The Billionaire's Bargain. Naima Simone

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       Two

      Blackout.

      Malfunction. Doors locked.

      Remain calm.

      The words shouted in anything but calm voices outside the bathroom door bombarded Isobel. Perched on the settee in the outer room of the ladies’ restroom, she hunched over her cell phone, which had only 2 percent battery life left.

      “C’mon,” she ordered her fingers to cooperate as she fumbled over the text keyboard. In her nerves, she kept misspelling words, and damn autocorrect, it kept “fixing” the words that were actually right. Finally she finished her message and hit send.

      Mom, is everything okay? How is Aiden?

      Fingers clutching the little burner phone, she—not for the first time—wished she could afford a regular cell. But with her other responsibilities, that bill had been one of the first things she’d cut. Constantly buying minutes and battling a battery that didn’t hold a charge presented a hassle, but the prepaid phone did the job. After seconds that seemed like hours, a message popped up on the screen.

      He’s fine, honey. Sleeping. We’re all good. Stay put. It’s a blackout and we’ve been advised to remain inside. I love you and take care of yourself.

      Relief washed over Isobel in a deluge. If she hadn’t already been sitting down, she would’ve sunk to the floor. For the first time since the world had plunged into darkness, she could breathe.

      After several moments, she located the flashlight app and aimed it in the direction of where she believed the door to be. The deep blackness seemed to swallow up the light, but she spied the handle and sighed. Without ventilation, the area was growing stuffy. The hallway had to be better. At the very least, she wouldn’t feel like the walls were closing in on her. Claustrophobia had never been a problem for her, but this was enough to have anyone on edge.

      She grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, the weak beam illuminating the floor only feet in front of her. As soon as she stepped out into the hall, the light winked, then disappeared.

      “No, not yet,” she muttered, flipping the phone over. But, nope, the cell had died. “Dammit.”

      Frustration and not-a-little fear scrabbled up her chest, lodging there. Inhaling a deep breath and holding it, she forced herself to calm down. Okay. One thing her two years in Los Angeles had granted her was a sense of direction. The ballroom lay to the left. Follow the wall until it gave way to the small alcove and the side entrance she’d exited.

      No problem. She could do this.

      Probably.

      Maybe.

      Releasing that same gulp of air, she shuffled forward, hands groping until they knocked against the wall. Step one down.

      With halting steps, she slid along, palms flattened, skimming. The adjacent corridor shouldn’t be too far...

      Her chest bumped into a solid object seconds after her hands collided with it. A person. A big person, if the width of the shoulders and chest under her fingers were anything to go by.

      “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” She snatched her arms back. Heat soared up her neck and poured into her face. She’d just felt up a man in the dark.

      Horrified, she shifted backward, but her heel caught on the hem of her dress, and she pitched forward. Slamming against that same hard expanse of muscles she’d just molested. “Dammit. I—”

      The second apology drifted away as a hoarse, ragged sound penetrated the darkness and reached her ears. For a long moment, she froze, her hands splayed wide over the stranger’s chest. It rapidly rose and fell, the pace unnatural. She jerked her head up, staring into the space where his face should’ve been. But she didn’t need to glimpse his features to understand this man suffered some kind of distress. Because those rough, serrated, wounded sounds originated from him.

      The urge to comfort, to stop those god-awful moans overrode all embarrassment at having touched him without his permission. At this moment, she needed to touch him. To ease his pain.

      As she slid one palm over his jackhammering heart, she swept the other over his shoulder and down his arm until she enclosed his long fingers in hers. Then she murmured, “Hi. Talk about an awkward meet cute, right? Citywide blackout. Get felt up in the hallway. Sounds like the beginning of a rom-com starring Ryan Reynolds.”

      The man didn’t reply, and his breathing continued to sough out of his lungs, but his fingers curled around hers, clutching them tight. As if she were his lifeline.

      Relief and determination to tow him away from whatever tormented him swelled within her. It didn’t require a PhD in psychology to figure out that this man was in the throes of a panic attack. But she had zero experience with how to handle that situation. Still, he’d responded to her voice, her presence. So she’d continue talking.

      “Do you know who Ryan Reynolds is?” She didn’t wait for his answer but kept babbling. “The Green Lantern? Deadpool? I’m leading with those movies, because if you’re anything like my brother, if I’d have said The Proposal, you would’ve stared at me like I’d suddenly started speaking Mandarin. Well...that is, if you could stare at me right now.” She snickered. “What I wouldn’t give for Riddick’s eyes right now. To be able to see in the dark? Although you could keep Slam City and, ya know, the murder. Have you ever seen Pitch Black or The Chronicles of Riddick?”

      This time she received a squeeze of her fingers and a slight change in the coarseness of his breathing. A grin curved her lips. Good. That had to be a positive sign, right?

      “The Chronicles of Riddick? I enjoyed watching Vin Diesel for two hours, but the movie? Meh. Pitch Black, though, was amazing. One of the best sci-fi movies ever. Only beat out by Aliens and The Matrix. Although I still maintain that The Matrix Revolutions never happened, just as Dirty Dancing 2 is a dirty rumor. They’re like Voldemort. Those Movies That Shall Not Be Named.”