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say, but she cut him off.
    "Spare me. You've never liked me, and I've never liked you, so don't
bother mouthing some empty platitude at me, okay? Of all the
unpalatable aspects of this deal, you I find the most difficult to
swallow." She'd planned on exiting grandly into the foyer on these
cutting and deeply satisfying words, but all of a sudden the lights
flashed once, then blackness descended at the same time that the
grinding shriek of Page 20

    metal-on-metal filled the car and the elevator shuddered to a halt.

    3

    "WHAT THE—?" Jack exclaimed.
    "What's happening?" Claire demanded at almost the same time.
    "Probably just a freak glitch," he said into the darkness, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded.
    "You're an expert on elevator technology now, are you?" she asked
sharply. He couldn't see her, but he rolled his eyes at the corner he
guessed she was occupying.
    "No, I'm being optimistic. Would you prefer I start reciting the Lord's
Prayer and scribbling my will on the back of an envelope?"
    Silence. Good. He was sick of her attitude and misdirected anger. As
for that dig she'd made just before the elevator went crazy…It had been
a long time since someone had told him to his face that she didn't like
him. And he was surprised at how much it annoyed him.
    An emergency light flickered to life above them and he moved to the
control panel. The pale, inadequate glow allowed him to find the
compartment which hid the emergency phone, and he pried it open and
reached for the receiver.
    "Hello? Is anyone there?" he asked, suddenly aware that his heart was
pounding faster than usual. Okay, so this was a bit scary. And maybe he
should forgive Claire for being a tad shrill. He glanced across at her
as the continuing silence on the other end of the phone sunk in. Her
face was pale, taut. Frightened.
    "Nothing," he said.
    As if she didn't trust him to know the difference between a live phone
and a dead one, she crossed to take a listen herself. He leaned against
the side wall, elaborately casual as he waited for her to confirm his
initial assessment.
    "You're right," she said.
    "Wow, that must have really hurt," he couldn't resist saying. She shot him a look that would have turned lesser men to stone.
    "What, didn't expect to have to actually stay and cop the consequences
of all that mouthing off?" he asked, for some reason feeling really
angry with her now. "I know you probably prefer to just hit and run,
but unfortunately we appear to be stuck for the short term." Page 21

    He watched, fascinated, as the color flooded back into her cheeks and
her eyes burned with an angry light. Pretty impressive, a part of his
brain acknowledged. She even drew her shoulders back and inhaled
sharply, and, for the first time ever, he found his eyes dropping to
her suit-encased chest.
    "It's easy for you to stand there all smug and confident. Did you just
have your idea taken away from you and handed to someone completely
undeserving? Did you just get treated like some token office bimbo? No.
Because you're a man. A racquetball playing, big-game-fishing,
bungee-jumping man with a stupid red sports car and the right equipment
between his legs to get ahead in this company." If he'd been a cartoon,
his hair would have been streaming back from his head as if he'd just
stepped out of a wind tunnel. Whoa, but this was one angry woman. And
he could see her point, really he could. But he didn't like the way she
was sighting her feminist crosshairs directly on him.
    "Listen, I had nothing to do with what just happened in that meeting.
You think I want anything to do with this? And if we're talking about
tokenism, I'm the one who's being wheeled in as the token male on this
project for appearance's sake. How do you think that makes me feel?"
    "Don't you dare mock me!" she warned him.
    "Then don't you blame your problems on me," he countered. "I can't see
why you'd make me the bad guy in all this. Contrary to your belief, I
have never disliked you. I