Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 were cold and grey, Romy noted with a shiver—as hard and as glittering as a blade of steel.

      Romy instantly became aware that all normal sounds had been deadened—muffled by the pulses which thundered in her head. Her line of vision had contracted to one small area, and she found that all she could see were the firm, sensual curves of his mouth.

      He seemed to move fractionally towards her, and for one heart-stopping moment she actually thought that he was about to bend that dark, gorgeous head to kiss her—and found that she was holding her breath, waiting and anticipating his next move.

      Then suddenly he laughed, and shifted his weight rather awkwardly, as though he was uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any immediate solution. So we’ll just have to wait. Sooner or later someone is bound to notice that one of us is missing or that the lift is firmly stuck between floors.’

      ‘Of course,’ she said stiffly, and deliberately turned her back on him, feeling absolutely mortified—aware that for a moment back then she had very much wanted him to kiss her. Had he been aware of her wish, too?

      Was that another sign of pre-wedding nerves? she wondered worriedly. Wanting total strangers to pull you into their arms and to kiss you to within about an inch of your life? Tight-lipped, she stared at the blank wall, feeling disgusted with herself.

      

      

      Dominic looked at the tense set of her shoulders, his mouth hardening as he recognised the hypnotic pull of sexual attraction which was building up in the confined space with all the speed of cells multiplying.

      He tried to rationalise the situation. He had given little time or thought to pleasure over the past year, and this overwhelming need to crush her against him was probably just his body’s reaction to such self-imposed denial.

      He had been working flat out for months and months, taking on a job in a law firm in Hong Kong for which he had been much too young and too unqualified, but in which he had absolutely triumphed—to everyone’s astonishment bar his own.

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