by Julia London
“Please. I would never be that lucky.” She smiled again.
If it hadn’t been for that smile, he might have strangled her. He gave her a look before stalking to the door, put the key in the lock, and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge. He jiggled it around. Nothing. “This doesn’t work.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t work?” she said anxiously, and she was suddenly beside him, jostling him out of the way. The key wouldn’t turn for her, either.
Chelsea yanked it out and held it up to the dim light. “Oh no!”
“What?”
“This is my spare apartment key!”
“Okay, well, look into your bag and get the right one,” he said, gesturing to her tote bag, from which one shoe was protruding.
“No, no, it’s not there,” she said frantically. “I have the wrong key in my purse, Ian! How can I have the wrong key? I’ll tell you how,” she said before he could answer. “I have a bowl at home where I keep all my keys. I must have picked up this one by mistake.”
He wondered how many keys the woman had that she required a bowl, but never mind that—“Are you telling me we are really locked in?”
She looked up at the ceiling lights. “At least until the power comes on again.”
“Aaaah!” Ian said and kicked the door in frustration. “That could be hours!”
Chelsea gasped. “Hours!” She suddenly whirled around and picked up a chair, one that was next to the receptionist’s desk for visitors. She tried to raise it over her head for reasons that first eluded Ian, but then she hoisted it against her chest, legs out, and started for the door.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her into his chest to stop her from ramming the chair through the door. “What are you doing?” he exclaimed as he wrested the chair from her grip.
“Breaking us out!” she cried. “I can’t be here all night! I have to get some sleep. I have to be ready for tomorrow!”
A twinge of guilt nicked him. “First of all, that’s tempered glass, Chelsea. You’d just knock yourself out. Second, I don’t think the partners would be too happy to find you busted out like that because you need your beauty rest.”
She gasped as if he’d just slapped her. “What a sexist thing to say! It’s not beauty rest; it’s just rest.”
“You’re missing the point—okay fine,” Ian retorted, in no mood to debate her. “You don’t need beauty rest, obviously.”
She blinked at him. And then she seemed to actually blush a little, although it was hard to tell as low as the light was. And then she sagged against him, giving up. “I’m just saying—we have to get out.”
“We’ll get out,” he said, and he gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder that he didn’t quite feel. She wasn’t the only one who needed her beauty sleep. Correction—he needed beauty sleep. She just needed sleep.
He remembered that Jason had a television in his office and began striding in that direction.
“Wait, where are you going? Do you know another way out?” Chelsea asked.
Ian didn’t respond, just kept walking. He could hear her run to catch up to him.
He walked into Jason’s office and turned on the TV. The meteorologist was gesturing to a huge swath of blue that covered the entire east coast. Chelsea crowded in beside him—actually, she gave him a bit of a shove out of the way so she could stand in front of the TV. He gently nudged her to one side. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, watching.
“This is one for the ages, folks. If you haven’t heard, the mayor is advising everyone to shelter in place,” the weatherman said. “Now, back to Debbie and any news on the power outages.”
“Oh my God,” Ian groaned.
“I don’t think anyone will have much choice about sheltering in place, Frank,” Debbie said. She was standing somewhere in the city, the snow swirling around her. Emergency generator lights were shining on crews working behind her. “The power outages in the city have affected all travel. Very few lines are running, and as you can see,” she said, turning to gesture to the crews behind her, “there is a lot of work going on in this terrible cold and wind to get the power back on. Snowdrifts are affecting the subway and train schedules as well. We have lists of all the delays and outages on our website. Unfortunately, more snow keeps falling and with no end in sight.”
“It’s a snowpocalypse out there, folks,” said the newscaster in the studio. “Stay where you are. Heed the mayor’s warning to shelter in place. The snow is falling so fast the city is struggling to keep up with clearing the roads. Frank, when will we be out of the woods?” he asked, throwing it back to the meteorologist.
“By morning this massive system will have moved out over the Atlantic,” Frank said, his hands swirling around the Atlantic. “Let me show you why we got so much more snow than we were expecting—”
“This can’t be happening,” Ian muttered and he clicked off the TV.
“Oh. My. God,” Chelsea said. She picked up the Nerf basketball from Jason’s desk and threw it as hard as she could. It floated over the hoop and wafted to the floor.
The lights flickered. Ian and Chelsea looked at each other just as the lights went out.
“What just happened?” Chelsea exclaimed loudly. “I thought the generator was running!”
“It was,” Ian said, looking curiously up at the lights.
“This is a nightmare!” Chelsea cried, and she whirled around to Jason’s window, bracing her hands against it. Across the street, visible through the curtain of snow, was light in the windows of an office building. She whimpered and dropped her forehead against the glass.
Ian sighed. He shifted forward and put his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t freak out,” he said soothingly, giving her a little squeeze. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Ohmigod. I am not freaking out, Ian. Why do you think I am freaking out? Do you honestly think all women need beauty rest and freak out at the first sign of adversity?”
“What is the matter with you?” he demanded. “You look like you’re about to cry. If that’s not freaking out, what is?”
“I’m not going to cry. And even if I was, it’s just crying. It’s another way to release tension. Sort of like meditation, only uglier.”
The generator’s lights suddenly flickered back on, washing them in dishwater-gray light once more.
“Thank heavens,” she said, and she pushed past him. He watched her march for the door of the office.
“Okay, where are you going?” he asked.
“To find something to eat! I’m starving!”
So was he, come to think of it, and he followed her.
Chelsea marched to the break room. She walked up to the fridge and yanked open the door. Her face instantly fell and she covered her mouth with her hand. “That is so disgusting,” she said.
Ian moved and dipped to see over her shoulder. There were old fast food containers and some food in plastic containers—in one, he could see the mold that was growing inside. Food had been spilled on the fridge shelves. He watched as Chelsea reached for a can of tomato juice and tried to dislodge it from whatever had congealed around it. She couldn’t.
“Oh God—shut that thing,” Ian said, covering his nose with his hand.
She abruptly stepped back as she slammed the fridge door shut and stepped on his foot.
“Ouch,” Ian said.
“Sorry.” She looked around the break room. “I have to eat something or I will pass out. Oh, I know! Ron Early always has some food in his desk.” She started out of the break room.
She was right—Ian had seen a loaf of bread on Ron’s shelves. He had some food account that was always sending over samples.
Chelsea walked into Ron’s cubicle and made a sound of delight at seeing the bread on top of his bookshelves. “Eureka!” she said. “There has to be some pean
ut butter here.”
“Wait,” Ian said, and he took the loaf of bread from her. He pointed to the signs of mold through the packaging, barely visible in the dim light.
Chelsea squinted at it. “No,” she groaned. “Okay, we’ll just tear the bits of mold off—”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Ian said. He thought he could help—he thought he needed to help, or this was going to be a very long night. “Will you promise to chill out a little if I show you where some food is? And I’m not talking candy bars from the vending machines or moldy bread. I’m talking real food.”
“What kind of food?” she asked suspiciously.
“Lean Cuisine.”
Chelsea’s eyes sparked with delight. “Really?” she asked, her hand going to her belly. “You’d better not be kidding me right now, Ian Rafferty. Because if you are kidding me, I will karate chop you in the neck. I am starving.”
He laughed. “I’m not kidding. I know where there is a virtual cornucopia of Lean Cuisines.”
That actually earned a smile from Chelsea. A sparkly, happy smile that struck Ian as unusually pretty. “Then we have a deal.”
Chapter 5
Chelsea followed Ian across the suite and down a corridor to the partners’ offices. He walked right into Brad Paulson’s office as if it were his and went around the desk and through a door. Chelsea hesitated before stepping across the threshold. She wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of walking into the office of the man who would probably decide her fate tomorrow.
She paused to look around at Brad’s office. She’d been in here three, maybe four times. Through the big plate-glass windows, she could see that night had fallen, and the snow was a lacy curtain between their offices and the world. It looked entirely staged, like a Christmas ad where the family comes trooping home in the midst of a holiday snowfall, dragging a tree behind them, ready for their cocoa.
Ian’s head popped out from the door. “Are you coming?”
“We shouldn’t be in here,” she whispered loudly.
“We shouldn’t be stuck inside these offices without a key, either.” His head disappeared.
Chelsea walked deeper into the office and looked around at the contemporary furnishings, the shelf with the various awards, the large, flat screen TV on one wall. There was a small conference table surrounded by thick leather chairs. Brad’s desk was oversized, and with the exception of a few files neatly stacked in one corner, it was clean.
This was exactly how Chelsea pictured her new office would look. A bit smaller, of course. And with a few touches to make it a little warmer. Maybe some flower arrangements. And definitely a more casual desk—
“Tuscan chicken or vegetable lasagna?” Ian called out.
Food. Chelsea darted across Brad’s office, careful not to put her tennis shoes on his rugs, and peeked in the door Ian had gone through. She was surprised to see a kitchenette. The few times she’d been in Brad’s office, she’d assumed this door led to a bathroom. There was a bathroom—she could see the sink through a door at the other end of the room. But fifteen feet from that, on the other side of some cabinets and counters that looked as if they were used for storage, there was a kitchenette with a small fridge, a sink and cabinets, and a microwave.
“Wow. He could live in here,” she said in wonder.
“Yep,” Ian said as he reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out some plates.
“How did you know this kitchen was here?” Chelsea asked.
“Hanging around to talk to Brad when he was working late.”
Did he mean hanging around to run his ideas past Brad? To find out which ones resonated with him? Chelsea could kick herself—she’d never thought to do that.
Ian held out the cartons of Lean Cuisines to her. “Which do you want?”
“Ian!” Chelsea said, and she looked over her shoulder, half expecting Brad to come striding through the door at any moment. “We can’t take his food!”
“I’ll take the lasagna,” Ian said. “And I don’t think Brad is going to be too upset, seeing as we are locked in. If you’re worried about it, I’ll talk to him—”
“No, nope. No need for that,” she said quickly. She could imagine how that conversation would go. Ian would say something like Chelsea was concerned she shouldn’t be rummaging through your things and fail to mention he’d been the first one in.
Ian smiled, almost as if he could read her thoughts. “Hey, I’d cover for you. I’m a nice guy that way.” He offered her the Tuscan chicken.
Chelsea took the box from his hand and tore it open. “I didn’t know you were so chummy with Brad.”
“I wouldn’t call it chummy, exactly.”
“So what would you call it?” she asked, shifting her gaze to the box. “Buttering him up? Picking his brain? Getting an advantage on the Tesla account?” She stuck the container in the microwave and punched the buttons without thinking, as she happened to be on intimate terms with a diet of Lean Cuisine.
“Well, I could have,” Ian happily admitted. “But the truth is I was just being a guy. Guys talk, Chelsea.” He reached around her, his chest—a very hard chest—brushing against her back in that tiny kitchenette, and grabbed some forks.
“Sure, that’s all it was.”
“What, you don’t believe me? As it turns out, there are several big Knicks fans in this office, myself and Brad included in that number.”
“Hey!” She turned around, her shoulder bumping into his chest. “I like the Knicks,” she said defensively.
“You do?”
“You don’t have to look so surprised.”
“Well, I am,” he said. “I never would have guessed you for a Knicks fan.”
“Why not?” Chelsea demanded.
“Chelsea, calm down,” he said with a smile. “I just mean that you don’t have any Knicks paraphernalia hanging around. You never mention it.”
“That’s because I usually have too much work to do to sit around and talk about last night’s game. And how was I supposed to know the entire office was sitting around in Brad’s office talking about the Knicks? No one told me.”
“The entire office? I never said the entire office. I said I was. And I never mentioned it to you because you are clearly…you know.” He stuffed his hands in his pocket and shrugged.
“No, I don’t know. I am clearly…what?”
“Come on, you know what I mean,” he said, and he gave her a small, slightly pathetic smile.
“No, I don’t know what you mean.”
“All right,” he said as the microwave dinged. “I didn’t tell you because you’re a little uptight, all right? You don’t exactly invite conversation.”
Chelsea gasped. She closed her eyes with a groan and dipped down with a bit of frustration, because it wasn’t the first time she’d heard that. Her best friend, Angie, had told her the same thing one night after they’d been out at a bar. There’s, like, these don’t-talk-to-me waves rolling off you.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Chelsea took the container from the oven and dropped it onto a plate Ian held up to her. “I am not uptight,” she said, as if that were a completely unreasonable thing to say, as if she were the poster child for free and easy, as if Farrah had not said, just two days ago, You don’t have to be so uptight about it concerning something Chelsea didn’t even recall now. “Yes, I have a good work ethic,” she said, picking up the next box and ripping it open. “Yes, I put in long hours. But I have to—I have a lot of work. And anyway, what is wrong with being professional? You have to stir that,” she said, motioning to the Lean Cuisine that she’d taken from the microwave.
“There is nothing wrong with being professional,” Ian said, following her instructions. “But sometimes, you have to let your hair down too. Be a guy.”
She paused in what she was doing and gave him a look. �
��You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope,” he said unapologetically. “It’s a tough industry. I’m just saying sometimes you have to play.”
“I play,” she said, but she frowned as she put the second entrée into the microwave. She wasn’t sure she really knew what that meant. She could just picture Brad and Ian hanging out on the weekends. Was Brad married? She didn’t know if he was. Maybe Brad’s wife had taken an interest in Ian’s bachelor status. Maybe she was inviting him to dinner parties with socialites—
“Just some friendly advice,” Ian said, misreading her silence for disagreement. “You’re moving in a man’s world, Chelsea. Might as well adopt some of their habits.”
“That is so ridiculous,” she said, although she wasn’t certain if it was, at least not in the world of advertising. She had noticed that women in advertising were often called aggressive and bossy, whereas men were go-getters and creative. “Would you adopt the habits of women if you were moving in an industry dominated by them?”
“Well now, that depends on what you’d advise,” Ian said as he filled two glasses with tap water.
“I would never advise you to adopt habits that weren’t yours already.”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “A bit above it, are you?” He winked at her and picked up the plate with the Tuscan chicken and the two glasses of water. He leaned forward, his gaze locked on hers. “See? Uptight.” He strolled out of the kitchen.
“Professional!” she shouted back at him.
The microwave dinged. Chelsea removed the second entrée and put it on the plate, grabbed the two forks Ian had found, and followed him out to the small conference table.
“Here’s the thing with you, Crawford,” Ian said easily as he offered her a seat as if they were at a fine dining restaurant. “You treat me like an adversary when I could be your friend. You and I could both have been sitting around this very table eating Lean Cuisine with Brad.”
The wound was just getting deeper. “He actually served you his Lean Cuisine?” she asked, feeling small.
“What? No,” Ian said, looking at her as if that was preposterous. “I’m just saying, if we worked together, we—”
