Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
She blinked rapidly, swallowing before she took a steadying breath. “Sterling?” she guessed.
“That’s me.” I slipped my cell from my back pocket, before crouching in front of her. “I’m guessing you must work for the Reapers seeing that you’re headed up to Silas’s little treehouse.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “Treehouse?”
“His office is on the highest floor, accessible by only two elevators, one of which only he has the key to, so I feel pretty safe about calling it a treehouse.” I grinned, hoping it would put her at ease.
“I never. Thought of it. That way.” Her breaths were coming faster.
Shit, she was going to hyperventilate.
“How about I call and see what’s going on?” I said as I quickly scrolled through my contacts and hit the button for Langley’s phone. The Reapers’ publicist—who was also Axel’s wife—was always chained to the damn thing, so I knew she’d pick up.
“Hello? Shit,” she muttered, followed by the sound of something shuffling.
“Langley, it’s Sterling.”
“Hey! Look, I’m glad you’re back, but we just had a power outage—”
“Right, and I’m stuck in the elevator with…” I looked at the blue-eyed woman and lifted my brows.
“London,” she answered.
“London,” I repeated, loving the way her name curled around my tongue.
“Well. Shit. Hold on.”
There was another shuffling sound like she’d covered the mouthpiece, and her words became muffled.
London closed her eyes and started to focus on her breathing. In through her nose and out through her mouth. She might be terrified, but I had to give her all the credit in the world for managing what she could.
“Okay, Sterling, you there?” Langley asked through the phone.
“Yep, if you consider here somewhere between the fourth and fifth floor.”
“Okay, the building manager says the power is coming back right—”
The lights flared to life, brightening to their full level. “Now,” I finished Langley’s sentence, breathing in a sigh of relief.
“Thank God,” London whispered, scurrying toward the panel of buttons and pressing the fifth floor.
Nothing happened.
Fuck.
London stabbed the buttons for every single floor, but we weren’t budging. “This is not happening!” she shouted, pushing them all again.
“Right, so we’re still stuck,” I said to Langley, my chest clenching at how trapped London had to be feeling.
“Awesome. Okay. I’m on it. We’ll get you out of there as quickly as possible. The south elevator, yes?”
“That’s the one.” I hung up with Langley and slid my phone back into my pocket. “They’re sending someone to help.”
London leaned back against the wall, then slid down it, slumping in defeat. “We’re stuck in here.” She stared at the closed doors, her eyes unfocused and her breathing shallow.
“What can I do to help you?” I leaned back, letting my ass hit the floor and bracing my elbows on my raised knees.
“Um. Talk to me, I guess?”
“I can do that.” Happily.
She blinked those glacier-blue eyes at me and sucked in a breath. “I’m not crazy.”
“I would never even think of using that word,” I assured her.
“I just have a small—” She winced. “Okay, a large problem with claustrophobia. I fucking hate elevators.”
“So distract you?” I offered.
“Distraction is good.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and nodded. “Incredibly long story short, I got myself locked in a really small tornado shelter as a kid during a game of hide and seek. The bad news? I was alone, and it took my brother almost twenty-four hours to find me.”
My stomach plummeted. “And there’s good news?” I asked incredulously.
The corners of her mouth tweaked upward. “I won the game.”
I laughed, the sound filling our little corner of the world and earning me a full, but shaky smile out of London. “Well done, but I can definitely see how that would lead to some claustrophobia.”
“It’s something I’ve been working on ever since,” she admitted, dropping her forehead to her raised knees and breathing deeply. “Tell me something you’re scared of.”
“Hmm.” I moved so I sat beside her, our shoulders touching so her body would register that she wasn’t alone. Normally I would have given her some sarcastic answer, but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation. “I’m not scared of too much, honestly. Except maybe disappointing my mom. She gave up everything to raise me and did it on her own.”
She lifted her head, clearly surprised. “Really?”
“If you knew my mother, you wouldn’t look so surprised. She’s pretty much a cat five hurricane when she’s pissed. Stubborn as hell, too. And it’s not like she had any help from my father since he’d hidden the fact that he was already married when he knocked her up.” That was the lightest version of events I was willing to divulge to a near stranger.
The truth was that my sperm donor of a father was a Grade-A asshole…and one of the best goalies the world had ever seen. Sergei Zolotov was a legend, not only here in the NHL, but in Russia, where he was born, and probably still lived with his perfect wife and two of his perfect kids. The third kid, who was no more than three months older than I was, currently played for Las Vegas. We’d crossed paths exactly seventeen times, and only on the ice. He’d never once gotten a shot past my glove and never would. Fuck him.