he elected to use instead, his tone firm but reassuring, “I promise you everything’s going to be fine. These guys handle situations like this all the time. They’re going to get a crew over here, figure out how to get us out and in a few hours you’ll be laughing this off.”
She looked at him as though he had two heads.
“Okay,” he conceded. “But you know what I mean. It’s going to be fine, I promise.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her teeth worrying her lip. “You’re sure? We aren’t going to drop again?”
“I’m sure.”
She lifted her chin. “All right. I can do this.”
“Good girl.”
She pressed her lips together. “Since you’re the only thing keeping me sane, you could tell me your name.”
“Alex.” He let go of her hands and pushed to his feet. Located her discarded bag and picked it up. “Anything in here we can use to get the swelling down on your head?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
“Can I look?”
She nodded.
He sat down beside her and riffled through it. The bag was a modern marvel of how much a woman could shove into a few cubic inches of leather. Chocolate, water, books, a brush, a full bottle of aspirin...
“Is there anything you don’t have in here?” he questioned drily. “I’ll never understand why you women feel you have to carry half your lives around with you. There is a drugstore on every corner, you know....”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
He pulled out a lint brush. “Really? You need to carry a lint brush with you?”
A pink stain filled her cheeks. “Have you ever sat on a cat-infested sofa in a black wool skirt?”
“Can’t say that I have,” he drawled. “You’ve got me on that one.” He pulled out a can of still-cold soda. “How about this? It could work.”
“Wait,” she gasped, sitting up. “My flight takes off in a few hours.”
“So does mine,” he returned grimly. “I think we can safely assume we’re not making it.”
“But I have to...” she burst out. “I have that interview in Manhattan tomorrow morning.”
“You’re going to have to reschedule your flight,” he told her, handing her the can of soda. “And hope you can get another tonight.”
She sliced a panicked look at her watch. He glanced at his. Two forty-five. There wasn’t a hope in hell he was making his flight to New York. Which was a problem; with Frank Messer trying to rip his company apart, he was putting out fires left, right and center, and the Sophoros jet was under maintenance at Heathrow, necessitating a commercial flight.
“Ouch.” She winced as she held the can to the now robin’s egg-sized lump on her forehead. He leaned over, tipped her chin up with his fingers and inspected the bump. “You’re going to be black and blue for a while, but hopefully that’s all it’ll be.”
She stared at him with a deer-in-the-headlights expression that should have warned him off, but didn’t. He was far too busy noticing how the lashes on her almond-shaped, exotic eyes were a mile long and how those full lips of hers could take him to the moon and back should she choose to apply them correctly...
And what the hell was he thinking? He let go of her chin and shifted away from her. She was attracted to him. She’d made that clear upstairs in the lobby. And of course he’d noticed her. It had been hard not to. Disheveled, distracted, she’d been jabbering into her mobile phone in a husky, breathless voice that had made it easy to envision her in his bed. That and that body... The kind of curves that would look even better without clothes.
He shook his head and looked in the opposite direction. Not the kind of thinking that boded well for hours in close proximity.
“Alex?”
She was holding out a bottle of water, her cheeks even pinker than before. “Want one?”
He took it, if only to cool down his overheated libido. A paperback spilled out of her bag, a half-dressed woman in the arms of a bare-chested male emblazoned on the cover.
He picked it up. “Do you actually read this stuff?” he demanded incredulously.
“I do,” she said stiffly. “Can I please have it back?”
He ignored her outstretched hand. Turned the book over. “Looks smutty...is that why you women like it?”
“I suppose you have Othello in your bag,” she came back tartly, reaching for it.
He pulled it away. “Actually, Great Expectations. Want to have a browse?”
She gave him a long look. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
He braced his hands on the floor to roll to his feet. She waved him off. “Okay, I believe you. You’ve had your laugh...can I have my book back, please?”
He gave her a considering look. “It is smutty, isn’t it?”
She glared at him. Watched as he flipped pages, stopped to read one, then moved on. He halted at a particularly juicy section. “Oh this is good.” He quoted out loud, deepening his voice to add an over-the-top commentary. “He ran his finger over her erect nipple, making her groan in response...Ellie—” he flicked a glance at her, “who calls their characters Ellie, by the way? Anyway,” he looked back at the book, “Ellie arched her back and—”
“Alex,” she pleaded, dropping the can and lunging for the book. “Give it to me.”
He held it away from her. “I just want to know. What’s the appeal? That a guy’s going to charge in on a white steed and carry you off, and you’ll live happily ever after?”
“I don’t need a man to rescue me,” she muttered, sitting back and wrapping her arms around herself. “I can do my own rescuing.”
“That,” he stated drily, “is up for debate.” He handed the book back to her.
She shoved it in her bag with a decisive movement. He decided to be a humanitarian and move on. “So what are you doing in London? Work or play?”
“I’m doing a favor for my boss.” She grimaced and pressed the can tighter to her head. “It was supposed to be a quick in and out on my way home from Italy.”
“Just your luck,” he grinned. “You picked the one faulty elevator in London.”
“Please don’t remind me.”
“What line of work are you in?”
She took a sip of her water. “Communications...
