Driving in Neutral Read online

  He was amazed how much he wanted to eat off what was left of the lip color on her mouth.

  Leaning back, he looked up at her with his eyes fixed on that mouth. “So where did you learn to defuse a situation like that? Well, I don’t mean exactly like that. What are you, a shrink?”

  “No,” she said. “My sister developed sudden severe stage fright—you know, heart palpitations, sweating palms, shallow breathing—which was pretty bizarre considering she’d been a professional opera singer with the Chicago Lyric for nine years before anything like that happened. She learned controlled breathing techniques to handle the fear.”

  “Did she see a shrink for that?”

  Olivia shook her head. “Julia talked to my friend Glenn. He’s a trainer, a coach. Her anxiety had nothing to do with performing live and everything to do with working again after having a baby.” She paused to adjust the low neckline of her dress so it flattened out and wished her nipples, which stood out like two diamond-hard marbles, would flatten too. “Julia said she knew she was a great singer, but wasn’t so sure about the whole mother thing. Glenn had her do these focused breathing exercises when things felt like they were spinning out of control.”

  “I didn’t get the chance to find out. Does it work?”

  “Every time.”

  His eyes traced a path from the top of her head to the neckline of her dress as she moistened her bottom lip with her tongue. Olivia realized she was licking what was left of his flavor. “There’s a theory that fear of heights, snakes and such have some kind of root in the primitive part of the brain—you know that fright or flight response that’s kept human beings on top of the food chain. Then there are those occasions anxiety stems from feeling inadequate or an experience—”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “If you’re thinking I feel inadequate,” he said, “or that I was shut up inside an attic by an evil grandmother who beat me because I wet the bed, you’re wrong. I don’t like the feeling of not having room to move and I don’t like not being able to see where I’m going.”

  “How are you in a plane?”

  “Fine. I can get up and walk around first class.”

  “I think you’re just fine now, too.”

  “I’m not exactly fixated on where I am at the moment, like I was before, but I’m still uncomfortable.” He inspected every inch of her wet body and wanted to yank her back into his lap and pick up where they’d left off. “Aren’t you uncomfortable?” He asked, shifting his position and adjusting his trousers at the crotch.

  “Of course I’m uncomfortable. I’m a wet mess.”

  “If your dress is soaked, why don’t you take it off and wear just my jacket?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “If I were you, knowing I’d be sitting in here with wet drawers for the next hour, I would have whipped them off by now.”

  “Somehow,” she glanced down at herself, “I think I’d look even more unprofessional if I showed up for work wearing nothing but this.”

  “Ha! Like that would be a big deal. When I get upstairs I’m going to have to explain these giant rings of pit sweat and convince my staff this wet patch on my pants did not come from a nervous bladder. The security guard downstairs told me it would take maintenance an hour to fix this mess and get the elevators running again. So if we’ve been in this thing for fifteen minutes already, you’ve got another forty-five of sitting around in that clammy dress. So be comfortable. I won’t look,” he said with more than a little bit of a wry smirk.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Not at all. Really. I won’t look.” He got to his feet, carefully, and faced the door.

  Eyes glued to his back, she began to rearrange herself. Despite the jacket, the very soggy, coldly-clinging fabric of her dress wasn’t holding in much heat and her nipples, still at attention, were getting a little chafed. Worse than that was how everything had twisted and bunched up to skim her crotch. She wasn’t about to take off her dress, but she had to pull it back down into place, just so it sat more comfortably. Wary, she slipped off his coat. “Could you hold this for a sec?” she asked.

  He reached out backward, his fingers hooking the jacket.

  Circumspect, watching him, she undid the side zip on her dress. When he didn’t move, she pulled the tailored wet fabric up to her bust, fixed her bra and began to readjust her underpants.

  He flexed his knee and made with the small talk. “I should probably apologize for all those names I called you.”

  “I thought the wet rodent crack was kind of funny.”

  “What is your name, Miss Mouse?”

  “Jerry,” she said and pulled her dress down. Her panties caught in still-twisted cloth. Nothing on earth felt quite as snug and nasty as a wet wedgie. She peeled the dress back up and dug out the elastic so it didn’t feel like a thong, and straightened the tops of her thigh-high stockings too.

  “Sorry for the nomenclature rodentia, Jerry, but since we have introductions out of the way, have dinner with me tonight.”

  He couldn’t be serious, yet she’d misread him by thinking he’d be pissed off by her solution to his claustrophobia, so he most likely was serious. She’d expected a stinging slap from him, not a stinging slap of desire for him. That sort of smarting sensation was all it took for Olivia to consider his idiotic offer. She mulled over the idea as the dress zipper snagged the edge of her bra. Still pondering his suggestion, she yanked the uncooperative damp fabric up again to disengage metal teeth.

  Everything about the man, from his suit to the broad back she eyed screamed sex. Olivia wasn’t really interested in the messiness of using someone for sex, even if it might be more pleasurable than self-service. Sure, something was there, but the sudden attraction she felt was simply what nature intended. Their bodies had picked up the chemical signature of one another’s pheromones and responded on a fundamental biological level. That was all.

  And that was why they weren’t going to go any further.

  As she opened her mouth to veto his dinner invitation, the elevator lurched back to life and she stumbled into Maxwell. Power suddenly restored, the lights came on. The door swished open. It happened so quickly there wasn’t time enough to yank her dress down or for Maxwell to lunge for the button to close the door.

  Four casually dressed men in the hallway outside the elevator stood in front of the doorway, mouths gaping, chewing gum visible.

  Olivia swore and scrambled to cover herself with the jacket that very obviously went with Maxwell’s pants. Instant snickering jangled through the group as they peered around Maxwell to ogle and gawk.

  A skinny guy with a triangular soul patch beneath his bottom lip cleared his throat. “Damn. How come I can’t be claustrophobic?”

  “Do you need a hand there?” the one in the buttoned-up polo shirt leered. “Huh-huh-huh, because we’ve got eight of them.”

  Adjusting his round wire frames to get a better look, the short redhead exclaimed, “Man, she looks like Carrie Fisher in Jedi!”

  The stocky guy who bore a striking resemblance to the cartoon character Dilbert, fiddled with his tie and brayed, “He’s Maxwell the Hutt!”

  An open elevator to freedom was all Maxwell saw. He limped through the open door before he gave any thought to the woman who’d saved his life. When he remembered, he turned and winked at her. The door blotted out part of her squinty scowl, but he caught the word that ended with hole.

  A moment later, Finn stared at him, dumbfounded. The other three idiots laughed, nudging each other. Had he been on the other side of the elevator when it opened, rather than inside it, he would have laughed too. In fact, he’d started to laugh, because an elevator door rolling back to reveal a woman with her dress up around her boobs wasn’t something that happened every day and—

  It suddenly dawned on him that he’d winked.

  Merciful mother, I winked. I fuckin’ winked.

  “D
ude, I’m telling you she looked like Princess Leia!”

  “How’d you manage to get her naked, Maxwell?”

  Maxwell ignored those comments and questions because he was busy shuddering at his own smarminess. “Look,” he said, “she was soaked to the bone and I offered her my coat. I never expected…” He snapped back to glowering. “Never mind what happened! Don’t you have some work to do?”

  The guys, save Finn, looked back sheepishly.

  With a gruff snort of irritation, mostly for his slimy wink-wink dipshittedness, he began limping down the hall. The four others trailed behind, whispering and chuckling. It was somewhere in between Josh’s irritating wheeze of a laugh and the next Star Wars-themed quip, that Maxwell recalled Jerry still had his jacket.

  Which meant there was a way to see her again. And his dipshittedness told him he sure as hell wanted to see her again. Stopping short, he turned around and poked his finger in Timmons’ stout chest, making the guy’s ugly harlequin-patterned tie dance. “One of you jokers,” he said, suddenly remembering his manners, “please find out where she went?”

  “How should we do that?” Josh stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “You’re bright boys, you make good money, you figure it out.”

  Palmer shook his red head. “I think he means, how do we find out who the naked chick is? What do we do, Google wet naked chick in elevator? I mean what kind of clue is that?”

  “Okay, Shaggy, here’s your Scooby snack. Her name’s Jerry. Now you, Velma, and Daphne jump in the Mystery Machine and investigate.”

  “Jump in the what?” Timmons frowned.

  Josh shrugged. “Wait a second, who’s Velma?”

  “Scooby Doo, you uneducated twits! Jesus Christ!” Waving them away, Maxwell whirled about and hobbled down the hallway.

  His assistant Finn fell into step alongside him. “You really want your jacket back?”

  “Of course I want my jacket back,” Maxwell rumbled, and if he could have he would have kicked the stairwell door open. Instead he shoved it as hard as he could. A second later he was gripping a handrail, ready to pull himself upstairs. So what if he got blisters from dragging his ass up a few flights.

  “Maxwell,” Finn said from the stairway door, “what the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m starting my day over and doing things the way I should have in the first place!” His irritated voice echoed in the stairwell. “Are you coming?”

  Finn knew better than to argue with his boss. He let the stairway door close with a reverberating clang and followed Maxwell upstairs. In the next few minutes the assistant knew he’d get the whole story of the chick in the elevator.

  So much for a brilliant, shining moment. Remnants of humiliation prickled the back of Olivia’s neck as used the hand dryer in the ladies’ room to whisk away the heaviest moisture from the bust of her dress. She wasn’t exactly angry. Her irritation with the situation had begun to subside a few minutes after Maxwell had left her in the elevator. Some professions, like airline pilots or emergency call operators, needed that levelheaded unflappability, and she was no different. It was a skill held over from her test driving and racing days. In tense situations there were two options, panic or act.

  Olivia always acted.

  Anger, she thought, was kind of worthless. The key to survival was complete control. Glenn Holland had been her driving coach, not just her sister’s sort-of life coach. When Olivia had started in motorsport she had learned early to breathe in deeply and respond rationally. Bitching and crying while something was happening made about as much sense to her as panicking while something was happening. The circumstances in the elevator had called for a levelheaded response. Given the location and limited resources she’d done her best.

  Right. Kissing him was your best and getting caught with your dress around your boobs was even better. Well, at least he didn’t smack you like you thought he might.

  Olivia sighed. She’d done all she could with the hand dryer. She pulled on a pink angora cardigan she’d borrowed from Michelle, the E&P receptionist. The color combination of fuzzy hot pink and spring green was a little ’80s, but the sweater covered the still-transparent parts of the dress. She applied a light coating of rosy lipstick and pulled her hair into a sleek ponytail, which made her look like a ’50s reject, but this was as good as she was going to get.

  Back at the receptionist’s desk she thanked Michelle. “I appreciate your help. You’re a lifesaver. I’m nice and warm now.” Olivia held up Maxwell’s jacket. “Would you mind returning this? The man got out on the eighteenth floor. I don’t know where he works, but maybe you can find out. His name is Mr. Maxwell.”

  Michelle’s kicked-out hairstyle bounced, her wide-set gray eyes blinked behind owlish glasses. “I’ll make sure Mr. Maxwell gets it,” she said and took the coat, her lips compressed as though she were stifling a laugh.

  Olivia wondered if she’d buttoned the sweater wrong. She glanced down to check if her dressing skills had reverted back to pre-kindergarten days. Everything lined up all the way to the cardigan’s cinched hem.

  A warm weight slid across her shoulders. “Hey, there you are!”

  With a smile, she turned to an attractive chocolate-skinned man sporting short dreadlocks.

  “You fuzzy pink thing, it’s so good to finally see you, Olivia.” Pete’s handsome face glowed with a delighted broad smile. He pulled her into a friendly embrace.

  She kissed his cheek, hugging him back. “Geez, I walked right behind you downstairs and didn’t recognize you!”

  Pete disengaged and chuckled. He ruffled a hand over his short, twisted locks. “You like my hair? It’s funny how you keep a picture of someone in your mind, isn’t it? I think I still expected to see you in a set of those red fireproof coveralls with a helmet under your arm, not in heels and a dress,” he said and gestured left. “When I was waiting for you,” he continued as he led her down a tiled hallway, “I was looking for red coveralls, but I got distracted by that storm. You walked right by me and got in that elevator, didn’t you? I know a couple of people in the building got stuck between floors, just like you did. Damn, you look so corporate and grown up.”

  Olivia took the arm he offered as they walked. “So do you,” she said.

  “I don’t wear a suit every day. Emerson’s our Mr. Wall Street, the company’s professional front man, the one with all the business acumen. Most of us Bill Gates types usually stick to our jeans and taped-up glasses and look like high school computer dweebs, but not Em. He likes to dress the part—mainly because he thinks it helps him pick up girls.” Pete’s hazel eyes crinkled deeper as he laughed. “The way he tells it, Armani is Italian for chick magnet, although Em wouldn’t know Italian from Swedish, and we all know he’s the biggest geek in this office. Ah, we’re in here.” Pete stopped and pushed open a door with a long pane of glass running down the center.

  The gas hinge that supported the door’s massive weight let out a quiet hiss as it closed. In the conference room’s center sat an oval table surrounded by red cushioned chairs, the floor carpeted in neutral beige. A comfortable-looking couch adorned with pillows that matched the chairs stretched beneath framed, hand-drawn animation cells of George Jetson and the Funky Phantom. One wall, made entirely of glass, showed off a view of thick rain clouds and a gray glimpse of the Wrigley Building across the river.

  “I expected something industrial or jazzy, but it’s very understated and professional-looking, just like you. You know, Pete, I never thought you looked like a computer dweeb when you were in high school, and the way that suit fits you sure as hell doesn’t look very geeky now.”

  “And in that furry sweater you don’t look like the plump kid who used to stare at me and giggle with my sister.”

  “You know your sister and I still act like giggling ten-year-olds when we’re together, don’t you?”

  “Nice to know some things about Ella don’t change. She told me she’s going blonde for the wedding.”
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br />   Olivia touched her damp hair. “Not exactly blonde, but she’s going to pull off the color and the wedding like she does everything.”

  “Only if she doesn’t go Lizzie Borden and kill us all first. Mom told me about the tantrum over the Panforte di Siena from Finucci’s bakery. Poor Mr. Finucci. Glad you were there to defuse things.” He chuckled, casting a quick glance over his shoulder to the door behind them.

  “Are you sorry you agreed to be a groomsman for Ella?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all.” Pete’s grin made him look like a nutty professor. “Tell me, exactly how did my Frankenbride sister manage to rope you into planning this gig?”

  That wasn’t hard to answer.

  This wedding had been planned for over twenty years. As hell-bent as Ella was on having a picture-perfect wedding day, Olivia was similarly hell-bent on keeping her best friend from turning into a caterwauling shrew in white organdy. While the neurotic, Scarlett-O’Hara-on-crack bride-to-be had her head stuck up the ass of a Disney fantasy, Olivia remained a levelheaded maid of honor with precision timing. She had everything under control, could steer this wedding out of any sort of twist or spin. She even had a contingency plan for rain. Pleased with herself, Olivia wiggled her cold toes in her damp shoes.

  “It’s not that hard, Pete,” she said. And that was true. It was easy. It came down to using the wedding scrapbook—the one she and Ella made in eighth grade—as a blueprint. In three weeks, Olivia had found a seamstress to make Ella’s dream dress and booked Hutton House on Lake Michigan as the venue. She’d arranged family accommodation at a B&B in nearby Lake Forest and by week four, invitations had been printed and mailed. Finucci’s Italian Bakery bowed to Ella’s will. The bride was getting an out-of-season, white-iced Panforte di Siena for her wedding cake. Olivia had called in a favor from a photographer she knew, arranged the rehearsal dinner, contacted a caterer for the reception, organized provisions for the bridal party staying the weekend at Hutton House, and soothed Ella’s hyper-zealous anxiety. Basically, planning a wedding felt a hell of a lot like a race, only without the winding track or checkered flag. Olivia cocked her head and gave Pete a wry smile. “A wedding is just a different sort of monster to drive.”