“Let’s work toward the former.” He gestured toward the can that had rolled to the corner of the elevator. “Put that on again.”
She lifted it to her forehead. Stayed plastered against the wall like a modern painting, her white, pinched face a halo against the dark paneling. He cursed inwardly. He needed a distraction or this wasn’t going to be pretty. What in the world would he say to his sister Gabby, who was severely claustrophobic?
“I have an idea,” he suggested. “Let’s play a game.”
“A game?”
“You tell me something no one knows about you and I’ll do the same.”
She lifted a brow. “I’m channeling my sisters here,” he offered grimly. “Humor me. If you go all panicky, it’s not a good thing.”
“Okay.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. “In seventh grade, when Steven Thompson asked me to dance at the school mixer, I told him I’d sprained my ankle.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“I adored him.” She opened her eyes. “I’d idolized him for years. But I thought my sister had put him up to it, like I was some kind of charity case, so I turned him down.” She grimaced. “Turns out she hadn’t.”
“Ouch. So the poor guy got rejected for no good reason?”
She nodded. “I was persona non grata after that.”
“And you females wonder why men aren’t gallant anymore. We stick our necks out for that.”
She gave him a wry look. “I hope you’re using the royal ‘we,’ because I can’t imagine you have ever been rejected in your entire life.”
And that’s where she was wrong. The one time he had been, the only time it had mattered, he’d been left for dead by the woman who’d meant everything to him.
“Nobody goes through life unscathed,” he said roughly. “You should have given the guy a chance. Maybe you scarred him for life.”
“Since he was dating Katy Fielding by the next Monday, I highly doubt it.” Cynicism tainted her voice. “Okay, your turn.”
He thought about it. And for some strange reason, he was dead honest. “I wish I’d made different decisions at times.”
Her gaze sharpened on him. “Is that a general observation or something you’d care to elaborate on?”
Most definitely not. He’d shut the door on that part of his life a long time ago. Never to be opened again. “A general observation.” He rested his gaze on her face. “Sometimes in life you’re only given one shot. Use it wisely.”
Her eyes stayed on his, assessing, inquisitive. Then she let it go with a sigh. “This interview I have tomorrow? I don’t even know if I want the job. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.”
He frowned. “Why don’t you want it? I assume it’s a step up?”
“Fear,” she said simply. “I’m afraid of what happens if I get it.”
“Take it from me,” he counseled, “fearing the unknown is far worse than facing it. I have no doubt you’ll knock them dead, Isabel. Just be your quirky self.”
She looked insulted. “Quirky?”
“Tell me it doesn’t fit.”
“Well...maybe just a bit.”
She jumped as the phone rang. He pushed to his feet, walked over and picked up the receiver. But the news wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Two and a half hours.
He hung up. “We have to sit tight for another couple of hours.”
Isabel’s face fell.
“Think on the bright side,” he said, sliding down beside her and giving her a wicked look. “You can read me excerpts from your book. It was just getting good.”
* * *
Exactly two and a quarter hours later, at about the time Izzie’s flight was scheduled to take off from Heathrow, a rescue team arrived.
She and Alex stood to one side as the crew unscrewed a panel from the top of the car and dropped a ladder down, a burly, safety-cable-laden rescuer climbing in moments later with two harnesses slung over his shoulder.
“Ready to get out of here?” he asked them, a wide grin splitting his face.
“You’ve no idea,” Izzie murmured, flashing a sideways look at Alex. She really wasn’t sure what she would have done without him. She had a sneaking suspicion she would have lost it completely.
“All right then,” the technician said, strapping one of the harnesses around Izzie. “The next floor is about eight feet above us. We’re going to climb up the ladder, out the top of the elevator and up onto the lobby floor.” He snapped the harness into place and stepped back. “Keep moving, don’t look down and you’ll be fine.”
Every limb in her body went ice cold. They wanted her to climb through an elevator shaft?
“I’ll be right behind you,” Alex said quietly. “It’s mind over matter, Isabel.”
Yes, but she didn’t have a mind left! Her legs started to shake; her breath came in short, frantic bursts. “But what if—”
Alex took her hands in his, wrapping his fingers around hers. “There is no ‘what if.’ We’re going to climb out of here and it’s all going to be over, okay?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, absorbing the quiet confidence in his voice, the warmth of his hands around hers. “You’ll stay right behind me?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” She pulled in another big breath and let go of his hands with a decisive movement. “Let’s do it.”
The technician strapped the other harness around Alex. Then they started up the ladder, Alex following Izzie. Her legs were shaking so hard she had to inject every bit of concentration she possessed into each step, her hands clutching the side of the ladder for balance.
“One step at a time,” Alex murmured, anchoring his hands firmly around her hips to steady her. “You’re doing great.”
She didn’t feel great. Her heart was in her mouth, acid stung the back of her throat in the very real threat she might throw up, and she felt as if she was going to collapse in a puddle.
She forced herself to keep moving, her slow climb taking her up to where the ladder emerged from the car. She looked down. Gasped at the endless plunge into darkness.
“Don’t look down,” the technician said, turning around. “Keep going.”
But her legs wouldn’t move. “I can’t,” she whispered. “My legs, they—they’re shaking so much I’m afraid I’ll—”
Alex stepped up on the ladder behind her, his hands digging into her waist. “You can do this,” he insisted firmly. “I’m right here and I’m not letting go. Just put one foot in front of the other and we’ll be out of here in a minute.”
The heat of his hands penetrated the thin cotton of her dress. Sank into her skin, warming her. Grounding her. “Mind over matter, Isabel,” he whispered, his hands tightening. “Move with me.”
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to focus on the strength of his hands around her waist. He would not let her fall. He would keep her safe...
She started climbing again, focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other as they emerged from the elevator, walked across the top of it and climbed the ladder toward the floor above. Step up, make sure her foot was securely on the rung, bring the other foot up. Repeat. She said it over and over again