“Raw materials,” Christina echoed, then laughed. “First time I’ve ever heard diamond and emeralds called that. Sounds like you’re getting ready to open sooner than you originally thought?”
“I am,” Gloria confirmed. She tucked her feet under her and stared at the rain as it came down outside her window. It made the interior gloomy. “The weekend after this one.”
“That soon?” She heard the soft sound of keys being struck on a keyboard. Christina was multitasking again. They got that from their parents, she thought. “I thought you said you hadn’t decided on a painter yet?”
“I did. Me.” And then she decided to be completely honest. “Along with some help.”
“Help?” Her sister’s voice sounded on alert.
Gloria took a deep breath, bracing herself before she continued. “Jack Fortune came by to harass me about insurance. He obviously didn’t think I was bright enough to have any. I told him who my carrier was and I put him to work.”
“Good girl.” Delight resonated in Christina’s voice as she applauded her.
Not exactly quite so good, Gloria thought, knowing she hadn’t quite been truthful about the sequence of events. She glanced at her watch. It was too late today to meet Christina, plus she was pretty tired. The idea of a hot shower was too alluring to pass up. “Um, Tina, are you free for lunch tomorrow?”
“Sure, why?”
She paused for a second, then forged ahead. “I need to talk to someone.”
“About Jack?”
At the last minute Gloria chickened out. She and Christina had just gotten back on firm ground and she didn’t want someone she admired, someone who had never made all the missteps that she had, to think of her as a weakling. At least, not before she could present her side of the picture.
“No,” she denied vehemently. “I want to design a necklace for Mama and I thought I’d bounce a few ideas off you.”
“Uh-huh.”
Gloria’s back stiffened. “Don’t give me that big-sister, I-can-see-right-through-you stuff. I really want your opinion.”
“Okay. Why don’t you come by the office tomorrow and we’ll grab a bite to eat while you impress me with your designs.”
She grinned, pleased. She felt better already. “Sounds good. What time?”
“Make it eleven-thirty. I’ll get off early so we can beat the crowd.”
“You’re on,” Gloria said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven-thirty.”
She was smiling as she hung up the receiver, all thoughts of Jack pushed aside. At least for the time being.
Chapter Ten
Preoccupied, Gloria didn’t see Jack until she physically got on the elevator the next day.
She thought her radar would have warned her that the one person she desperately wanted to avoid was in the area. But just as she’d rounded the side that led to the bank she’d heard the bell sound for an arriving elevator car and, in a hurry to get the ride to the thirtieth floor in a cylindrical tube over with, she made a dash for it.
And narrowly avoided colliding with the tall, well-built man coming in from the other side.
Face to cloth, Gloria recognized the cut of the suit first. Custom. Hand-sewn. The cologne was a close second. There was no one else in the elevator to share the ride with them.
Her heart froze just as the doors closed behind her. She took a step back and looked up at him. Her verbal skills lagged behind by a full beat.
“Jack.”
“Gloria.” He acknowledged her presence a bit curtly. But she was the last person he wanted to run into, literally or otherwise. He was on his way to a private meeting with his father about the Gloria situation. After that little incident in the shop, for which he wholeheartedly accepted the blame, he definitely wanted out. According to her own words, her shop would be ready for business within the week. Her insurance was in order, as was her inventory. And she had a security firm coming out to safeguard the store against break-ins. There was no reason for him to stick around. He wasn’t aware of the bank holding anyone else’s hand so tightly.
His eyes washed over her. She was bundled up in a three-quarter-length suede coat. Suede had never been a turn-on for him.
Until now.
Maybe he should have arranged to meet his father for dinner instead, he thought darkly. There was precious little chance of her turning up at his father’s house.
Damn it, why did she feel like a cross between a James Bond martini and a malt every time she ran into him? Stirred and shaken.
Gloria forced a smile to her lips. “Looks like we can’t seem to avoid running into one another.”
He decided that his best bet was to stare straight ahead at the steel doors. “Looks like.”
As talkative as ever, she thought. Maybe she should have been grateful for that, but she wasn’t. She hated silence when she was uncomfortable and right now after yesterday she was very uncomfortable.
What was he thinking? Had he relived that kiss over and over again the way she had? Or did he regret the impulse that had prompted him to turn her knees into churned butter?
Or had the whole thing been so insignificant he wasn’t wasting any time at all thinking about it?
Gloria cleared her throat, summoning words to fill the silence. “I’m on my way to meet my sister for lunch. Christina,” she added for good measure in case he had forgotten which sister worked here. When he made no effort to respond, she pressed, “You?”
A trace of confusion marred his perfect forehead. “Me, what?”
Was he tuning her out completely? “Who are you going to see?”
Jack turned his face forward again. “My father.” To get me off this damn assignment from hell once and for all.
“Oh.” Extracting words out of the man was like trying to pick hot coals out of a fireplace. They came swiftly, but sparingly. “Tell him I said hi.”
Jack made no reply, merely nodding that he’d heard her. According to the flashing numbers at the front of the car, the floors were flying by.
Not fast enough to suit him, he thought. The space within the smooth, steel-gray walls was filling up with her perfume and it was getting to him. Arousing him. Making him remember what her lips had felt like pressed against his.
Ten more flights to go.
And then the elevator jerked to a stop. The light went out, leaving them in complete darkness.
The next moment he felt his arm being clutched. “Clawed at” was more like it.
“What just happened?”
Her voice was breathless, panicky. Just like when the truck had struck his car flying through the intersection. “It’s just a malfunction. Don’t start screaming,” he warned.
He thought he heard her swallow. “I won’t.” She sounded utterly unsure of her promise.
“It’ll only be a few seconds,” he assured her. This was a relatively new building. Fortune-Rockwell had moved out of its old home office into this one less than five years ago. Everything was supposed to be state-of-the-art.
Which meant that these kinds of things weren’t supposed to happen.
“The lights are bound to come back on.”
Extricating his arm, he put his hands out to feel for the wall in an attempt to find the phone. Somehow he got turned around and he found her instead.
Instantly he pulled back his hands. Whatever he had touched—and he had a real suspicion what that had been—was incredibly soft, even if it was packaged in suede.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“It’s okay.”
Her reply was barely above a whisper. He could hear the fear mounting in her voice. “We’re going to be all right,” he told her firmly.
“I know we are.”
Although she didn’t sound quite so sure she believed him.
Just as he wondered if she was going to faint, an auxiliary light came on. The illumination it cast was dim, but at least they were no longer in the dark.
Her skin looked almost translucent, he thought, glanc
ing at her face. “There.” Jack indicated the emergency light source. “See?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I can.” She could see just how small, how confining, the space was. For some reason the dim light only made it feel that much smaller. A tightness was taking hold within her chest.
“And so can I,” he told her. And what he saw was unadulterated fear. The same fear that had been in her eyes when he’d pulled her out of the car when the air bag had deployed. “It’s going to be all right,” he repeated. The words felt empty, hollow, highlighting the frustration he felt.
She turned desperate eyes on him. “When? When is it going to be all right?”
“As soon as the lights come back on.”
He knew his answer wasn’t very reassuring. Nothing frustrated him more than not having control over a situation. Annoyance strumming through him, he opened the panel just above the keypad of floor buttons and extracted the closed-circuit telephone receiver. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”
There was no answer. For a minute he felt like hitting the receiver against the wall, but losing his temper wasn’t going to solve their dilemma. He tried his cell phone. There was no signal. When it rained, it poured.
“The power must be out.” Gloria’s voice was hardly above a whisper. She could feel her throat closing up again.
He shook his head. “The phone lines are on a separate circuit.” Swallowing a curse, he hung up the receiver. “Maybe some of the other elevators are out, too, and whoever is supposed to be answering the phone is out checking on another car.”
“Yeah, right.”
His attention shifted toward her. Poor lighting or not, she really didn’t look too good. “Sit down before you fall down.”
But Gloria remained standing where she was, her whole body as rigid as if it had been chiseled out of rock. She turned her eyes to his face.
This was what they meant by a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, he thought.
“Do something.” It was half a command, half an appeal.
Just what did she expect him to do? There were precious few options available. “Well, I’d get out and push the car up to the next landing, but my cape’s at the cleaners.”
“Do something,” she repeated, more insistently this time.
Okay, he’d bite. “And just exactly what is it that you’d have me do?”
She shrugged helplessly. If she knew, she’d have done it herself. “I don’t know—a guy thing.” Looking around, she saw what appeared to be a removable panel directly above their heads. “Like climbing up and pushing that off.”
He looked up at the same panel. “What good will that do?”
“We could climb out.” With a dismissive snort, he looked down at her high heels. “I’m very nimble,” she insisted.
He decided to humor her for the space of a moment. “Okay, supposing we could climb out, then what?”
She didn’t know about him, but it would do her a world of good. “At least we wouldn’t be trapped in here, suffocating.”
“We’re not suffocating. There’s plenty of air in here.”
She had her hand on his arm again. For a relatively small woman, she had really strong fingers. “Please.”
Jack knew she wouldn’t give up until he gave in. He supposed that since there was no one answering him on the phone, it wouldn’t hurt to try to see what was going on, although he wasn’t about to attempt shimmying up the cables to the next floor. There was no way he could possibly pry open the doors on the next landing. Even if he were a weight lifter, it wouldn’t be possible.
He moved to the wall and tested the integrity of the railing that ran along three sides of the car. Recessed from the wall, it seemed sturdy enough to hold him.
Jack glanced back at her. She’d shed her coat in a heap on the floor. “Come here, give me your shoulder.”
He watched her tongue lightly run along the outline of her mouth and tried not to let it affect him. “Why?”
Exasperated by the situation and by the fact that there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to negate the mounting anxiety in her eyes, he snapped, “Because I didn’t have any breakfast this morning and I’m hungry.” Taking her arm, he pulled her over to the wall. “I need it for leverage, that’s why.”
Removing his shoes, Jack clamped his hand on her shoulder. She wobbled a little, then braced herself. The phrase “iron butterfly” teased his brain. “You’re sturdier than you look.”
“So they tell me.”
He raised his foot as far up as he could, getting it onto the railing. Gloria spread her legs apart, taking a stance as he pushed off her shoulder and rose up parallel to the wall. There was a space between the ceiling and where the sides ended. He secured his fingers along that ridge. Moving in half inches, he managed to make it to the trapped door.
Holding on with one hand, he pushed the panel with the other. It took a little doing, but the panel finally gave way. Jack moved it to the side. Clearing an opening large enough to accommodate him, he pulled himself up with his arms.
Watching his every move, Gloria held her breath. She saw him disappear through the opening. For a moment she was alone. Alone in a small space. Just as she had been all those years ago. Perspiration was forming all up and down her spine. She could feel her blouse adhering to her back.
Damn it, stop panicking. It’s not going to do you any good, she insisted silently.
Gloria forced her feet to move until she was standing directly under the opening that the panel had covered. She craned her neck. There was nothing but darkness outside the car.
“What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Disappointment resonated through her like a death knell.
“Nothing,” he repeated. “No lights, not even slivers of light between the floors. No nothing.” Which, as far as he could see, could mean only one thing. “It looks like there’s some kind of power failure going on in the building.”
Her breath felt almost jagged as it caught in her throat. “Do you think it’s affected the whole city?”
“Probably just us,” he told her in the calmest voice he could muster.
And then he looked down into the car. She’d been right. He had to do something. “Look, I’m going to try to see if I can get to the next floor.”
“No!” Her sudden cry surprised him. Her next words surprised him even more. “Don’t leave me.”
She wasn’t being rational. “Gloria, I—”
“Don’t leave me,” she repeated, the urgency in her voice growing.
He supposed there was no way of knowing just how far up he was going to have to climb before he could get out. And if he left her, there was no telling what condition she’d been in by the time he could get back to her. He made his decision.
“Okay, stand back,” he ordered. “I’m coming down.”
She moved to the opposite wall, pressing her back up against it, her eyes never leaving his face. Gloria held her breath as she watched him jump down. He winced as he landed.
“Are you all right?”
He’d landed wrong on his ankle. Testing it now, he shrugged. “I’ll live.” And then he looked at his clothes. “But I don’t know about my suit.”
She tried to smile and succeeded only marginally. The space around her was growing smaller. “Can’t stay clean around me, can you?”
“Doesn’t look like it.” They both jumped when the elevator phone rang. Jack grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Hello? This car number seven?” a deep male voice rumbled against his ear, carrying beyond the receiver.
Jack glanced up at the certificate housed behind glass. It okayed the car for service. He squinted to make out the number.
“Yeah. We’re stuck.”
“So are all the other elevator cars.” The technician sounded harried and resigned at the same time. “Power’s out throughout the building. You’re going to have to hang tight.”
Gloria was directly behind him. Des
perate, she grabbed the phone from his hand and yelled, “How long?”
“Dunno. We’re working as fast as we can.” There was a pause, as if the technician was calculating time. “Couple of hours, maybe more.”
“A couple of hours?” Her eyes widened as her claustrophobia threatened to take over every square inch of her. She could feel it cutting off her air, making her want to gasp.
“Can’t be helped,” the technician informed her.
Jack looked at her as she handed him the phone. “Is the blackout confined just to this building?”
“Looks more like a few blocks. As close as I can tell, a grid went out.” Then, because nothing could be solved on the phone like this, the technician said, “I’ll get back to you.”
And suddenly the line went dead.
A fresh assault of panic struck Gloria. She felt as if they’d been abandoned.
“No, wait, wait,” Gloria cried as she grabbed the receiver from Jack. But there was no one on the other end to hear her.
They were alone, she thought, anxiety coarsely rubbing against her. Alone for who knew how long?
Very gently, Jack pried the receiver out of her hand. The woman had a death grip, he thought as he removed her fingers from the phone and hung up.
The annoyance he’d initially felt had turned to protectiveness. “He’ll call back when he has something to say.”
Lips pressed together, she nodded. But when she spoke, there was despair in Gloria’s voice. “We might be dead by then.”
Maybe he could kid her out of it, he thought. “You always exaggerate like that?”
Instead of answering him, she turned desperate eyes up to his face. “Talk to me.”
Fortune's Heirs: Reunion Page 11
