by Melissa West
I kept my head down as I slipped into the elevator, and began my usual mantra even before the doors had closed. The itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout. Down came the rain…
The doors began to close, and I sang the words louder in my mind, my gaze so focused on the tiled floor I didn’t notice that the doors never closed. I glanced up as Aidan slipped inside, and then he saw me, and suddenly the tiny space felt almost unbearable. Heat radiated up my back as he turned to face the doors, directly beside me, his shoulder half an inch from touching mine.
“Cameron,” he said, and wow, did I suddenly love the sound of my own name. The way he drew the word out, like he needed to keep it on his lips a little longer. I wanted him to say it again.
For a moment, I forgot my singing, but then the doors closed, and I couldn’t think about Aidan, not now. I started the song again in my mind and focused on the floor.
“Are you all right?”
I sucked in a rattled breath. “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.
“Cameron, look at me.”
I peered over, just as the elevator jerked and came to a halt. My eyes flew over to the numbers, to the doors. Why weren’t they opening? Why the hell weren’t they opening? My gaze went to the ceiling, then the numbers again, the doors. Oh shit, oh God. No, no, no.
Aidan stepped calmly toward the numbers and hit the one again, but nothing happened. We were stuck. My eyes began to burn, and I bit down on my lip hard to keep from screaming.
“Cameron?” He reached down for the emergency button. “It’s all right. You know that, don’t you?”
I couldn’t look at him. All I could do was nod, but nothing about this was right. Sweat broke out across my forehead and back, my legs shook. In romance novels, authors wrote about this very scene like it was the hottest thing imaginable. Get trapped in an elevator with the man of your dreams, the lights go out, and then sexy times begin. But nothing about this was sexy, and if the lights decided to crap out on me, too, then they may as well call the morgue along with the fire department.
Aidan pulled out his cell and called someone, though service was shitty in elevators, so he wasn’t likely to get a call through. He reached for the emergency phone, and I could feel his eyes on me, watching my meltdown. By this point, my entire body was shaking, my mind closing down. All I could think about was how small the space was, how little air. I tried to tell myself there was plenty of oxygen, no one died of lack of oxygen in an elevator, but it was no use. Panic coursed through me, polluting every muscle until I wondered how I remained standing.
I briefly heard Aidan rattle off that the elevator was stuck, in what he guessed to be between floors two and three. He thanked whoever was on the phone, and then I felt him by my side.
“Cameron, look at me.”
Swallowing hard, then again because the first time didn’t seem to work, I forced myself to glance up. Aidan’s face softened, and he reached up, his thumb trailing just under each of my eyes. I hadn’t realized the tears had fallen, but I was too afraid to be embarrassed. Too afraid to be anything at all.
“Claustrophobic?”
I gave a sharp nod.
“Do you want me to give you some space? Would that help?”
I thought of the question and drew another breath, but I couldn’t seem to get my lungs to work properly. Dear God. I closed my eyes. “Can you just talk to me? Tell me a story. Tell me anything. Just…please. Talk.” My legs felt weak, so I slumped down onto the floor and rested my forehead against my knees. Aidan waited a moment, perhaps unsure of where he should sit, what he should do, but then I felt him beside me again. He took my hand in his and traced lines on my palm, each stroke soothing the tension.
“When I was little,” he began, “my father used to say that nothing in the world mattered more than how people said your name. Whether they said it with fear or respect or hate or love, the way they said it spoke to who you were as a person. He said if you ever wanted to amount to anything, your goal should be to hear fear or respect, nothing else.”
I bit my lip to keep from spouting out exactly what I thought of such an asinine comment, and instead thought of how different his dad was from mine, how my father would have said nothing mattered but how God saw you. That if you were good in God’s eyes, then that ought to be enough for anyone else. “Do you agree?” I asked, praying Aidan didn’t share his father’s extreme views.
“No. But then I disagree with most of what my father says. I think it matters less how people see you and more how you see them. You can learn a lot about a person if you pay attention. You can learn what makes them tick, what makes them more efficient at work, happier in life. You can learn things you would never know otherwise. Things the person would never tell you.”
My eyes lifted, and I knew he was reading me the way he explained. I could only imagine what he saw—crazy lady on aisle three! Can’t even get on an elevator! Send a cleanup crew!
At least he wasn’t laughing. Not out loud, anyway.
I cringed at the thought and focused on the wall across from us, listening as the second hand on my watch tick, tick, ticked loudly, reminding me how long we’d been trapped. I knew it was only a few minutes, ten maybe, but it felt like hours. I swallowed again. “Are you close to your dad?”
He stiffened and looked away. “No, not at all. He left my mother and me when I was eight and never looked back. He’s in advertising, too.” At my pointed stare, he added, “He’s the president and founder of Graham Group.”
Wow, I had no idea. Graham Group was Sanderson-Lowe’s biggest competitor. Easily the second-largest advertising agency in the world.
“So, your father is…?”
“Stuart Graham. He’s the reason I went into advertising. Not because the field interested me at first, but because I wanted to be better than him in every way. A better businessman. A better man. Especially after my mom died.”
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
He looked away. “It was years ago now.”
We fell into silence, and it was then it hit me—this was the no-dating thing. He didn’t want to be the kind of man who left his wife, like his father had left his mother. Surely he knew not all men left. There were great men who stayed. Day in and day out, through the tough stuff, they stayed. A thousand questions rushed to my mind, on the tip of my tongue. Questions I wasn’t allowed to ask, questions I shouldn’t even think. The silence lingered between us.
“How are you feeling?” he asked after a while.
“Better than expected,” I admitted. “I like it when you talk. It helps.” My cheeks burned at the truth in my words. What would I do if he weren’t there with me, helping me through this? I couldn’t imagine. I liked to think of myself as a strong, independent person, but this phobia went beyond all reason and explanation. I’d tried everything to coax myself out of it, which was why I still rode elevators—though that little gem of triumph flew out the window the moment this horror began. The likelihood of me ever getting on another one was slim to never.
“I like it when you talk, too,” Aidan said, almost in a whisper. “I could listen to your voice all day and never grow tired of it. It’s gentle, but sure. I’ve never known a woman who could come across as delicate and strong all in the same breath.”
My heart warmed at his words, at how easily he admitted these things. “What did you mean by what you said in your office?” I asked. Our closeness (and our looming death) made it easy to ask. Who knew if another opportunity would arise?
This time he looked at me. “I want you. Every time you speak, I want you more.”
My body went numb, lost on how to respond. Of all the scenarios I’d played out, all the things I thought he might say, none of them came close to this. But then the elevator jerked again, and my pulse sped up. Visions of crashing to my death ripped through my mind, but then it began to move down, finally stopping on the first floor, where it opened, a few firefighters and s
ome of the building technicians there to greet us.
“Everyone all right?” one of them asked.
We both nodded and thanked them, then I rushed for the door, eager to get outside. I closed my eyes as soon as the chilly night air crossed my face and drew a long, long breath. Air. I wanted to cry it felt so good, then I heard the sound of someone chuckling and peered over.
“And so the laughing begins. I knew it’d come eventually.”
He smiled. “Sorry. You just look like you’ve won the lottery.”
“I did. The oxygen lottery.”
“Do you want me to get you a cab?”
This time I laughed. “Another small space? No, thank you. I’m walking.”
Aidan considered me, then the street. “Then I’m walking with you.”
“Aidan, that’s not—”
“I’m walking with you.”
“All right,” I said, unable to keep from smiling. “Fine.”
We set off down the sidewalk, the air seeming to cool down with each passing moment. I loved the city in early fall, how all my favorite holidays were right around the corner—Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. I absolutely loved the city at Christmas.
“Why do you look so happy?” Aidan asked after a few blocks of walking in silence.
“I love the city, especially this time of year. It’s weird, really. My parents are very big on Southern pride, but it never really stuck for me. I remember getting excited when I was little when my parents would tell me we were going on vacation. My dad, my real dad, used to take us all over, but it was like once he died, my mom refused to step foot on a plane and hated being in the car for too long. Some of my friends were going to the Grand Canyon or on a cruise or Disney World. Me? Every year we went one of two places—Panama City or Chattanooga.”
“So that’s why you came here? To get away from the small-town life?”
I bit my lip, considering the question. “I think I went to NYU to prove that I could. I wasn’t some small-town girl, afraid of the city. My mom cried when I told her I’d been accepted, and at first, I thought they were happy tears, but then I realized she wasn’t happy for me. She was sad. To this day, moving here was the most disappointing thing I’ve ever done, in my mom’s eyes.”
We reached the outside of my apartment building, and I turned to look at him, confused at how I’d once again revealed so much of myself to him. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Get me to tell you things I never tell anyone. Things I refuse to admit even to myself.”
He tilted his head, his gaze penetrating, warming me with that simple look. “I could ask you the same question.”
We stared at each other, lost in a moment we shouldn’t be having, but I couldn’t make myself go inside; I couldn’t make myself turn away.
Aidan hesitated, then said, “I can walk you to your door if you’d like? Ride on the elevator so you’re not alone.”
“I think it’s safe to say my love affair with the elevator has come to an end. It’s the stairs and me from now on. Two peas in a pod.”
He smiled. “Well then, I’ll just—”
“But I’d still like you to walk me to my door.”
His gaze drifted down the sidewalk, watching as people went by, and I wasn’t sure whether he was checking to see if anyone we knew was around or if he was trying to convince himself to leave. Or convince himself to stay. I prayed for the latter, and then immediately felt like crap. This was my first real job, my first opportunity to prove myself, and here I was risking everything over a guy who didn’t date. But right now, standing on the sidewalk, the small trees planted outside my building whipping around in the wind, a cloudy night sky above, all I wanted to do was take this chance.
“It’s just a walk,” I said.
“You know it’s more than that.”
I brushed a loose strand of hair from my face, and Aidan watched me tuck it behind my ear like he wished it were his fingertips touching me instead of my own. “So, what are you going to do?”
He took a slow step toward me, invading my personal space, swarming my senses. “I’m going to walk you to your door.”
His words repeated in my mind as we slipped into my building—you know it’s more than that—coiling around and around as we ascended the stairs to the second floor, where I’d insisted Lauren and I live because our building didn’t have apartments on the first floor. My heart picked up speed as we passed door after door, my nerves telling me this was wrong, I should thank him and end it there, but I knew I wouldn’t. I’d let this go as far as he would take it.
Dear God, let him take it all the way.
I slowed to a stop just before my door and turned to him, unsure if I should invite him inside or say our good-byes now, but then his eyes met mine and he took that delicious step of his. “Why can’t I stay away from you?” My breathing slowed as he leaned into my ear. “Your smell, the memory of your warm body under me. It’s all I can do to remain still when I’m around you.” He pulled away a fraction of an inch, his gaze dropping to my lips. “Ask me to stop. Tell me you don’t want this.”
“I can’t.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
And then his lips were on mine, one hand behind my head and the other pressed against the small of my back, securing me to him. My fingers threaded into his hair, and he moaned lightly into my mouth, making my body quake with need. I fumbled for my door handle and pushed it open, refusing to break the connection between us, but then the sound of loud talking, following by a sharp hush, had Aidan pulling away, his eyes going wide as we took in the scene in my living room. Lauren and Grace and two girls from Lauren’s office.
Even my apartment wasn’t safe.
Aidan reached for my hand, urging me to face him, and gave me a smile that was supposed to comfort me, but it never touched his eyes. “It looks like you have guests. I should go.”
A part of me wanted to beg him to stay, to explain just how well the lock on my bedroom door worked, but I could see the resolve in his face. Whatever magic had taken over in the elevator, and on the walk, and out in the hall, was gone now.
“Okay. Thanks for the walk.”
He pressed an easy kiss to my cheek and whispered, “Don’t look so disappointed. We still have tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“The beginning.” And he disappeared out my door.
Chapter Twelve
Lauren waited until everyone was gone, including Grace, to corner me just outside my room, her face lit with excitement. “Was that who I think it was?”
I hesitated. Somehow admitting it out loud made the whole thing seem so much worse. “That was Aidan.”
She grinned. “Your boss.”
“No!” I walked into my room, and she followed. “He’s my boss’s boss.”
“Oh, well, now that we cleared that up.”
I kicked off my ballet flats and sat down on the edge of my bed. “What am I doing, L? I can’t seem to stay away. First the gym, now this. I could get fired. We could get fired.”
“Maybe that’s why you like it. It has that forbidden thing going on.”
“Maybe, but I think it’s more than that. I listen to him talk about his life and it just doesn’t match the guy I see at the office. He’s more than his title, and I can’t get enough. I want to know everything about him.”
“So why don’t you just go for it, but keep it a secret?”
My eyes snapped up. “A secret?”
Lauren walked over and sat on my bed, crossing her legs up under her. “You know, like a secret affair. Behind closed doors. All that movie crap. If you like him, hang out with him, but don’t tell anyone. Seriously, this is exactly what you need. You want to focus on your career, right? But you’re a woman who has needs. You can have both—the career and the comfort of a man, without all the complications of dating. You don’t have to explain late nights at the office or why you’re focused more on your la
ptop or phone than him. It’s perfect.”
“I don’t know.” The idea was tempting, but no matter how I reworked the situation, it felt off. I didn’t want to tiptoe around with some guy. That wasn’t me.
“Cameron, you haven’t gone out with a guy since Jacob Warner, and that was months ago. And he was Dr. Phillips’s son.” She shuddered, and I drew a face.
“Hey, he was hot in a sweater-vest kind of way.” I relented at Lauren’s pointed stare. “Fine, he was horrible. They were all horrible.” I thought of all the dates I’d been on after Blaine. The frat guys. The athletes. The professors’ sons. Nothing clicked.
“Not all of them. Blaine wasn’t bad. He just wasn’t the one.” Lauren drew out a long yawn and pushed herself off my bed. “I’m heading on to bed. But think about it. You don’t have to make this a thing. You can just have fun,” she said around another yawn.
“Yeah, and what about you? What happened with the new boy, Patrick?”
She grinned. “To be determined.”
I smiled back. “Tease.”
“You know it.”
Then I slipped into bed and thought about the word “beginning” and Aidan’s lips and how very much I hoped tonight was the beginning of many more to come.
Chapter Thirteen
I walked through the revolving doors of my office building, my mind still replaying the kiss from last night. How it seemed to warm every part of me, even long after Aidan had gone. I wanted to feel his lips on mine again, test the connection. It had been a long time since a kiss had stayed with me. Would a second kiss have the same effect?
Smiling, I slipped through the stairwell door, prepared to suffer the five flights up to Sanderson-Lowe’s floor, and came to a stop.
“I hope that smile’s for me,” Aidan said as he pushed away from the wall. He wore a black suit, tailored to perfection so it showed off his lean, athletic frame, and a white dress shirt with a red tie. Something about a red tie oozed power and control, and suddenly, my mind was envisioning that tie wrapped around my wrists, Aidan kissing a trail down to my—
