the front of the elevator. She stared at the lights slowly descending toward ‘G’ for ground floor. Then at the one marked ‘B’, below that—the one he’d pressed.
‘Excuse me...’ She cleared her throat to reduce the tight choke. He turned again, looked down great cheekbones at her. ‘Can you get to the street from B?’
He studied her. Didn’t ask what she meant. ‘The basement has electronic gate control.’
Her heart sank. So much for hoping to make a subtle getaway. Looked as if the universe really wanted her to pay for today’s disaster.
Crowded reception it was, then.
She nodded just once. ‘Thank you.’
He didn’t turn back around, but his grey eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll be driving out through the gates. You’re welcome to slip out behind me.’
Slip out. Was that just a figure of speech or did he know? ‘Thank you. Yes, please.’
He turned back to the front, then, a heartbeat later, he turned back again. ‘Step behind me.’
She dragged stinging eyes back up to him. ‘What?’
‘The door’s going to open at Reception first. It will be full of people. I can screen you.’
Suddenly the front-line of the small army of tears waiting for a chance to get out surged forward. She fought them back furiously, totally futile.
Kindness. That was worse than blinking. And it meant that he definitely knew.
But since he was playing pretend-I-don’t, she could, too. She stepped to her left just as the doors obediently opened onto the station’s reception. Light and noise filled the elevator but she stood, private and protected behind the stranger, his big body as good as a locked door. She sighed. Privacy and someone to protect her—two things she’d just blown out of her life for good, she suspected.
‘Mr Rush...’ someone said, out in the foyer.
The big man just nodded. ‘Alice. Going down?’
‘No, up.’
He shrugged. ‘I won’t be long.’
And the doors closed, leaving just the two of them, again. Georgia sagged and swiped at the single, determined tear that had slipped down her cheek. He didn’t turn back around. It took only a moment longer for the elevator to reach the basement. He walked out the moment the doors opened and reached back to hold them wide for her. The frigid outdoor air hit her instantly.
‘Thank you,’ she repeated and stepped out into the darkened parking floor. She’d left her coat upstairs, hanging on the back of a chair in the studio, but she would gladly freeze rather than set foot in that building ever again.
He didn’t make eye contact again. Or smile. ‘Wait by the gate,’ he simply said and then turned to stride towards a charcoal Jaguar.
She walked a dead straight line towards the exit gate. The fastest, most direct route she could. She only reached it a moment or two before the luxury car. She stood, rubbing her prickling flesh.
He must have activated the gate from inside his vehicle, and the large, steel lattice began to rattle along rollers towards her. He nudged his car forward, lowered his window, and peered out across his empty passenger seat.
She ducked to look at him. For moments. One of them really needed to say something. Might as well be her.
‘Thanks again.’ For sanctuary in the elevator. For spiriting her away, now.
His eyes darkened and he slid designer sunglasses up onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Good luck’ was all he said. Then he shifted his Jag into gear and drove forward out of the still-widening gate.
She stared after him.
It seemed an odd thing to say in lieu of goodbye but maybe he knew something she didn’t.
Maybe he knew how much she was going to need that luck.
* * *
Hell.
That was the longest elevator ride of Zander’s life. Trapped in two square metres of double-thickness steel with a sobbing woman. Except she hadn’t been sobbing—not outwardly—but she was hurting inwardly; pain was coming off her in waves. Totally tangible.
The waves had hit him the moment he nudged his way into her elevator, but it was too late, then, to step back and let her go down without him. Not without making her feel worse.
He knew who she was. He just hadn’t known it was her standing in the elevator he ran for or he wouldn’t have launched himself at the closing doors.
She must have bolted straight from the studio to the exit the moment they threw to the first track out of the Valentine’s segment. Lord knew he did; he wanted to get across town to the network head offices before they screamed for him to come in.
Proactive instead of reactive. He never wanted someone higher up his food chain to call him and find him just sitting there waiting for their call. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Or the power.
By the time he got across London’s peak-hour gridlock he’d have the right spin for the on-air balls-up. Turning a negative into a positive. Oiling the waters. The kind of problem-solving he was famous—and employed—for.
The kind of problem-solving he loathed.
He blew out a steady breath and took an orange light just as it was turning red in order to keep moving. None of them had expected the guy to say no. Who said no to a proposal, live on air? You said yes live and then you backed out of it later if it wasn’t what you wanted. That was what ninety-five per cent of Londoners would do.
Apparently this guy was Mr Five Per Cent.
Then again, who asked a man to marry her live on radio if she wasn’t already confident of the answer? Or maybe she thought she was? She wouldn’t be the first to find out she was wrong...the hard way.
Empathy curled his fingers tight on the expensive leather of his steering wheel. Who was he to cast stones?
He’d recognised that expression immediately. The one where you’d happily agree for the elevator to plunge eight storeys rather than have to step out and face the world. At least his own humiliation had been limited to just his family and friends.
Just two hundred of his and Lara’s nearest and dearest.
Georgia Stone’s would be all over the city today and all over the world by tomorrow.
He was counting on it. Though he’d have preferred it not to be on the back of someone’s pain and humiliation. He hadn’t got that bad...yet.
He eased his foot onto the brake as the traffic ground to a halt around him and resisted the urge to lean on his horn.
Not that he imagined a girl like that would suffer for long. Tall and pale and pretty with that tangle of dark, short curls. She’d dressed for her proposal—that was a sweet and unexpected touch in the casual world of radio. Half his on-air staff would come to work in their pyjamas if they had the option. But Georgia Stone had worn a simple, pale pink, thin-strapped dress for the big moment—almost a wedding dress itself. If one got married on a beach in Barbados. Way too light for February so maybe public proposals weren’t the only thing the pretty Miss Stone didn’t think through?
Or maybe he was just looking for ways that this wasn’t his fault.
He’d approved the Valentine’s promotion in the first place. And the cheesy ‘does your man just need a shove?’ angle. But EROS’ listeners were—on the whole—a fairly cheesy bunch so it had been one of their most successful promotions.
Which had made the lift ride all the more painful.
Something about her pale, wide-eyed courtesy. Even as her heart ruptured quietly in its cavity.
Thank you.