“You have lips.”
Her turn to blink. “I beg your pardon?”
He shook his head, made a forget-it gesture in the air with his hand. “Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes. Nothing? She didn’t think so. “You said I have lips. What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
He sighed, scanned the roof as though looking for inspiration, then shrugged. All of this upside down, him hovering over her prone body.
“It’s just that most of the time when you see me you have no lips,” he said.
She stared at him. “I assure you, these are not detachable,” she said.
He looked skeptical. “Except when you see me. Then they disappear. Like this.” He gave an example, thinning his lips into a prim, ungenerous line.
“I do not do that,” she said, even as she felt her mouth assuming the usual tense expression she wore around him.
Damn him.
“You’re doing it right now.”
She stretched her mouth wide and forced her lips to assume a more relaxed expression.
“Happy?”
“That’s better,” he said approvingly.
She could feel her lips thinning again at his smug response.
“And there we go again,” he observed.
She closed her eyes for a moment. This was insane. She was trapped in an elevator with the company’s number-one playboy having a conversation about her lip posture while lying flat on her back.
“Feeling faint again?”
She blinked, recognizing that the fear that had been lapping around her knees had receded to toe-height.
“No. I feel…better.”
He looked pleased and a little proud. He’s been distracting me, she suddenly realized. With that thought came an abrupt awareness that her legs were sprawled out inelegantly and her skirt hiked up on one side. She reached a hand down to rearrange her skirt even as she moved to sit up. A heavy male hand landed in the middle of her chest.
“Take it slow,” Jack warned, and even though he’d taken his hand away she could still feel the heat and weight of it as she slowly sat upright.
She glanced around the elevator car. Nothing much had changed since she hit the deck: same brushed metal sides, same industrial carpet base, same small, inadequate light.
She knew he was watching her carefully, and she made an effort to appear calm, biting down on the sensation that there simply wasn’t enough room, or air, or anything in this tiny little space….
“Okay, this meditation technique I was telling you about,” Jack said suddenly, and she suspected that her rising panic might be more than obvious.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, wishing it were true. Wishing the doors would simply slide open and let her out.
“Humor me. Close your eyes.”
She shook her head stubbornly, and he snorted his exasperation.
“For Pete’s sake—just let go for a second. That’s all I’m asking,” he said. “You can stitch yourself back up nice and tight once we’re out of here.”
She blinked, more stung by his comment than she’d have thought possible. For a moment there she had forgotten what he thought of her, that he was her enemy. Afraid he’d see her reaction, she closed her eyes obediently.
“Great. Now, starting on your next inhalation, I want you to concentrate on your left nostril. Pretend your right nostril is blocked, and concentrate on breathing up your left nostril to the point between your eyes. And then exhale down your right nostril, again concentrating on the sensation. Then, in through the right, and out through the left. Keep repeating it until you feel better.”
His voice was slow and calm, and even though most of her mind was busy being annoyed and hurt and scared, she managed to focus on her breathing. A few breaths later, and she was really getting into it, feeling the sensation of air traveling up one nostril and down the other. A few minutes of this, and a lovely calm was starting to build inside her. She popped an eye open to find Jack had moved back to his side of the car, and was sitting down, his back to the wall.
“This is pretty good. Thanks.”
“Nothing to do with me—thank the ancient yogis of India.”
“I will, next time I see them. But in the meantime, I really appreciate it.”
She maintained some serious eye contact when she said it, wanting him to know that she acknowledged his help, that she wasn’t the kind of person she suspected he thought she was. He simply nodded, once, letting her know her message had been received and understood.
Silence slipped between them, and for the first time she became aware of how stuffy it was becoming. She unbuttoned her suit jacket and shrugged out of it. She regarded it for a moment—it was an expensive suit, a treat she’d bought herself for her birthday last year. Oh, well. Sacrifices had to be made if they were going to be stuck in here for hours on end. She rolled it up and placed it behind her, making a pad to lean against. And then she sat, alternately studying her hands, or the tips of her shoes.
It was like being stuck at all of the most disastrous parties of her teenage years rolled into one. She knew she should say something. In fact, a dozen conversational gambits suggested themselves to her, but they all felt wrong. For starters, she’d been arguing flat out with Jack not ten minutes ago. Ten minutes before that, he’d been handed half her project on a silver platter. And then there was Katherine’s lunchtime exposé about Jack’s…talents. If that wasn’t enough to stifle conversation, Claire didn’t know what was.
How she wished her friend had kept her insider knowledge to herself. The last thing she needed was to develop some stupid awareness of Jack as a man. She was stuck in an elevator with him, for Pete’s sake. She didn’t want to know that he was great in bed, and had a fantastic body. It was bad enough that she’d been mentally undressing him while they waited for Morgan earlier. She flicked a look across at him, but her glance skittered away again when she saw that his shirt was sticking to his sweat-dampened skin, giving her a very nice idea of just how well muscled and proportioned his chest was. She could even see his dark, flat male nipples through the damp fabric….
This man is your nemesis, she told herself fiercely. He represents everything you loathe in men. Determined to get over her stupid preoccupation, she deliberately reminded herself that in addition to having a broad, sexy chest, long, strong fingers and knowing, all-seeing eyes, Jack had stolen her parking spot this morning.
A surge of annoyance raced through her. That was better. Suddenly he was just a man again—an annoying man who regularly operated as a thorn in her professional side. She tapped one shoe toe against the other, then followed with a little heel click as she relived that frustrating moment of finding his car in her space. There was no way he didn’t know that was her usual spot. He’d have to be either blind or stupid not to know, and she knew he was neither. So—
“Why did you park in my spot this morning?”
She nearly bit her tongue off as she spoke her thought out loud. Now it was out there, however, and there was nothing for it but to pretend she’d meant to challenge him all along.
“I wasn’t aware that we’d been assigned parking spaces. Was there a memo sent around? I must have missed it,” he said, and she felt her buttocks clench with annoyance.
A memo. Very funny. Any sexual thoughts she’d had about Mr. Annoying receded at a rapid pace.
“You know exactly what I mean. You usually park over near the pillar in the middle. And I always park near the stairwell. It’s a system, a habit. And it works. So why did you