“I think I’m going to be sick.” Mandy wondered if she could hobble forward off the elevator, still bent over at the waist. She might have managed it if her bag wasn’t lying on the floor two feet away, and her footwear scattered left and right. Her wallet was in her bag, just out of reach.

“Well, get off the elevator then.”

He said it as if this was obvious, which it would be if she could move.

Even with her hair falling in her eyes, Mandy could see the black shoes and pant legs were in front of the door, holding it open.

“I can’t. If I stand still, I think I’m okay. If I move, I think I’ll…well, be sick.” It seemed inappropriate to say “puke my guts out” in front of this frosty businessman. Or in front of his feet anyway.

“You can’t just stand there all day,” he said, with a touch of disbelief.

Well, no shit, Sherlock.

The door tried to close, and he pushed it back open.

“I suppose I can’t.” Mandy raised herself a half inch. Her head swam, but her stomach only lurched. “I have an eight o’clock appointment—a job interview—and I’ve got this bad case of”—Morning sickness—“the flu.”

Nothing but silence came from shiny-shoe man.

Oh, my God, this was a nightmare brought to life. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t move. She was nauseous, she was mortified. She was stuck on a bloody elevator with her head around her ankles and her bum in the air.

She really didn’t think that was the confident side Caroline wanted her to be projecting.

Chapter 2

Damien Sharpton usually knew what to do in any given situation.

But he didn’t know what the hell to do about the woman bent completely over in the elevator, ass up, head down.

His first urge was to step out in the hallway and let the door close on her.

Despite what people said about him, however, he wasn’t quite that heartless.

He was impatient. Calculating. Aggressive. Consumed by his work and utterly devoid of a personal life.

He was okay with all of that. Yet regardless of the past three years, and everything he’d been through, he wasn’t inhumane.

So he hovered, holding the doors open, and wondered what exactly he was supposed to do now.

“Do you want me to call someone?” He reached for his cell phone, pleased that he’d thought to foist her off on someone else. Let one of the executive assistants deal with her, until her husband or boyfriend or friend came and retrieved her. Not his assistant, since he didn’t have one at present.