Page 5 of Tough Luck

The sudden drop threw the man off balance and caused me to go temporarily airborne.

My shoulder slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out of him with a choked oof. My briefcase flew out of my hands and hit the floor with a thud, spewing out all the things I’d crammed in it before leaving home, including a squashed peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of crushed chips, and all the papers I had stashed inside. The sheer force of my panic-fueled trajectory sent us both crashing hard against the back wall. Then we slid down to the floor in a tangled, undignified heap.

For a three-second eternity, the only sounds were the heavy, dead hum of a stalled elevator and the frantic thudding of my own heart.

Now, I was sprawled on top of the man. My face was buried in the crook of his neck, inhaling a ridiculously expensive and sexy scent of sandalwood and cedar. One of my legs was hooked over his thigh, and my hand was gripping his crisp white shirt like a lifeline.

Slowly, the man beneath me exhaled a long, shaky breath.

“Are you… all right?” His deep, gritty voice rumbled right against my ear.

Why did my entire body respond to that sexy baritone? If I wasn’t already fully aware of him, his voice had every single nerve standing at immediate attention.

Horrified, I scrambled to get off him, but the elevator floor was a slick minefield of my own marketing pitches and food. My knee slipped on a glossy page, sending me face-planting right back into his chest. My knee was extremely close to, well, a part of him I tried not to imagine at this point in our relationship. Another breathless “oof” escaped him.

“I am so sorry,” I squeaked, my face burning so hot I was pretty sure I was setting off the building’s thermal sensors. “The paper. It has a high-gloss finish. Zero traction,” I joked, wishing the floor would just open up and swallow me whole.

“Clearly,” he wheezed, his hands coming up to gently but firmly grasp my waist to steady me. His grip was warm, solid, and entirely too distracting for a Monday morning. “How about we try a coordinated extraction? On three?”

Somehow, through a deeply uncoordinated dance of flailing limbs and mutual apologizing, I managed to untangle myself and slide backward until my spine hit the opposite wall. I pulled my knees to my chest, desperately trying to pull the frayed edges of my dignity back together. Then I realized my tight pencil skirt wasn’t very modest in this position and quickly stood up.

He looked like a man who had just been ambushed by a stray woodland animal in a business suit.

“I—” I choked out, my face instantly bursting into flames. “The buttons. If you don’t hit the lobby one first, the elevator jams. I was… trying to save us from being stuck.”

His brow furrowed. “By tackling me to the ground?” His eyes dropped to the stacks of papers I’d spilled.

“It’s a very temperamental elevator,” I whispered, realizing a little too late that this was definitely not the way to win over a new client.

He stared at me for a beat, his blue eyes tracking the absolute panic radiating off my face.

“Right,” he said slowly, his voice vibrating right through my ribcage. “Well, your rescue mission was a soaring success. Except for the part where we are, in fact, still trapped.”

“But at least we didn’t drop an entire floor like last time this happened,” I pointed out defensively, as if that minor mathematical victory excused the fact that I had used a multi-million-dollar client as a mattress. “I still have bruises,” I said, then bit my lip to stop myself from saying anything else.

“That’s a possibility?” he asked, glancing toward the doors.

Elevator guy—or ‘The Man Who Should Sue Me,’ as I had started thinking of him—sat up, brushing a stray piece of paper off his knee. It was a mock-up logo for a lawn care company that I had worked half the night on a week ago and should probably have thrown away, as Leonard had rejected it.

Still, I held still as the man looked at it, then looked at me, an amused, slightly bewildered smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“So,” he said once he was standing upright, “does this happen every Monday, or did I just get the VIP experience?” He leaned his head back against the wall, completely unfazed by the darkness or the dead silence of the shaft.

“It’s usually a Tuesday thing,” I mumbled, wanting to bury my flaming face in my hands as I began shuffling my things into my bag. “And really, if you had just let me slap your hand away, we’d be on the right floor by now.”

“Ah. My apologies for resisting an unexplained workplace assault.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sleek, impossibly expensive phone. He tapped the screen. “No service. Figures.”

“Oh, you won’t get a signal in here,” I said, glancing up, glad to finally be the expert on something, even if that something was a mechanical death trap. “The elevator car is basically a Faraday cage made of repurposed steel. But don’t worry. All we have to do is wait for Ernie.” I returned to shuffling my papers, trying to get them back in some sort of order for my meeting.

“Ernie?”

“The building superintendent. He’s seventy-two, walks with a slight limp, and usually hears the relay short out from his break room.” I wanted to add that he was without a doubt enjoying his morning coffee with a splash of rum, but I held that back. “He’ll hit the manual override switch with a broom handle in about ten minutes.” I glanced down at my watch. 9:05 a.m. “Which means I might miss this morning’s meeting.” I had unintentionally said that part out loud.

I let out a miserable groan and slumped sideways against the wall. Goodbye, brewery account. Goodbye, proving to James that I could actually stick with something and succeed. I was going to be stuck in this box, and Leonard would volunteer to take the lead in my absence.

The stranger watched me, his expression softening slightly. “Was it an important meeting?” He bent down and, to my horror, picked up my very squished sandwich and handed it to me.

I quickly shoved it in my case and closed the whole thing, not caring any longer if things were in order or if I had gotten everything.