Simon Says.... Donna Kauffman

who’d quite clearly been the underdog, but with a rather ambiguous claim on the Shay … and not helped Tolliver, with his well-documented claim to the stone, he wouldn’t be in his current situation.

      But it was precisely because of his current situation that helping her was out of the question. She’d gotten herself into her current predicament by making less-than-wise choices herself. Unfortunately, she was going to have to be left to deal with those consequences. She was handing him a possible solution he couldn’t ignore. As a hotel employee with a clear knowledge of hotel security protocol, her unauthorized use of a master key took on even greater significance. Which meant more leverage for him. He had no choice but to use it.

      “How do I know you won’t turn me in after you get what you want?” she asked.

      “You don’t.”

      “Which brings me back to the whole leverage debate. What do I have on you? Who are you? Do you work for the government? Ours, yours, whatever?”

      “Nothing so dashing and heroic. What makes you think I’m not just a common, garden-variety thief?”

      “There’s nothing common about you,” she replied, then her cheeks once again flushed the most becoming shade of pink. “I mean, your accent is polished, not street-wise, and you carry yourself quite—” Her flush deepened and she looked away from where her gaze had fixed itself on the lower half of his body. “Never mind.” She straightened in her chair and lifted her chin, which would have come across far more effectively if she wasn’t still hugging herself around the middle. “So you’re a thief. You do this often, then?”

      “I’m a recovery specialist.” Which was the truth. His job was to find things that people had lost, or had otherwise lost possession of. He only worked for those who could prove a rightful claim on whatever it was they wanted recovered. Of course, he tried, as best as he could, to stay within the bounds of local laws, wherever he happened to be. On the rare occasion he had to tiptoe across that line, the only one who knew the line had been crossed was the one with little room to point a finger. Sophie was an entirely new kind of threat, however. So he had to think this through carefully.

      “Who do you work for?”

      “Private interests.” Very private this time.

      “Not a garden-variety thief if you’re stealing something from a high-profile hotel.”

      “You sure ask a lot of questions for someone who doesn’t want to be involved.”

      “Information is power.”

      “True. What is your name?” He smiled when she looked at him like he was a nutter for asking her to give up such a vital piece of information without coercion. “I should know the name of my partner in crime.”

      He could see the continued slight tremor in her shoulders and knees, but she held his gaze quite valiantly. “You first,” she said, then added, “Gesture of faith.”

      “You wouldn’t know if I was telling the truth.”

      “Neither will you.”

      “I could find out easily enough by asking anyone on staff if they recognize the name.”

      “It’s a large hotel with lots of employees. Besides which, I could just check the guest register to see who is in this room.”

      He nodded, and didn’t bother to point out that he could have registered under a fake name. “You can call me Silas.” He hadn’t been called by that nickname since he’d been a young boy, but he felt better giving her at least something of the truth. He was going to abuse her goodwill quite enough as it was. He had little else to offer in return.

      “Sophie,” she said, then when he waited a beat longer, she sighed and added, “Maplethorpe.” She lifted a shoulder when he raised a brow. “I couldn’t make something like that up.”

      “You’re being too modest. It’s a lovely name.”

      She didn’t reply, but given he could easily find out more about her as she was an employee here, and that he’d already established she was a lousy liar, he chose to believe her.

      His stomach chose that moment to rumble quietly. He absently rubbed it with his free hand, then remembered the note when it fluttered to the floor. And the rest of the news it had delivered. Tolliver had checked in … but not alone. Shit. She really was distracting. “I have some business to attend to,” he told her before snagging it off the carpet and walking over to the phone on the bedside stand. “I’ll order some room service. I shouldn’t be gone long. You can make yourself at home.”

      “You expect me to just stay in the room while you’re gone?”

      “I could stop downstairs by security and explain that a hotel employee broke into my room this morning. Or you could enjoy a day off at my expense.”

      “They’ll notice when I don’t report for work soon.”

      She’d looked away when she said that. A complete loss as a liar. He doubted any amount of training would fix it, either. He’d simply have to work around it. “When is your next shift?”

      She kept her gaze averted. At least she seemed to realize she wasn’t good at it. Or her conscience wouldn’t allow it. It amazed him she’d mustered up the gumption to break in at all. He hoped her friend appreciated her act of courage. Somehow he doubted it. Friends who’d ask friends to do something like this rarely appreciated the importance of what they were requesting. Something he was a bit too familiar with. Which was why he was here, cleansing old sins and clearing the slate. He should have seen through Tolliver’s philanthropic front to the greed that festered just beneath. And because he hadn’t, he’d retrieved—hell, stolen—something from an innocent old man who, by all rights, should still have possession of the priceless artifact Simon had robbed him of.

      Guinn had no idea he was here, trying to right that wrong, but right it he would. For the old man, and for his own redemption.

      When she didn’t respond, he said, “Well, when the time comes, you may have to call in with some terrible malady that will keep you in bed for a few days.” His gaze strayed to the unmade bed, and thoughts of how she could spend those few days flooded his brain with startling clarity and detail. His body responded so swiftly he was forced to step back into the shadows of the hallway. He didn’t mind scaring her a little to ensure she’d help, but he didn’t need the added distraction of her worrying that he would physically attack her. Better to let her believe what he’d said earlier. That the only thing desirable about her was that passkey.

      Then he caught her gaze, also on his unmade bed, and that lovely pink flush had returned to her cheeks … and his body continued its urgent appeal to his baser nature. All those glances at him—all of him—that she’d been unable to defer earlier proved he wasn’t the only one with the same diverting thoughts. It probably would have been better if he didn’t know that about her. He prided himself on his ability to focus on a task to the exclusion of all outside distractions. It was, in part, why he was so good at his job. But the delightfully spirited and surprisingly tenacious Miss Sophie Maplethorpe was turning out to be quite the temptation.

      “So,” he said, lifting the phone. “How do you like your eggs?”

      “You really can’t mean to make me stay here.”

      He sighed as he took in her defiant, cherubic face and the hands that trembled, now clutching the arms of the padded chair. She and that key of hers would either be his salvation, or his downfall.

      So. He had no choice but to ensure it was the former, rather than the latter.

      He laid the gun on the nightstand, then casually ripped the clock from the wall and snapped off the electrical cord. The desk phone cord swiftly followed. Couldn’t have her calling down to the desk for a quick rescue.

      He looped the lengths of both cords around his hand and smiled at her. “I beg to differ. Now, would you prefer to be tied to the chair? Or the bed?”