and presently the lift doors jerked open and she stepped inside, pressed the button for the ground floor and it began its descent.
On the seventh floor the doors opened and a man entered, a man so drop-dead gorgeous that Romy actually blinked distractedly as she stared at him.
He stared right back—so intently and with such a piercing expression in a pair of exceptional silver-grey eyes that all Romy’s usual defences crumbled, and she was left feeling curiously exposed and vulnerable.
Hastily she started studying the carpet with the kind of avid interest she usually reserved for the gossip column in her favourite newspaper!
But, try as she might to concentrate on the swirly red and gold pattern, she found herself unable to stop observing him from out of the corner of her eye, even though she pretended not to.
He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and was impressively tall, with hair which was as dark as coal. He had powerfully built shoulders and his skin was lightly tanned, so that it made a flattering contrast against the pale linen suit he wore.
But it was his face which was truly remarkable—angular and hypnotic, its hard, flat planes casting intriguing shadows. The mouth was a contradiction, in that it had full, curved lines which hinted at an experience Romy did not dare dwell on, but already there was a hard, cynical twist in place. And that was surprising in one so young, she thought fleetingly.
He looked up and caught her peeping, and his grey eyes flicked over her with unashamed interest. He gave a brief, knowing smile, before turning his attention back to the folded-up copy of the financial paper he was carrying.
Romy couldn’t concentrate. Or, rather, she could—but on one thing and one thing alone.
That man!
As the lift continued its descent she found herself so acutely aware of his presence that it was almost painful. But then he was an exceptionally good-looking man, she reasoned, and her reaction was perfectly natural. Just because she was getting married the next day, that did not mean that she would never find another man attractive!
Nevertheless, she found herself praying that the lift would quickly reach its destination.
It did—but it was not the one she had been counting on! In between floors five and six it made a sickening kind of screeching noise and then juddered to a deafeningly silent halt.
Nervously, Romy lifted her hand and started jabbing at the button several times, but the lift remained stubbornly stuck, and when she dared to look up at the man it was to find him observing her, a wry smile on his lips making her quickly revise her earlier opinion of him. Not exceptionally good-looking, she concluded, but outrageously good-looking!
‘And you thought that this kind of thing only happened in films, didn’t you?’ he said.
Romy didn’t answer, just continued to punch away at the lift button with a desperation she did not quite like to analyse.
‘If you don’t mind my saying so,’ he observed, in that same deep and drawling voice, ‘bashing the thing is likely to do more harm than good!’
‘Then what do you suggest I do?’ she snapped back.
He raised a lazy black brow. ‘You could try pressing the alarm button,’ he suggested.
Now why hadn’t she thought of that?
Feeling more than a bit of a fool, Romy did just that, disappointed and yet not surprised when nothing happened.
He moved forward and began studying the buttons, pressing each one experimentally at first and then trying different combinations, like someone struggling to find the right password on a strange computer. But, no matter what he did, the lift remained stubbornly still.
The man frowned. ‘Could be the electrics, I suppose, as the alarm isn’t working either,’ he commented thoughtfully. ‘Although we still have light, so maybe the mechanism is on a completely different circuit.’
For some reason, his calm assurance infuriated her. And so did the fact that she couldn’t understand a word he was saying!
‘Is that all you can say?’ she demanded, her voice rising with every word. ‘Standing there wittering on about electrics when we’re stuck in this lift--alone!’
‘Not alone. Together,’ he corrected her, and gave her a narrow-eyed look. ‘And if you continue to get hysterical—’
‘I am not getting hysterical!’
‘Yes, you are!’ he chided gently.
‘I’ll get hysterical if I want to!’ she yelled. ‘Who wouldn’t get hysterical if they were stuck in a lift with a complete stranger?’
He gave a lazy smile, the corners of his mouth turning up in a way which suddenly made Romy’s heart thunder as it had never thundered before. ‘Do I make you nervous, then?’ he queried wickedly.
‘Yes, you jolly well do! And I’m certainly not going to accept this false imprisonment lying down!’
It was the worst thing she could have said, and the answering glint of light in his grey eyes made her fervently wish that she could rephrase that last statement!
‘What a pity,’ he murmured.
‘In fact, I’m going to yell for help!’ she announced wildly, saying anything—anything—to stop him looking at her in that way... She glared at him challengingly.
‘Be my guest,’ he drawled, and carelessly loosened the tie of cornflower silk which was knotted around his throat. ‘Yell to your heart’s content, sweetheart!’
Sticking her mouth as close to the door as possible, Romy shouted, ‘Help!’ at the top of her voice, and listened as the word echoed its way down the silent lift shaft. She drew in a deep breath for another attempt. ‘Help!’ But again her shout simply echoed into nothingness, and the lack of response made Romy’s heart race with real fear.
‘Why don’t you yell for help?’ she challenged.
‘Because there’s no one out there to hear us,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘It’s a little-used lift. We would do much better to wait until we hear someone banging around, and then yell!’
‘And what if we never get out?’ she babbled, moving forward and clutching onto his lapels with white-knuckled fingers, her voice rising to a high, brittle note which threatened to crack. She buckled against him. ‘What if We die of thirst, or starve to death?’
‘We won’t,’ he soothed, and almost absently stroked the blonde hair which was now resting against his chest. ‘We’ll be just fine.’
She quickly dropped her hands from where they were busy creasing the linen of his lapels! ‘No, we won’t! We’ll be stuck here for ever! I just know we will! I—’
He lifted her chin with his forefinger so that she could not escape that blazing, stormy gaze. ‘The classic remedy for hysteria is a slap to the face.’ He cut across her words with a frown which gradually gave way to a slow, careful smile. ‘But I’m not inclined to do that. For a start, it’s such a beautiful face...’
The softness in his deep voice instantly and magically diffused all the terror she felt. A beautiful face? Romy went pink with pleasure at the compliment, and then immediately started thinking how pathetic she must look! And should he really be saying something like that to an engaged woman?
But when she threw a covert glance down at her left hand she discovered that she had left her engagement ring lying on the dressing table in the hotel room. There was no outward symbol to show the world she was spoken for. So she had better start acting like a mature woman who was about to be married!
Fixing her most intelligent look on her face, she drew a deep, calming breath and said steadily, ‘And how do you propose we get out of here?’
He stared down at her intently, his face and body suddenly tense. His eyes