Trapped by Love: A Novelette Page 2

if he’d never seen her before.

  "You’re scared." She’d never heard his voice so soft.

  She shook her head in denial. "No. No, I’m not scared."

  He stepped forward and took her hands in his. "Lori, your hands are shaking. Are you going to panic on me?"

  "No, I am not scared, and I am not going to panic." She pronounced each word carefully and distinctly. "I am the always-efficient secretary." She didn’t feel like the always-efficient secretary now, but she couldn’t let him know that.

  Although she stood directly in front of him, she raised her voice to her boss for the first time since she’d known him. "I don’t panic when you give me one hour to finish a three-hour job."

  Derek held up his hands as if to protect himself. Lori took a step back. "I don’t panic when you forget to tell me to set up the conference room until five minutes before twenty people arrive. I don’t panic when no one can find the file you have to have right this minute."

  She stepped back until she leaned against the wall. "So why should I panic just because we’re trapped in an elevator between the eleventh and twelfth floors at eight o’clock at night?"

  Derek just stood there with a look of surprise on his face. Lori went limp and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. He sat beside her, with his back resting against the wall.

  He turned to face her. "Lori, I know you don’t panic in a work situation. You’re a highly skilled secretary. You have enough experience to handle just about anything that comes along."

  Lori looked straight ahead rather than at Derek.

  She could pretend she was having this weird conversation with a stranger as long as she didn’t look at her boss. "I don’t have nearly enough experience to handle the job I have now."

  He turned to look at her then. "Of course, you do. You’re the most qualified secretary I’ve ever had. How long have you been a secretary anyway?"

  "Three months," she answered in a whisper.

  "That’s how long you’ve been working for me. I meant how much total experience you have."

  "Mr. Anderson, you should know. My experience is listed on my employment application." She wouldn’t look at him, although she could feel his eyes on her.

  "I’ve never looked at your application." When she raised her head, he smiled. His smile had lit up her world the day he asked her to be his secretary, and it continued to light her world every time she saw it. "I knew everything I needed to know by watching you on the job. It was obvious that you were working way below your skills as a clerk. I checked with Personnel, and they said you were a qualified secretary."

  "Mr. Anderson, I’ve never worked as a secretary before. I took a secretarial course, but I don’t have any experience."

  He slid across the floor to sit in front of her. "Are you serious? Of course, you are. You’re always serious. Like that Mr. Anderson business. I told you to call me Derek when you first started working for me."

  "I just don’t feel right calling my boss by his first name."

  "Well, I’m the boss, and I’m ordering you to call me Derek." He stood and paced the tiny elevator. "We’re trapped in this six by six box for who knows long. I think Mr. Anderson is just a little too formal for the situation."

  "Okay, Mr. . . . Derek."

  "I’d have never guessed you didn’t have secretarial experience. It must come naturally to you."

  She had slid to the floor because she lacked the strength to stand. But she didn’t know if she could sit there with Mr. Anderson — Derek — towering over her. She’d called him Mr. Anderson to keep some distance between them, but she always thought of him as Derek. Thought of him, dreamed of him, daydreamed of him . . .

  Her mind was straying into dangerous territory. She was so self-disciplined that she could usually force her thoughts to something else, usually work. But this unmoving elevator blocked out the rest of the world. Her mind seemed to be filled with only two topics, equally dangerous. She could either think about being trapped in the elevator or think about Derek.

  If she thought about being trapped, she would panic. If she thought about Derek, she’d probably throw herself at him and beg him to love her as she loved him.

  He’d warned her from the start that he didn’t want a personal relationship with his secretary. She couldn’t remember when she fell in love with him. Maybe the first day she’d worked for him, when he’d taken the time to explain exactly what he expected her to do. Maybe it was when she watched him deal with an unhappy customer or help a new salesperson practice her first presentation. He seemed impatient and demanding, but he cared so much he wanted the best for and from everyone. Maybe she’d fallen in love with him the day he’d forgotten to tell her about a meeting in the conference room. He’d charmed her with his sheepish grin when he admitted he’d made a mistake, but he trusted her to fix it for him. His complete confidence in her made her feel like she could do anything.

  In one way, her love made her job easy, because making his job and life smoother brought her great joy. In another way, though, her love made her job almost impossible. Each day it became more difficult for her to keep their relationship professional. Derek, though, didn’t even recognize her as human, much less female. To him, she was just an efficient machine, a robot secretary.

  "How did you get to be such a good secretary if you don’t have any experience?" He stopped pacing and sat on the floor with his back against the adjacent wall.

  "I guess I’ve been taking care of people all my life. That’s all I do — take care of you."

  "And you do a wonderful job of it too." He slid closer. "But what about the typing and dictation?"

  Time to change the subject. "How long have you been a vice-president?"

  "Oh, no, you aren’t getting by with changing the subject. I just realized that you never talk about yourself." He shrugged. "We might as well get some good out of being stuck in an elevator. You’re going to tell me about Lori Hammond."

  He’d never asked her about herself before. Why now, when she couldn’t escape or hide her emotions? "There’s nothing to tell."

  He raised his arms over his head and grasped his right hand with his left hand. Then he stretched, and stretched, and stretched. The muscles rippling under his dress shirt gave Lori a tingling feeling in her belly.

  "Of course, there’s something to tell," he said. "You’re a mystery. How can the most beautiful woman in the company also be the most efficient?"

  Lori inched away from him. The tiny elevator seemed to be shrinking. The air seemed to be getting thinner. She had to concentrate on her breathing.

  "That would be an interesting combination if it existed." Lori reached for her purse to have something to do with her hands. "No one’s ever accused Tina Lawrence of being efficient." Tina was the beautiful, but thoroughly disorganized, receptionist.

  Derek slid closer and took the purse from her hands. He pushed it along the floor to the corner with his briefcase. "I can’t positively say no one has, but I’ve certainly never accused Tina Lawrence of being either the most beautiful or the most efficient. The most beautiful woman in the company has silky brown hair that’s probably long when it’s down. She usually has a serious expression on her face, but it’s worth waiting for one of her smiles. Her hazel eyes show there’s more going on besides the steel control she shows to the world. She’s the perfect size, and she sits just outside my office."

  Lori stood in one swift motion. "Don’t be ridiculous." She couldn’t stop the quiver in her voice.

  He rose from the floor. "Okay, we’ll stick to business. Tell me how you came to be a secretary." He stood, put his hands on her shoulders, and guided her to a sitting position. Then he sat beside her. "You really are the best, you know."

  Lori had never told anyone outside her family about herself. She’d been too busy to make close friends or have a serious romance. She didn’t want Derek, or anyone else, to know her secrets, but sharing secrets was better than thinking about being trapped or taking the ris
k of saying something that would cause Derek to realize how much she fantasized about him.

  "I dropped out of school in the tenth grade." She saw Derek raise his eyebrows, but he didn’t say anything. "My mother had cancer and needed someone to take care of her."

  Derek slid closer and took her hands in his. "And, of course, my loyal Lori volunteered."

  She pulled her hands back and looked away from him. "My mother needed me. What did you expect me to do — tell her to die alone?" She hadn’t meant to sound so angry.

  "I would expect you to do exactly what you did — sacrifice some of your own dreams to meet your mother’s needs. You should be very proud of yourself."

  "Proud of being a dropout?" She couldn’t keep the resentment out of her voice. She’d always been ashamed that she hadn’t finished school.

  "Proud of doing what was right for your family. And proud of getting an education, some way, some time." He took her chin in his right hand and turned her face so she was looking at him. "Tell me how you did it."

  She wasn’t sure what she saw in his eyes, but whatever she saw seemed to loosen her tongue. "I stayed with my mom during the day while my dad worked. She wasn’t a complete invalid until the last few weeks." Lori’s voice broke, but she kept talking. How could she be so sensitive to his touch as she recalled those bleak days?

  "That must have been hard."

  "At first, I mainly just needed to be with Mom so she wouldn’t be alone. I took