Time to review the facts, Fleur.
One: she was trapped in an elevator.
Two: her companion was Devilishly Hot Stranger, and a quick flip of her iPhone confirmed as much, with her lit-up screen revealing his wickedly beautiful features. A dark brow arched at her in question, and she finally remembered him asking if she was alright.
"Yes," she answered belatedly. "Not so fond of tight, dark spaces, obviously, but I'm fine."
She was lying, of course. But since her frantic breathing also caused her chest to rise and fall in a delightfully inviting way, Julian decided it was best not to make any comment. If he was lucky, perhaps her breasts would accidentally spill out, and he would be pressed to offer a hand. Or two.
Fleur looked at the direction of her companion uncertainly. "What about you? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." His voice voice was still calm, and the sound of it helped calm Fleur as well. "I was on my way up to my room to charge my phone..."
"Oh..." Fleur wasn't sure what else to say.
"May I borrow yours?" Julian asked politely. "I want to check the control panel..."
"Oh, yes, sure." Fleur didn't hesitate to hand over her phone, and at first she was hopeful, thinking that he seemed to know what he was doing. But when all he did was press buttons—-
"Should we, um, try something else?"
"There's nothing else to try."
And yet he kept pressing on all those buttons.
Did he really know what he was doing? Or maybe this was a coping technique she was seeing?
Fleur could only smile weakly when Devilishly Hot Stranger finally gave up on the button pressing and handed her phone back. "Paradijs has likely suffered from a power outage."
That sounded plausible enough, but...
"What about generators?"
"They have those for sure. I've no idea why their backup hasn't kicked in, but maintenance should have it sorted out in a couple of minutes."
Fleur wished she could believe that, but...
"You're just saying that so I won't get hysterical."
Julian's lips twitched. "It would be preferable that you do not get hysterical, yes, but I'm also stating a fact." Since Fleur still appeared out of sorts, he then added, "Paradijs will make sure we're rescued before we have any reason to get hysterical. They've only just opened, and if they let this incident turn into a PR nightmare, they stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars."
"Riiiight."
Julian's lips tightened in an effort to repress his smile. She was obviously far from convinced, and while a kinder man would probably make another attempt to reassure her of their safety...
This was too entertaining to have it end so quickly, and it occurred to him then that he had grossly misjudged her two years ago. She was the very antithesis of 'boring' and 'uninteresting', Julian mused, and he could not remember being this glad to be proven wrong.
He saw her lift one foot up as if she was about to pace or move around...only to lower her foot back onto the floor very, very carefully, and it was all Julian could do not to grin. Fleur had obviously changed her mind in fear of dislodging the elevator and causing it to plunge.
He saw her gaze dart around just before her fingers wrapped around her throat, and of course that meant Fleur was now worried about oxygen levels and how long they would last before running out of air to breathe. While Julian briefly considered telling Fleur that was as likely as a ball of cotton crushing a piece of diamond into pieces...
Fleur suddenly turned his way, and Julian was unable to hide his amusement in time.
"Are you laughing at me?"
Fleur didn't know whether to feel annoyed or relieved. If he could afford to find amusement in the face of her growing anxiety instead of worrying about their chances of survival—-
"So we're not really going to die?"
"No." Julian finally made the effort to explain just how minimal those chances were, and he could see it take effect as her body gradually relaxed.
"What do we do in the meantime?" Fleur asked him after.
"We wait."
Fleur blinked. "Just that?"
"Yes."
"Shouldn't we at least try forcing the doors open or—-"
"You have clearly watched too many movies, milaya."
"But—-"
"All we have to do is wait for maintenance to do their job."
The calmness in his tone was very, well, calming, and Fleur could feel her heartbeat gradually returning to normal. Some might say she was being trusting, but so what? She had made up her mind, and so if he told her to wait, then wait she would do, but...
Since she also knew her mind tended to conjure worst-case-scenarios when left without any substantial thought to chew on...
"What's your name?" The words simply flew out of her mouth, and Fleur could not be more stunned. This was the first time she had ever tried asking the name of a man who was so her type...and actually succeeding.