trapped-by-love-a-novelette - Rakhibul hasan (phonics readers txt) 📗

dropped his arm from her shoulder and leaned back against the wall.

"After we paid the bills, I gave up the hospital job and kept waitressing."

Derek interrupted. "Why did you give up the full-time job and keep the part-time job?" "With tips, I could make more in thirty hours as a waitress than I could in forty hours as an

 

aid. And that left me time to take GED classes," she added.

"So you got your GED and went on to secretarial school." Derek shook his head. "You’re so good I thought you must have taken office classes in high school and worked in offices ever since high school."

"That’s why I was so scared . . ." She didn’t mean to tell Derek she had been afraid to go to work for Consolidated Electronics. She’d felt like an outsider. Everyone else had probably graduated from high school on a normal schedule and worked in an office for years.

 

"Why you were so scared about what?" Derek asked. "Never mind." She shook her head.

"Oh, no. You’re not stopping now. Keep talking," Derek said. "You said, ‘That’s why I was so scared . . . ‘"

She couldn’t believe she’d already told him so much about herself. He probably couldn’t think any worse of her than he did already. "Why I was so scared when I got my first office job, when I started as a clerk in the sales department." She reached for her purse again and twisted the

 

strap.

Derek set the purse aside and took her hands. "That was your first office job?" He grinned. "I thought you were an old pro. I wondered why you’d been hired as a file clerk instead of a secretary right from the beginning."

"You could have checked my personnel file if you were interested."

"Oh, I was interested." That usually authoritative voice sounded very different. He shook his head. "Never mind about that. I didn’t need to read your personnel file. I knew everything I needed to know just from watching you work."

"I’m surprised you even noticed me in that sea of faces in the clerical pool." "Your face never blends into a sea. I noticed you, all right."

That almost sounded like he noticed her face, but he’d already made it clear that it was her work he noticed. She couldn’t let herself even think about her romantic dreams.

 

Derek kept talking. "I don’t care about your experience. You’re the best secretary I’ve ever had. In fact the best secretary I could ever want." He squeezed her hands.

Lori looked down at their joined hands — his so large and strong, hers so dainty but just as strong. "I guess we make a good team. You’re a great boss."

He laughed. "Don’t let anyone else in the office hear you say that. You’ll ruin my reputation. I’ve heard them call me the tyrant of sales and Derek the Devil before."

"They just don’t know you. You’re not a tyrant or a devil." She raised her head and looked him in the eyes. "You’re very good at your job, and you expect everyone else to be as good at theirs." Her voice dropped. "I try my best to be good enough for you."

 

Derek’s face turned serious. "You’re probably better at your job than I am at mine, and I’m much better at mine because you’re so good at yours." Then he smiled again. "Just don’t let anybody else find that out."

He was still holding her hands. She pulled away and stood up. "Okay, turnabout is fair play. You have to tell me about yourself now."

"There’s nothing to tell," he said as he stood. Then he grinned. "I didn’t let you get by with that, and I’m sure you won’t let me get by with it either."

She hoped he didn’t notice that she had a hard time breathing when he grinned. "You’re right. I won’t."

He stood so close to her she wondered if he could hear her heartbeat. She couldn’t step away without bumping into the pile of coat, briefcase, and purse. Talking about being on her feet all the time in her former jobs reminded her how uncomfortable she was after a full day of wearing heels. She leaned against the elevator wall, took off her shoes, and added them to the pile. She curled her toes in the plush carpet to ease her aching feet.

 

Derek reached out to her and pulled her to him. His hand on her head guided it down to his chest. Without her heels, he could rest his chin on top of her head. Only a few seconds passed before he seemed to realize what he was doing. He dropped his arms and stepped back at the same time she pulled away.

"I’m afraid my story isn’t as dramatic as yours," he said. "My life has been pretty boring. I grew up in a family with an older brother and younger sister. Dad was a salesman, and Mom stayed home with the kids."

She’d hardly been in his arms long enough to feel it, but she felt alone now that he was a few inches away. "So, you decided to become a salesman like your dad?" she asked.

 

"I’m sure that’s part of the reason. I’ve always looked up to Dad. I started selling early. Every year, I sold the most tickets in our troop to the Boy Scouts’ Jamboree. Later, it was the

 

most candy for the band and the most calendars for the student council," he said.

Lori wished she could put more distance between them. If she continued to feel the warmth from his body and breathe his scent, she’d never want to leave. She said, "So you’ve been a smooth talker all your life."

Derek let her pull away slightly, but he gripped her arms above the elbows with his hands. "I don’t think I’m a ’smooth talker.’ I’m a professional. I know my products, and I believe it’s my job to help a client solve a problem. If our product isn’t the solution, I won’t sell it to him. And as sales manager, I expect the same from the salesmen I supervise."

 

"That’s one thing everyone agrees on. Even those who call you Derek the Devil admit you put the client first," Lori said.

Derek smiled and dropped his hands from her arms. "So you admit you’ve heard the names I’ve been called."

"I never said I haven’t heard things." She turned around to keep from looking at his lips and imagining what they would feel like if he kissed her. She’d also heard women’s reactions to him as a man. She wasn’t the only one who wanted to run her fingers through that thick mass of blond hair.

"But my loyal Lori never gossips about me, does she?" he asked.

"No," she answered. She doesn’t gossip, but she dreams, and daydreams, and fantasizes. "Have you always worked at Consolidated Electronics?"

"No, I’ve worked for several other companies." He told her about his previous jobs, starting out after college as a sales trainee at a restaurant supply company. He had worked his way up the ladder at two other businesses before coming to Consolidated Electronics as a salesman four years ago. He’d been named sales manager only a year later.

 

"You’ve done a lot since you’ve been sales manager. You have the respect of the clients and the staff," Lori told him. "I’m proud to work for you."

"Thank you, Lori. I’m proud of what I’ve done," Derek said. "But I haven’t succeeded as much as you have because I didn’t have as many obstacles to overcome to get where I am. I’m so proud of you for getting your GED and learning a skill after what you went through."

 

She’d spent so many years feeling ashamed of her lack of education she didn’t know how to respond to praise for what she’d done. She would never have told Derek any of this if she hadn’t been trying to keep from thinking about being alone with him, trapped in the elevator.

 

Now that she let herself think about it again, she started to panic. "What time is it now?" she asked.

Derek looked at his watch. "It’s nine-fifteen. The cleaning crew should be here by now." Lori found it hard to breathe again. She didn’t know whether it was Derek’s closeness or her

 

rising panic. "They should have done something by now. What if they don’t realize we’re here?" Derek placed his hands on her shoulders and eased her down to the floor again. He sat with

 

his back against the adjacent wall. "I’m sure someone will discover the elevator’s stuck when they’re ready to go to another floor."

"But what if they don’t?" She couldn’t control her rising voice. "Is this my always-efficient Lori-who-never-panics?"

 

She breathed deeply. "I’m not going to panic. I just want someone to find us and get us out of here."

"What about your fiancé?" Derek asked. "Won’t he figure out something’s wrong when you don’t get home soon?"

Her mouth opened in shock. "What fiancé?"

 

"How many fiancés do you have?" Derek asked with a frown.

"None. Whatever gave you the idea I had a fiancé?" Why were they having this ridiculous conversation when they should be trying to get out of a stuck elevator?

Derek arched his right eyebrow. "He told me when he came to pick you up for lunch the first day you started at the company."

Lori frowned in confusion as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. She thought back to her first day on the job. Her neighbor had asked her out several times. The only invitation she’d ever accepted was the one lunch date, and she’d come to regret that.

 

"Rob’s my next door neighbor. He took me to lunch to celebrate my new job. But I’ve never even dated him, much less been engaged to him."

Derek stood and stared down at her. "If you’re not engaged to him, why did he tell me you were?"

"I have no idea. He’d asked me out several times, but I’d never gone. Maybe . . . well, he apparently had ideas that had no basis in reality." Could he have fantasized about her the way she fantasized about Derek? "I didn’t know he told you we were engaged. But I guarantee you it’s not true."

"I even asked him why you weren’t wearing a ring." "What did he say?"

Derek rolled his shoulders as if to release tension. "He said he was having his late mother’s ring redesigned for you and would give it to you at Christmas."

"Good grief. That’s really carrying the lie to the limit." Lori felt at a disadvantage sitting on the floor with Derek standing over her. "I wonder what his very much alive mother would think of being called his ‘late mother.’"

"He even told me you got engaged this past Valentine’s Day and were getting married next Valentine’s Day." On Derek’s face, Lori saw confusion, frustration, and some other emotion she couldn’t identify.

"I can’t believe he said all that." She rose. "Why would he make up a story like that?" "He told me so many details I had to believe him."

"When did you have this conversation? I don’t even remember seeing you that day."

"You might not have seen me," Derek said. "But I certainly saw you. I talked to this Romeo while you went to wash your hands."

"Well, regardless of what he said, we are not engaged. We are not dating. We are not even friends anymore."

Derek frowned. "Did something happen?"

"He came on pretty strong over lunch. I thought we were just going for a casual, friendly meal. But he tried to pressure me into spending time with him, and he walked out on me when I told him I only wanted to be friends."

"That jerk! No wonder you looked unhappy when you got back to the office."

Unhappy was too mild a word to describe her emotions after resisting Rob’s crude advances and having to spend two weeks of bus fare on a lunch that gave her indigestion. However, she thought she’d hid her anger and frustration from her co-workers. Learning that her boss had noticed shocked her.

"Well,