome.

What if there was no cure? What if he got out of here and this feeling he was beginning to get—this sort of defrosting feeling coupled with a definite physical interest—what if it didn’t go away? He didn’t want to get to know Claire. He certainly didn’t want to like her, after all the crap she’d piled on him today. But the niggling thought that perhaps he’d misjudged her kept shouting for attention at the back of his mind. That, and the fact that he had an erection that was becoming increasingly difficult to hide.

HE WAS QUITE entertaining, really. But then, if you were going to be a successful playboy, she guessed you’d have to have a fair line in being charming and entertaining. Stock in trade, really.

The movie talk had been fun. And she’d been surprised by how many movies they’d both liked. Of course, she’d expected him to be prejudiced against The Wizard of Oz. Only the truly good and insightful understood how great a movie it was.

She finished stuffing all her bits back into her handbag, and settled once again into her lolling position on the floor. It was getting really warm now. All their talking hadn’t helped things any, sucking up all the available air. For a moment, she wondered about how airtight the lift was and imagined running out of oxygen. The walls seemed to frown in over her and all of a sudden she was finding it difficult to breathe again.

“Claire?”

When she didn’t answer, he nudged her foot with his, forcing her to look up. He tapped his nose, and she nodded as she remembered to follow his technique.

After a minute or so of nostril breathing, she felt the tension in her chest easing.

“Thanks.”

“The nose knows.”

She flapped a hand in front of her face, desperate for a bit of fresh air.

“It’s just so stuffy in here. Now I know how microwave popcorn feels.”

He shot her a look that plainly told her to quit whining.

“I know, talking about it doesn’t make it any better. But surely we could pry the doors open a bit, get some fresh air in?” she suggested hopefully.

But he just shook his head.

“Sadly, I left my pry bar at home this morning. Unless you have one in your bag?”

She huffed at him impatiently, already reassessing the good will he’d generated during their movie banter. Amusing he might be, but scratch the surface and he had a solid core of annoying just waiting to be expressed.

Pushing the wet curls back from her forehead, she rolled her head back on her jacket-pillow and stared at the ceiling. This waiting was bringing new meaning to the word bored. She remembered seeing some pages from the local paper stuffed in amongst the rubble in her handbag, and she reached for them in desperation. Never had reports on the local school fair or lost dogs seemed so enticing. She unfolded the pages and realized with disappointment that they were from the classifieds section of the paper. She remembered now that she’d grabbed them because she needed to arrange for a plumber to look at her dishwasher.

Still, desperate times bred desperate measures, and she found herself perusing every single ad. Plumbers, gardeners, electricians. She found three spelling mistakes and about a million grammatical errors. But who was counting, right? She was about to flip the page when she saw a small photo ad for a car dealership. The flash of red paintwork caught her eye and she squinted, trying to work out what make of car it was in the tiny photo. A Mustang! And a convertible, if she wasn’t mistaken. Excellent. She settled back to enjoy a good ten minutes’ worth of fantasizing about owning a red Mustang convertible. By the time she’d killed a quarter of an hour imagining herself cruising around with the roof off, her practical side was beginning to assert itself. The roof probably leaked, parts would be expensive, and there was nothing at all wrong with her late-model sedan. Besides, she wasn’t a red convertible kind of girl. Sighing, she rolled the pages back up and put them to one side.

“Could I…?” Jack asked, eyeing the paper greedily.

“It’s pretty dull stuff—but you’re welcome to it.” She flipped the paper over to his side of the elevator and tried to think of something else to occupy herself. She’d seen an interview with a guy who’d been held captive by South American freedom fighters once. He’d been locked up on his own for months and months, and he claimed he held on to his sanity and his purpose by having imaginary conversations with his family, acting out both sides in his cell.

She slid a sideways look at the man lying beside her. She’d never hear the last of it if she had an imaginary conversation with her father. The idea was so absurd, she almost laughed out loud. Not the least because she couldn’t begin to imagine what a real conversation with her father might be like. The familiar feeling of anger twined with rejection stole into her belly, and she steeled herself against it. Harry was not a good investment for hopes, emotions and dreams.

The sound of Jack’s stomach growling saved her from further naval gazing.

“Have another mint,” she said, tossing the roll of candy across to him.

She returned to her mindless study of the elevator’s ceiling, her eyes sliding across the familiar configuration of emergency light, utility access and the ubiquitous expanse of brushed steel.

She allowed her heavy eyelids to close, then sat up straight, inspiration energizing her.

“The utility access!” she crowed excitedly, scrambling to her feet.

Jack was staring up at her from his prone position, a shiny scrap of foil from the mint roll curled on his chest.

“Huh?”

“The utility access, in the ceiling. We can open it, let some of this hot air out. Surely there must be cooler air out there in the elevator shaft?” she said.

He liked the idea, she could tell by the way his eyes darkened to a deeper blue.

“Smart thinking, 99,” he said in a really appalling Maxwell Smart voice.

“As an impressionist, you make a great elevator mechanic,” she told him playfully, then caught herself up short.

Was she flirting with Jack Brook? She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes as he eased himself to his feet and brushed himself off.