The Billionaire and His PA novel Chapter 58

In less than a minute, the lights came back on but Cassie could tell that it was the backup lights that had come on as the elevator wasn’t even half as bright as it usually was. Before now, Cassie had been stuck in an elevator only once in her life and that elevator had been nowhere as nice as Tech Town’s as it had been marred by graffiti and stank of piss.

The upside to the fact that the elevator stopped working was that she no longer had to listen to the god awful music that floated out of the speakers. But as for the downsides, there were many of those. She knew that if the elevator didn’t start working anytime soon, she would have to contend with the heat that was sure to follow. Being stuck in the elevator also meant that she and Felix would be late to their meeting, but to no fault of theirs. She would also have to stand throughout the time she was stuck in there. But the most concerning fact about being stuck in the elevator was the fact that she was stuck with Felix.

Working with him meant that they inadvertently spent a lot of time together in the same space but compared to Felix’s office and the various conference rooms they had been in, the elevator was a tiny space. And sure, they had taken multiple elevator rides together but they had never spent more than a few minutes together in one before. She didn’t know whether she was supposed to engage him in conversation or ignore him. She also started to wonder whether it was a good time to hand him the twin’s drawing.

She turned to Felix. He looked like he wanted to press himself through the walls of the elevator and out into the building’s hallway. His face was covered in a thin film of sweat. And the look on his face… She had only seen that look twice before; in real life and on television. In real life, she had seen the look on the faces of either of the twins anytime they had a nightmare and would slip into her room to find comfort in her arms. On television, she had seen the look on the faces of actors in horror movies just before the monster that had been chasing them finally caught up with them and killed them.

“Are you okay, Mr. Callahan?” She asked.

Felix paid no attention to her and instead flung himself towards the elevator door with a burst of otherworldly strength. He tried to slip his fingers into the sliver of a crack in the door to pull it apart but try as he might, he could not get the door open. His fingers were too large to fit into the narrow space and even if they did, there was no way he would be able to pull the doors apart with just his bare hands.

He seemed to realize this as he turned to Cassie with a manic expression. “Do you have your phone with you?”

Cassie shook her head apologetically.

“What about your key card?” Felix said. If Cassie had hers, they could use it to open the elevator from the inside.

Cassie shook her head again. She usually carried her phone along with her in her back pocket but as the announcement of the meeting came late and Felix had already started heading out of the office without her, she had grabbed her pen and notepad and hurried after him, forgetting her phone in the process. And she still hadn’t gotten her key card or permanent staff ID from HR. “Do you?”

“If I had my phone or key card with me I wouldn’t have asked you if you had yours in the first place!” Felix snapped. Then went back to trying to manically claw the door open. When that didn’t work, he started to pound on the walls and shout at the top of his voice for someone, anyone, to get them out.

“Fe…” She stopped herself from calling him by his first name. Just because he sometimes called her by her first name didn’t mean that he would be okay if she did the same to him. “Mr. Callahan. I don’t think what you’re going to do will bring any results. Our best hope is to…” She started.

“Shut up!” Felix barked. “Shut the fuck up!” He sunk to the ground and hung his head. “No. No. No. This cannot be happening again. I’m too old for this. Please no.” He choked out.

Cassie stared at him in confusion. What the fuck was going on?! What had led him to go from detached while entering the elevator to panicked and then furious just a couple of seconds ago. He was acting like a cornered animal trapped in a cage. A cornered animal trapped in a cage? Or maybe more like a scared child trapped in the backseat of a car with the windows up. She remembered when Bethany had told her that she usually left Felix in the backseat of a car with the windows wound up and he had passed out a couple of times. She suddenly realized what was going on. Felix wasn’t being moody; he was just claustrophobic.

She lowered herself beside him, careful that she sat far enough to give him enough space but still close enough so that she could offer comfort if he needed it. “Are you okay?” She asked for the second time since they had been trapped.

He let out something that resembled a strangled sob.

Slowly Cassie inched her hand closer to him and placed her palm gingerly over his. She was surprised when he didn’t shrug her off and even more surprised when he held her hand firmly.