LITMIR.BIZ

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slowly with her feet, her hands steepled together under her chin as she counted to herself. One, two, three…

      “PIPPAAAAA!!”

Chapter Two

      “Here you go.”

      Pip yelped and jumped in surprise as the large file of papers landed squarely on her desk and scattered her yellow paper notes. She shot a glance up at Jumal’s dark eyes. “Some light bedtime reading. Enough to keep even you out of trouble.”

      “What is it?” she asked, looking back briefly at the ominous large file.

      “The Dubai contract. Faridah dropped it in earlier and she’ll be contacting you tomorrow to set up the meetings.”

      “Joy,” she mumbled under her breath.

      “Sorry, what was that?” Jumal pressed.

      “Nothing,” she replied, waving her hand dismissively. “So what do you need me to do?”

      He paused briefly as if considering his next words. “I want a summary of the salient points on my desk tomorrow morning.”

      Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open goldfish style as she discreetly tried to glance at her watch. It was already ten o’clock at night.

      “Wha—” She shut her mouth—even she knew when to quit and this was clearly punishment for her earlier joke. The man obviously had no sense of humour. In fact, come to think of it, she hadn’t even seen him crack a smile with a colleague in the few months she’d been here. He was so serious—a prime candidate for a stress-induced heart attack.

      “Fine,” she said, putting her hands up as she accepted defeat. “I always struggle to get to sleep. This is just the ticket.”

      “Good. You ready to go home? I think we’ve worked late enough. Looks like we’re the last ones here,” he noticed, glancing around the empty office. “I’ll drop you at home on the way.”

      “Oh, don’t put yourself out,” she mumbled not even trying to hide her sarcasm but then winced at his ice-cold stare.

      “Okay, okay, thanks,” she conceded shutting down her laptop.

      “Here.” She was startled as Jumal took hold of her jacket and held it open for her arms. She quickly grabbed her bag and the file.

      “Lead on, chauffeur,” she added, mischievously.

      He simply shook his head at her and headed over to the lifts to press the call button. She finally joined him, muttering under her breath about his lack of a sense of humour but trying to keep her distance and stare down at the floor. Hmm, funny she’d never really noticed the colour of the flooring before and she’d never been more grateful for the soft ping announcing the arrival of the lift.

      “After you,” Jumal said, standing back and holding out his arm before following her in and pressing the button for the underground car park.

      Pip huddled up against the mirrored wall at the back of the lift and took a deep breath. She hated lifts—hated being enclosed anywhere she couldn’t easily get out of but especially when said enclosed coffin was fifty floors up.

      “Are you okay?”

      She looked up at Jumal’s question, momentarily surprised by his concern.

      “Yeah. I just don’t like small, enclosed places. Childhood trauma caused entirely by your friend aka my brother.” She dropped her head to stare again at the floor.

      “Why, what—?” Jumal’s query was suddenly interrupted by the lift plunging into darkness and coming to an abrupt halt.

      “Jumal!?” She couldn’t hide the distress from her voice as she fumbled in the dark and dropped her bag and the file to the floor; her hands reached out desperately towards him.

      She suddenly felt his hand clasp hers and pull her body towards him.

      “Hey, it’s okay. We’re fine. The emergency lighting will—ah, there you go. See?” he assured her as the dim overhead emergency lighting came on.

      “Look at me,” he demanded, still holding one of her hands and reaching for her chin with his other, gently raising it to meet his eyes.

      “Really, we’re fine. They’ll have us out of here in no time,” he said, clearly trying to calm his hysterical employee and rubbing her hand, which she knew was shaking.

      She nodded but couldn’t speak or bring herself to let go of his hand as he reached over with his other hand to push the emergency contact button on the brass panel. She looked down at his hand holding hers; she’d never touched his hand so intimately and was surprised at the hard feel of his hands. Where would a man who spent his life in offices and meetings manage to get calluses?

      A few moments later a male voice acknowledged their call and assured them that the engineer would be dispatched immediately.

      “I guess we wait then.” Her voice still trembled slightly.

      “Hmm, better make ourselves comfortable.”

      She gulped as he dropped her hand and pulled off his suit jacket to spread it out onto the floor and gestured for her to sit.

      He joined her on the floor of the lift and rolled up his sleeves, revealing his tanned, toned forearms and a vintage watch with a black alligator leather strap.

      She’d often wondered how he managed to have such a trim, highly toned body. Even through his custom-made designer suits she couldn’t help but notice his fine physique. No woman could and she’d been aware of it since she was twelve and hormones had flooded her body. But Jumal always seemed to be at work, never taking much time off save for his passion for riding his horses and horse racing. Surely you couldn’t get a body like his from just riding horses? Did that have something to do with the calluses on his hands?

      Good, she decided, this was a great distraction—thinking about his magnificent body stopped her from focusing on how completely freaked out she was being stuck in here. In this dark, windowless coffin. She swallowed again nervously and shook her head to clear her thoughts. On the downside it was making her rather hot and bothered and she was already starting to notice how warm the small, enclosed space was getting before thinking about her boss.

      Oh crap, how long would the air last?

      Her dive into a full-blown panic attack was postponed as she became acutely aware that Jumal’s forearm was now brushing up against hers. Had she ever been more aware of another person’s body innocently touching hers and causing shivers? If she had she couldn’t recall and damn it but he was most likely completely unaware of the effect he was having on her—unless of course he could hear how fast her heart was suddenly racing…

      “How are you?” he asked, nudging her arm gently.

      She blushed and answered somewhat unconvincingly, “What, oh er yeah I’ll be fine.” As soon as I stop thinking about your hot bod.

      ***

      He wasn’t fooled by her response. He knew she was distressed and needed a distraction.

      “So what did Matt do to you exactly?” Hmm, he chastised himself silently, great distraction there, Jumal—make her talk about the reason she’s claustrophobic—genius. You should think about running your own international company.

      “We were playing hide-and-seek—or rather I’d nagged him to play with me and he eventually gave up and told me to go and hide. I had the perfect spot all picked out in the attic, an old wardrobe that hadn’t been used for years. You know, like something from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; anyway he knew exactly where I’d gone and locked me in using a brush through the handles. I screamed for him to let me out but he’d gotten distracted when some girl had called round for him and he went out.

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