After-Hours Negotiation: Can't Get Enough / An Offer She Can't Refuse

As if she didn’t trust him to know the difference between a live phone and a dead one, she crossed to take a listen herself. He leaned against the side wall, elaborately casual as he waited for her to confirm his initial assessment.

“You’re right,” she said.

“Wow, that must have really hurt,” he couldn’t resist saying.

She shot him a look that would have turned lesser men to stone.

“What, didn’t expect to have to actually stay and cop the consequences of all that mouthing off?” he asked, for some reason feeling really angry with her now. “I know you probably prefer to just hit and run, but unfortunately we appear to be stuck for the short term.”

He watched, fascinated, as the color flooded back into her cheeks and her eyes burned with an angry light. Pretty impressive, a part of his brain acknowledged. She even drew her shoulders back and inhaled sharply, and, for the first time ever, he found his eyes dropping to her suit-encased chest.

“It’s easy for you to stand there all smug and confident. Did you just have your idea taken away from you and handed to someone completely undeserving? Did you just get treated like some token office bimbo? No. Because you’re a man. A racquetball playing, big-game-fishing, bungee-jumping man with a stupid red sports car and the right equipment between his legs to get ahead in this company.”

If he’d been a cartoon, his hair would have been streaming back from his head as if he’d just stepped out of a wind tunnel. Whoa, but this was one angry woman. And he could see her point, really he could. But he didn’t like the way she was sighting her feminist crosshairs directly on him.

“Listen, I had nothing to do with what just happened in that meeting. You think I want anything to do with this? And if we’re talking about tokenism, I’m the one who’s being wheeled in as the token male on this project for appearance’s sake. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Don’t you dare mock me!” she warned him.

“Then don’t you blame your problems on me,” he countered. “I can’t see why you’d make me the bad guy in all this. Contrary to your belief, I have never disliked you. I barely know you.”

She raised an eyebrow skeptically, her whole attitude one of disbelief.

“I know what you said about me,” she shot at him.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard.”

Genuinely baffled, Jack raised his hands in the air, palms up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have better things to do than spend my spare time hanging around talking about you.”

That got her! The color was back in her cheeks, and she glared at him fiercely.

“You called me prissy! So don’t you dare stand there pulling that Mr. Innocent act,” she hissed at him.

Jack frowned. What the hell was she going on about? He’d been speaking the truth when he said that he didn’t spend his time sitting around talking about her.

“Sorry, but I think you’ve got that wrong, lady,” he said bluntly.

“Really? We’ll just have to ask my good friend Katherine Kirk when we get out of here then, won’t we?”

Although his expression didn’t change, Jack felt a moment of doubt. Now that she mentioned it, he could vaguely remember having a beer with Katherine some time ago after work. He’d just had a run-in with Claire in an editorial meeting and come out second best….

He made a mental note to thank Katherine for dumping him in it.

Claire was waiting for his response, hands on her hips.

“Well? What do you have to say to that?”

He shrugged. He’d said it, might as well own it. It wasn’t as though it wasn’t true. “Prissy might have been overstating it. You can be pretty anal, though.”

She made a hissing sound, kind of like a kettle about to blow its top, then opened her mouth to retaliate just as the phone rang. They both jumped, startled. Praying this was good news, he reached for the receiver with alacrity.

“Hello?” he asked, feeling her eyes on him, sensing her hopes, like his own, beginning to rise at this contact.

“This is Ted Evans from Security. I’m making contact to ascertain the exact number of persons in lift number six,” an officious voice asked.

“Well, Ted, there are two of us, and we’d sure as hell love to get out of here.”

Claire made an exasperated noise that he guessed was supposed to signal her wholehearted agreement.

“Two. Right. Well, uh— Who am I talking to?”

“Jack. Jack Brook.”

“Right. Jack. You’re the one with the red Porsche, yeah? Nice little number,” Ted said, his tone all male appreciation. “It’s an early 2002 model, right? The one with tiptronic transmission? Very nice.”

Jack reined in his frustration. This guy didn’t seem to have a real tight grasp on the urgency of their situation.

“About the elevator, Ted,” he hinted.

He glanced up as Claire shifted restlessly, a frown creasing her forehead as she no doubt wondered what was going on. He could imagine her reaction if he told her Ted wanted to talk cars.

“Well, we’ve got a bit of a situation here, Jack. There’s been a major power blackout across this whole part of town—something about a fire at the power plant—and most of the building’s services have shut down. Air-conditioning, security systems, elevators. You know.”

Jack rolled his eyes. Claire shook her head with confusion.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

He tried to look reassuring as he returned his attention to Ted.

“So there are other people stuck in elevators?”

“Sure are. Only two of the twelve cars were empty. Elevator four has ten people in it,” Ted reported with relish.

Jack grimaced. Ten people would make for a cozy lift compartment. Thank God it was just him and Claire. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted her frown deepening. On second thoughts, maybe a cozy, friendly elevator wasn’t such a bad option….

“So how long are we talking here? Half an hour? Ten minutes? What?” he asked, deciding it was time to force Ted to the point.

“Can’t tell you that just yet. We’ve contacted the manufacturer, and they’re sending a team out.”

Jack tried to control the sinking sensation in his gut.

“So…we could be talking hours here,” he said reluctantly.

He could feel Claire stiffen even though she was as far from him as she could get.

“That’s not good enough,” she said, striding across to pull the receiver from his hand.