Page 3 of Stranded for Christmas with my Boss

Chapter two

Jensen

Of course, this is going to happen. It’s typical at this point.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter under my breath as I hit the emergency call button, waiting to hear from someone who can help us get out of here. I cannot be stuck in an elevator when I have an important meeting in thirty minutes. “Come on…come on.”

Alyssa breathes in deeply and pulls her hair away from her face and neck, which are both flushed, panic glinting in her eyes. “Someone knows we’re stuck in the elevator, right? Someone can get us?”

I jab the emergency call button again. “I’m trying to let them know. Why the hell isn’t this thing working?”

I don’t even hear a dial tone, much less a voice telling me that they’re going to fix this mess. All I’m trying to do is move through this January update plan as smoothly as I can and get everything done in time. That means hitting milestones on time and making meetings on time.

How the hell am I supposed to get anything done while I’m stuck in a metal box?

I pinch the bridge of my nose, tension forming in my temples. We’re in the beginning of December, and everyone knows that this month flies by until Christmas. Nothing can be pushed behind, or it’ll collide with the holiday.

That means this new assistant needs to keep up with me and not slow me down like the last two I had. They weren’t even just slowing me down, they were stepping on my damn feet, trippingmeup, and screwing up my schedule so badly that no one knew where I was supposed to be and when.

“Do you think there’s actually a fire?” Alyssa asks as her blue eyes widen. She fans her face. “It does feel a little warm in here.”

Oh, great. I didn’t even think about that. I’d rather not die inside of a metal coffin.

“It feels warm in here because you’re freaking out,” I tell her. “Take a breath.”

Alyssa wrinkles her nose at me. “I’m not freaking out. I’m…making observations.”

I step closer to her, my gaze latching onto the pink hue on her cheeks. The quick rise and fall of her chest. Such subtle things shouldn’t be so captivating, but they hit me like magnetic waves. “Observations that are working you up.”

Alyssa’s lips part, but no words come out. Air puffs out of her nose in a frustrated manner as she purses her lips. “Is there any way to figure out if we’re going to burn to death or not?”

“Let’s see,” I say as I take out my phone, hoping that a call goes through. I tap on my CTO’s contact. If anyone is going to figure out a way to get me out of here, it’ll be my best friend since college and the co-founder of this company.

He’ll take a sledgehammer to these doors if the situation gets dire enough.

“Where the hell are you?” Austin’s voice immediately punches through the speaker of my phone.

Important questions first. “Is there actually a fire?”

“Firefighters are coming to check it out, but I haven’t heard anyone say anything about a fire or even seeing smoke. We’re all evacuating out to the street,” Austin tells me. “Someone probably just pulled the alarm.”

“Son of a bitch.” I shake my head as frustration crackles through me. “I’m stuck in the elevator with my assistant and the damn call button won’t work. Can you get someone to come get us?”

Austin lets out a dry laugh of disbelief. Only he can laugh at my misfortunes and not get fired. “Are you serious? Just hold tight. I’ll find someone.”

I hang up and turn to Alyssa, who glances around like she’s trying to find an escape. “The only other way out is up through the roof, and I wouldn’t recommend that.”

Alyssa shoots me a sharp look that catches me off-guard at first. “I’m not an idiot. If I’m on the roof and the elevator starts back up, I could be toast.”

Well, look at that. She came into my office all shy-like, and now she’s really giving me an attitude now. That should just piss me off, but her behavior just makes me curious.

I didn’t have a hand in the hiring process for her position because I trusted my HR people to find me the best fit. Evidently she didn’t even have the most experience and hadn’t worked under another big, notable name. She did have great feedback from references and killed it during her interviews, though.

There must be something special about her that made HR believe that she could do this job.

I would’ve been lying if I said she didn’t immediately catch my eye the moment she walked into my office. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pencil skirt compliment a woman’s body like it does hers. A faint but unmistakable mixture of light freckles and a natural flush adorn her cheeks, contrasting the captivating iciness of her eyes.

She’s effortlessly sexy, but she’s here to work. That’s what I need to focus on, even if it’s hard to stop looking at her so closely when we’re trapped in such a tight space.

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