11:12pm

After the doors closed they both quickly stood to opposite sides of the lift, hoping to dispel whatever this charge was between them.

They road in silence for a few floors before suddenly the elevator abruptly... almost violently stopped and the lights went off.

"Oh god, what was that?" Ana asked alarmed

"Relax, it's probably a blackout or something, the generators will kick in soon, we'll be fine." Christian says sounding put out by her minor freak out.

He was proven right a second later when emergency lights came on in the elevator.

"There see, everything's fine." He told her as he got his phone out to text Taylor but he saw there was no reception, not wanting to panic Anastasia further he still kept looking at it pretending to type.

Ana was none the wiser and nodded as the two waited for the elevator to get moving again, 1 minute passed, then another.

Christian was getting slightly panicked now but was doing a good job at hiding his discomfort,

"Should be any second now," He told her trying to sound confident.

5 minutes later...

"We're not moving, we're not moving, we're stuck aren't we? We are trapped here!"

"Enough! Ms. Steele, please get a hold of yourself, my CPO will know when I don't check in something is wrong and come find us, at most we'll be stuck here till morning, no later I assure you. One missed meal and Taylor and Gail will have a search party out combing Seattle."

Anastasia looks at him funny not understanding his reasoning,

"I'm very particular about my eating habits, I never miss a meal." He explains,

Ana rolls her eyes, "Something tells me your very particular about a lot of things." Ana is shocked and horrified when she realizes she just said that out loud. This is her sister's boss!

"Mr. Grey I am so sorry, It must be the stress, I didn't mean to talk to you like that." She says trying to do damage control.

But Christian strangely found her sharp tongue amusing.

"Please, if we are going to be stuck together for a night, it won't due to keep being so formal with each other, perhaps we can relax things a bit?" He suggests.

"How do we do that?" Ana asks,

"Well, how about we call each other by our first names, and you try to forget I'm your sister's boss, from this moment until we are rescued I promise nothing that happens will negatively affect Andrea."

Ana blows out a deep breath very relieved,

"That'd be great... Christian," Christian isn't used to hearing his first name from the lips of a beautiful woman, any woman really that he isn't of course related to or from his one friend, Elena. It was strange, but stranger was he liked it. It sounded delicious coming from her perfect pouty lips.

Christian swallowed trying to curb the direction his thoughts were going,

"Not at all... Anastasia."

The way Christian had said her name sent an erotic tingle... more than a tingle a full on chill straight through her, she was sure she was blushing bright red with arousal... or with embarrassment over being aroused she couldn't tell, she just prayed the emergency lights were dim enough he couldn't tell.

Christian brought his hand up making he was scratching the top of his nose, but really he was trying to hide the big grin that broke out on seeing Anastasia turn an adorable shade of red, he wondered what had made her blush so... could she have been aroused? The thought thrilled him and he wanted to see how far down her blush reached.

Damn, he thought this might turn out to be a long and painful night... especially for his cock who wasn't going to be getting any relief with this cute as fuck brunette he found himself being more and more charmed by.

He needed a distraction so he started one of his least favorite activities... small talk.

"So, Anastasia, what do you do for a living?" He asked.

"Actually could you just call me Ana? Anastasia makes me feel like I'm in trouble," In trouble of needing new panties every time it comes out of your mouth she silently thought to herself.

"Anastasia is a beautiful name but as you wish... Ana."

"Thank you, and I am a Digital Media Coordinator,"

"I'm sorry, a what?" Christian asks confused.

"I know it sounds made up... actually it kind of is. My first job after I graduated was for a little publishing house called SIP, I was an assistant to this slimy creep Jack Hyde." She gives a little shiver just thinking of the asshole.

"He made me slightly uncomfortable but he hadn't actually done anything, just looks and standing too close to me nothing I felt warranted reporting him to HR, then about 3 months in he requested I go on a business trip with him to New York, I had never been and he said it would be really good for my career... I was such an idiot."

Christian didn't like where this story was going, and was making a mental note to request a background check on this Hyde guy, the second he was out of this elevator he would ruin him, and that was just for making Ana uncomfortable he was scared of what his impulse would be after she finished her story.

"He only booked one room, tried to play it off like it was the hotel's mistake and that sharing a room would be no big deal. Alarm bells started going off for me, I might have been naive but I wasn't stupid, no way was I ever going to share a room with him. I told him I would go to another hotel, he tried to tell me the company wouldn't pay for it, but I was clear I didn't care, I would stay in a hostel before spending the night with him. I could tell he was upset but I didn't realize how much I had hurt his precious ego. I walked out into the street looking for another hotel, but I didn't know the city and it was late at night. Luckily I found one soon enough, this is NYC we're talking about, but I hadn't realized he had been following me."

Christian was tightening his fists, wishing this Hyde guy was in front of him now so he could kill him with his bare hands.

"When I got into my new hotel room I thought that it was over, that he'd have the night to cool off and maybe tomorrow we'd just pretend nothing ever happened. But soon he was banging on my door demanding I let him in, calling me all kinds of name, saying I had been leading him on and was good for nothing cock tease. I just ignored him but when he didn't stop after several minutes I called down to the front desk and they then called the police who took him away, he spent the night in jail and by the next morning I was out of a job. His one phone call was to Jerry Roach the head of the company. He told him I had followed him there and tried to seduce him and when he turned ME down I pretended he was harassing me and called the cops. Turns out he bought my plane ticket himself not through the company so they had no record he asked me to come on this trip. He made it seem like I was a crazy obsessed stalker. I was blackballed from every publishing house in Seattle I thought my dream was over. But you know what happened next?"

Christian shook his head no.

"SIP went under, yup they didn't keep with the times and make the leap to e-books so they went bankrupt. It was Karma if I've ever seen it, plus it gave me an idea and I started my own business, essentially I help publishing houses or even those who are self publishing coordinate their digital presence I arrange everything from all digital channels including getting on iTunes, creating an app, converting print to digital online and mobile, I put them in touch with different digital vendors for kindles as other e-readers as well as making introductions to hot reviewers via blogs or vlogs that would benefit them to get a mention on, everything to keep them up to date and moving forward in the publishing world I coordinate."

Christian was blown away, Ana was resilient, resourceful, intelligent, bold, innovative, she had done what it took others years to do, she had his respect.