“Every woman?” Darius straightened. In one fluid movement, he unfolded his long, lean body and turned to face her. He gripped an aged manila folder with his long fingers. “Including you?”
“Me?” Peyton rocked back on her heels. “Of course not.”
“Pity.” Darius held her gaze.
Peyton exhaled to ease the butterflies in her stomach. She checked her rose-gold Movado watch again. “Do you really think someone will rescue us in ten minutes?”
“Ten minutes or so.” Darius crossed to the table. He collected the two worn-and-weathered folders he’d liberated from their boxes. Then he cleared a space on the corner of the table to sit.
“Did you get what you needed?” Peyton circled the desk to sit on its matching scarred chair.
She hadn’t realized how close the seat would put her to the reporter. Was that his breath she felt across her hair? She could reach out and touch him. His scent teased her.
“Yes.” Darius waved the folders. “I’ll make copies once we get out of here, then return the original folders to their boxes.”
Peyton was silent for several moments, surveying the row of bookcases in front of her and the framed photographs of campus scenes affixed to the once-white walls. She turned her attention anywhere and everywhere to avoid looking at the man in front of her. Everything about the reporter was distractingly sexy, from the shape of his head to the sound of his voice. Even the way he looked at her, as though no one else, nothing else, mattered. She adjusted Darius’s coat to keep it from slipping off her shoulders. She didn’t want to put her arms through his sleeves, though. That seemed too intimate.
She sighed with growing impatience. “What if no one comes?”
“When you first joined TFU’s faculty four months ago, I promised not to write an article about you. I’ve kept that promise. I thought that proved you could trust me.”
“What does my trusting you have to do with our being locked in here?”
“Why do I make you uncomfortable?” Darius shifted on the desk, giving her his full attention.
Peyton swallowed hard. “You’re not my type.”
“What type am I?” He gave her his arched-brow look again.
Why was he asking her these questions? “The type who has women throwing themselves at him.”
Darius’s intense, midnight gaze seemed to bore a hole into her mind. “You think I’m a player?”
“Aren’t you?”
“You’ve been in town all of four months. What makes you think you know me well enough to judge me?”
“I’m not judging you. The people in this town seem to like and respect you—especially the women.” Peyton couldn’t resist that observation.
“And that makes me the player? Is that the reason you don’t trust me?”
She took in the cool look in his eyes, the furrows across his forehead, the tightness around his lips. Had she hurt him?
“I—”
Peyton’s response was interrupted by loud knocking. A welcome relief.
“Is anyone in there?” Foster Gooden’s voice was muffled behind the archive door.
“Yes. We’re in here.” Darius rose from the desk and walked toward the entrance. He glanced back at Peyton, lowering his voice. “As if he didn’t know.”
“We’re locked in. Did you bring your key?” Peyton shouted at Foster as she hurried after Darius. She was fascinated as always by the fluid motion of his long, lean muscles. He must work out.
The clanging of keys on the other side of the locked door filled Peyton with joy. She was getting out of here. She stood beside Darius, waiting for Foster to unlock the door, offering them freedom and fresh air.
Foster pulled open the door, then kicked the triangular block of wood back into place beneath it. “You were locked in? How did that happen?”
Was it her imagination or did the university’s vice president for academic affairs seem nervous? His smile was unsteady. His brown cheeks were flushed.