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“How do you know? We could be here for hours. Everyone will just think the elevator is out of order again.”
“Because I’m supposed to go to my brother’s house tonight for dinner. When I don’t show up, he’ll reign hell down on this city until he finds me. All right?”
Wow. Must be nice to know that someone gave a hoot about your well-being.
“Okay.”
“Strange, I never thought you’d be like this.”
“Like what?” she asked suspiciously.
“You know . . . a drama queen.”
She gasped in horror. This. Man.
She was going to kill him. It was going to happen.
“If you were going to be hit by a bus, I wouldn’t push you out of the way,” she told him.
His chest was moving again. What was he doing? Was he laughing?
“I’m serious.” She glared up at him.
“Oh, I know. That’s what makes it so funny.”
“I am not a drama queen. I’m the farthest thing from a drama queen you can get. Whatever is the opposite of a drama queen, that’s me. I am chill.”
“Rainbow, you’re not chill.”
“I am chill! Snickerdoodle.”
“Drama queen.”
She huffed out a breath. Drama queen. What a dipshit.
“It is not being dramatic to worry about dying,” she said.
“We’re all going to die, Rainbow. No use worrying about the why or how.”
God, how she wished she could be like that.
Not worrying about things must make life so much easier. But she just wasn’t built that way.
Which is probably why she had so much trouble sleeping. She had to exhaust her body and brain before she could switch it off.
Because the ‘what ifs’ drove her flipping mad.
“So you just never worry about anything?”
“Didn’t say that. But I don’t worry about shit I can’t control. Like this elevator. Although I will be telling the landlord to get off his ass and fix this immediately.”
“Good luck with that. I’ve asked him three times to fix my hot water issue, and I’m still having problems.”
He tensed. “What?”
“Yeah. The first time, he couldn’t even be bothered coming to check. The second time, he did, but it was working fine then, and he thought I was making things up.”
And he’d made several insinuations about why he thought she was making up lies to get him into her apartment.
Gross.
The third time, she’d waited for weeks to contact him. But she’d been desperate.
And still, nothing was fixed.
Maxim had gone kind of quiet. She opened her mouth to ask him if he was all right just as the lights came back on and the elevator lurched, dropping about a foot before stilling.
She screamed, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Eek!”
“Hey, it’s all right. You’re all right. Seems like they’re fixing it.”
“Then why did it start to drop?”
Had she peed herself? Darn it. It felt like she’d peed herself. Fear had her heart racing.
“It’s all right. Everything is going to be just fine.”
She could barely hear his voice trying to soothe her over her own heartbeat. But then the elevator started gliding smoothly down.
“Oh, fudge. Thank God.”
It stilled and she let out a sigh of relief. They hadn’t plummeted to their death. She lurched off Maxim’s lap, standing. She turned toward Maxim before freezing in shock.
“Who the heck hit you?”
3
Maxim winced. Shit. He’d forgotten about his bruised face. Luckily, his eye hadn’t swollen shut. Although it was still irritating.
To save himself some strange looks, he’d put his sunglasses on after leaving his car. But he’d pulled them up onto his head when the lights had gone out in the elevator.
And forgotten to put them back on.
Dumbass.
“No one.”
Yeah, that was a smart answer, idiot.
He stood and stretched. Fuck, his body wasn’t used to fighting anymore. Maybe he needed to practice more in the ring. Although he was sick of Victor beating him every time.
Rainbow rolled her eyes at him. God, he loved how much shit she gave him. Everyone else in this city was either scared of him because of his brothers’ reputations, or they were trying to get into his pants. Mostly so they could get close to Regent, his oldest brother.
Everyone wanted something from him.
Except for her. In fact, not only did she not want something from him, but he was only fifty percent sure she’d douse him with water if he was on fire.
The doors to the elevator opened before she could call him on his shit.
“You two getting out of there or what? I need to put shut the elevator down so it can get checked out,” a disgruntled voice grumbled.
Maxim turned and gave Brian, the building manager, a sharp look.
The older man gulped and took a step back. “Mr. Malone, sorry. I didn’t realize it was you.”
He could sense Aston stiffening beside him and knew what she was likely thinking. He waited for her to rip this asshole a new one.
Instead, she said nothing. He shot her a confused look. She looked cool and collected, as though nothing had happened.
