by faster than before? Her heartbeat accelerated. She must be imagining it because elevators didn’t change speed, did they? The numbers whizzed by faster. She flicked an alarmed look at the hunk. He was staring at the numbers too. Twenty-eight, twenty-seven, twenty-six...they were definitely accelerating.
“Wh-what’s happening?” she croaked, clutching the bar behind her.
He swung around, his mouth set in a grim line. “I don’t—”
The rest of his words were ripped from his mouth as the elevator slammed to a sudden, screeching halt. She shrieked as the force of the impact tore her hands from the bar and sent her careering forward. The stranger lunged for her, but the bouncing elevator threw him off balance and he slammed into her. The floor came up to meet them, the heavy weight of his body crashing down on hers. The sound of her head hitting the tile reverberated in her ears. Then everything went silent.
* * *
Alex lay on top of the girl, fighting to pull air into his lungs. The car swayed and creaked — seemed to be making up its mind whether to stay put or not. He froze, not daring to move, until several seconds had passed and the elevator remained where it was. An eerie silence consumed the space. The emergency brakes must have deployed. Thank. God.
The sound of frantic, staccato breathing filled his ear. His face was buried in a sea of thick, silky hair, the weight of his body crushing the woman’s smaller, slighter frame. He cursed inwardly, wondering how badly he’d hurt her. In trying to catch her, he’d taken her out hard—like an outside linebacker on a mission.
He pressed his hands against the tile and levered himself gingerly off her. She was lying facedown on the floor, motionless except for her frantic breathing. He curved a hand around her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t respond, her breath coming in gasping mouthfuls. He slid an arm underneath her and gently turned her over. Her glassy eyes and paper-white face made his heart pound. Christós. The nasty purple bump beginning to form on the left side of her forehead made it accelerate even faster.
He trained his gaze on hers until she focused on him. “Are you okay?”
Her lips parted. “The—the elevator... Are w-we stopped?”
He let out a long breath. “Yes. The emergency brakes kicked in.”
Relief filled her glazed eyes. But it didn’t last long. Her gaze darted, bouncing like a tennis ball off the metal walls, her quick, gasping breaths increasing in speed as her fingers dug into the tile floor and she tried to push herself into a sitting position. “I— I can’t—I don’t—”
He gripped her shoulders and pushed her back to the floor. “You need to calm down or we’re going to be in even more trouble here,” he ordered. “Deep breaths, in and out.”
She stared at him, chest heaving, eyes huge.
“Now.” He slid his fingers under her chin and held her immobile. “Breathe. In and out.”
She pulled in a breath. Then another. They were quick, shallow pulls of air, but more than before and gradually, her breathing slowed. “Good,” he nodded approvingly. “Keep it up.”
He kept her breathing in and out until the panic receded from her eyes and her face regained some color.
“Better?” he asked softly.
“Yes, thank you.” She pulled in another deep breath, blinked and looked around. “I can’t see...my glasses,” she murmured. “I must have lost them in the fall.”
He stood and searched for them. Found them in the corner of the elevator, miraculously intact. He carried them back to her, knelt down and slid them on her face. “You hit your head. Are you dizzy at all?”
She sat up slowly. Twisted her head to the left and right. “Not unless I think about the fact that I’m in here.”
“Then don’t.” He stood up and moved toward the control panel. Pulled the phone from behind a metal door and barked a greeting. The line crackled and a young male voice responded. “Everybody okay in there?”
“Yes,” Alex said grimly. “Are we stable?”
“Yes, sir. We had an issue with the generator, but the emergency brakes deployed.”
His heartbeat slowed, his grip on the receiver relaxing. “How long until you get us out?”
“We’re working on getting a crew over there as soon as we can. But by the time we do that and assess how we’re going to get you out of there, it may be a few hours.”
He flicked a glance at the white-faced woman on the floor. “By that you mean...?”
“The car you’re in is stuck between floors. In that situation, we either try to move the car manually from the control room and pry the doors open or we take you out the top. Obviously we’d prefer to do the former, but with the generator out that may not be possible.”
He moved his gaze over the bump on the woman’s face, the fact that he was going to miss his flight a far lower priority than her potential injuries. “The sooner the better.... The other passenger in here with me—she hit her head when we stopped.”
“We’ll go as fast as we can,” the technician promised. “Anything else I can do for you?”
“Hurry up,” Alex muttered roughly and hung up. Telling the guy he owned half the building wasn’t going to make it happen any faster.
The woman watched him with those big brown eyes of hers, her tense expression only this side of full-on panic.
“When are they going to get us out of here?”
He walked back over to her and sank down on his haunches. “They have to get a technician here and see what’s happening. It may take a while.”
Her gaze sharpened on his face. “Don’t they just pry the doors open?”
He hesitated, wondering whether or not to tell her the truth. “We’re stuck between floors,” he said finally. “A generator’s out, which means they can’t move us.”
Her eyes widened, her hands flailing as she sat up and stared at him. “What?”
“Calm down,” he ordered. “They’ll find a way, but panicking isn’t going to help.”
Her throat convulsed. “How long did they say?”
“A few hours.”
“I can’t be in here that long.” She fixed her gaze on his. “I really, really don’t do elevators.”
He took her hands in his. They were clammy and she was shaking like a leaf. “Look—” he said, arching a brow at her. “What’s your name?”
“Izzie.”
“Izzie?”
“Short for Isabel,” she elaborated, distractedly. “But most people call me Izzie.”
“Isabel,”
