About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling author DONNA KAUFFMAN is a former RITA® finalist who has seen her books reviewed in venues ranging from Kirkus to Library Journal to Entertainment Weekly, as well as excerpted in periodicals like Cosmopolitan magazine. She lives just outside of the nation’s capital in the lovely Virginia countryside, where her nest has emptied of children, but seems to rapidly be filling back up with an eclectic menagerie that includes Zazu, a bossy little parrot, and Rufus the mutant catfish. Donna and her menagerie love to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website at www.donnakauffman.com

Simon Says …

Donna Kauffman

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

It’s so wonderful to be back diving into the sizzling fun of writing for Blaze® again! Where does the time go when we’re all having fun, anyway? And I had the supreme pleasure of getting to write another WRONG BED story. Nothing is more fun for me than trapping my hero or heroine (preferably both!) in an unforeseen situation that requires fast thinking and quick reflexes to wriggle out of.

In Simon Says … I admit I was rather wicked in the way I set up Sophie and Simon. But, trust me, it’s so much more fun that way. Night manager Sophie Maplethorpe definitely has her hands full when she’s caught red-handed in a room in her own hotel, trying to steal back her best friend’s phone … only to discover she’s not only in the wrong room, but the man occupying the bed … and presently aiming a gun in her direction, has checked into the Wingate for obviously nefarious reasons. Simon Lassiter, a hot Kiwi with a to-die-for accent and the kind of searing intensity that would make a Bond girl choose him over James any day, now has to figure out what to do with the woman he wakes up to find in his room … and mere steps away from his bed. He’s there to steal a priceless jewel … so why is it all he can think about is stealing a few hours with Sophie instead?

Thank you for joining me in my romping return to the Blaze® fold. I hope you have as much fun reading Sophie and Simon’s sexy escapade as I did writing it. A nice cold beverage and a fan might be a good idea to keep nearby while reading. Just sayin’!

Happy reading,

Donna Kauffman

To Mary and Rhonda,

for your unwavering friendship and support.

I’m a very lucky girl.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Copyright

1

SOPHIE MAPLETHORPE PAUSED to look at the naked man sprawled across the hotel bed. Even in the early morning darkness, she immediately understood why her best friend had gone to bed with the complete stranger. Maybe not why she’d done so after her own bachelorette party, but if the bottom half of him was as glorious as the broad shoulders and muscled arms presently splayed across the white linen sheets, not to mention all that thick, dark hair curling against his neck … well, even Sophie might have toyed with the idea of risking her entire future for one last fling.

Except you are risking your entire future. And she hadn’t even gotten the hot sex first.

Tearing her gaze away from the bed and the naked man, Sophie took another second to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior of Room 706, king, no smoking. Delia said her cell phone had likely fallen out on one of the chairs while she’d been straddling—Sophie shut that image down immediately. But her gaze was drawn to the bed again. And the man presently in it. Daniel Templeton. Investment capitalist, in Chicago for a few meetings. And, apparently not averse to mixing a little consensual pleasure with business.

She sighed. Just a bit. Yes, she’d been focusing on her job to the point where, maybe, just possibly, her personal life had suffered a little. Okay, a lot. As in she didn’t presently have one. Still, even if she wasn’t ignoring certain needs for the sake of more important, immediate goals, any normal, red-blooded woman would look at that back, and that backside, clearly and quite deliciously outlined under that casually tangled sheet, and wish, just for a fleeting moment anyway, that she’d been the one doing the hot chair tango last night. All night, according to Delia. The man had stamina. And just because Sophie had to stifle another longing sigh didn’t mean she was sex starved or anything.

No, that, apparently, was her best friend’s problem.

Well, not anymore.

Sophie resolutely dragged her attention back to the pair of standard hotel chairs arranged in front of the wall-sized picture window, presently hidden behind heavy hotel drapes. She had approximately fifteen minutes to find that damn phone, sneak back out of the room and deliver it to her best friend, before Delia’s fiancé made his daily and perfectly punctual 7:00 a.m. morning phone call. Delia’s fiancé being Adam Wingate, of the Chicago hotel magnate Wingates. The Wingates who happened to own the chain of hotels she was presently breaking and entering in. The very same hotel chain that employed her as a newly promoted night manager.

She didn’t have a pocket in the pants she’d changed into after her shift was over, so she slipped the lanyard holding her master key card back over her neck for the time being, and tiptoed toward the chairs, trying not to think about the fact that she was risking that very promotion, not to mention possible arrest, and God knew what else, all for a damn cell phone.

The instant Delia finished her morning call with her soon-to-be groom, Sophie planned a little lecture of her own. Not that she didn’t understand Delia’s last-minute bout of cold feet. She’d been telling her friend for, well, almost as long as she’d been dating him, that Adam Wingate was a possessive control freak who, from their very first date, had been categorically programming every last bit of fun and spontaneity out of Sophie’s normally bubbly and vibrant best friend.

Delia had countered with the fact that Adam adored her and put her on a pedestal and was just trying to help her improve her social graces so that she could move about in his world. Delia had been all starry-eyed over the fact that someone as important and handsome as Adam Wingate would notice someone in such a lowly position as restaurant hostess. Even if Delia had worked her way up to floor manager of De Trop, which was now one of the hottest spots in Chicago. Which happened to also be in the Wingate Hotel. Delia had earned the position, but Sophie couldn’t help but wonder what someone like Adam saw in Delia. Not because of the inequity of their relative bank balances, but because of who they were as people. The obvious answer to everyone else—everyone who was gushing over Delia’s fairy-tale Cinderella story—was that of course Adam had fallen in love with Delia’s fresh-faced beauty, determined optimism and vivacious personality. Who wouldn’t?

And Sophie agreed. Or would have. Except it didn’t seem like he really admired those qualities. Other than the beautiful part. Sophie couldn’t help but think that maybe Adam really wanted someone he could control with his power, his prestige, and yes, his good looks. Someone not on equal footing. Someone he could constantly remind that it was only through his continued admiration, generosity and—most importantly—approval, that she was enjoying such a wondrous, entitled existence.

Delia hadn’t really wanted to hear that. Who would? But what were best friends for?

A little breaking and entering, apparently, Sophie thought as she carefully slid her hand down alongside the seat cushion. Nothing. She tried the other side, thinking that Delia was going to have to listen to her now. The wedding was a week away and clearly her friend was not as confident about the lifetime commitment she was about to make as she’d been so adamantly trying to convince Sophie she was.

Bingo! She pulled out the hard plastic lump, only to discover it was the remote for the television. Great. She tossed it on the seat cushion and scooted over to the other chair and started her systematic search there. She glanced at the glowing red numbers on the bedside stand. Twelve minutes to seven. Super.

She renewed her efforts on the second chair. Scooting closer, she dug deeper, then deeper still, only to find—She pulled out a pair of black string bikinis. “Ew,” she said, flinging them instinctively before she could check the reflex action.

“What, you don’t like black?”

Sophie froze. Shit, shit, shit. But even though her brain was threatening to go into full-blown panic mode, there was another part of her that couldn’t help but react to that voice. A much lower part. Delia hadn’t mentioned the accent. My God, a body like that and an accent?

Focus, Sophie. Caught red-handed—or black-silk-handed anyway—she forced her lips to curve into what she hoped was a friendly smile and slowly looked over her shoulder. “I can explain,” she began, without the faintest actual idea of how she was going to do that. But whatever else she might have babbled remained unspoken as she got her first look at his face.

Dark eyes went with that thick rumpled hair, along with serious five o’clock shadow ghosting an incredibly rugged jaw—and was that a cleft in his chin? He was cinema-godlike. Propped up on one elbow, sheet draped across his chest, clutching a scrap of delicate black silk in a hand that was as big and strong looking as the rest of him. Sophie gulped. And keenly felt each second of the past sexless year in every cell of her body. Up until that moment, she’d been perfectly fine making do with a few double A batteries, some well constructed fantasies and, okay, maybe the occasional Matthew McConaughey film fest.

Now?

She swallowed again, against a suddenly parched throat.

He dangled the panties by one long index finger. “Not yours, then?”

What, did he have a harem of women in and out of here? Maybe he’d gotten so drunk last night on the tequila shooters Delia had claimed were the instrument of her demise that he thought she was the one he’d bedded last night.

“Actually,” Sophie said, brazening it out. “I lost my cell phone. I think it’s in the cushion here. I was trying not to disturb you.”

“Interesting.”

What was that accent? British?

Her hand involuntarily gripped the master key card around her neck out of habit. She blanched, praying he didn’t notice it. She wasn’t in uniform, so no little gold name badge on her chest—thank God!—but her ID was dangling on the same lanyard with the key card, the very same lanyard that had the hotel name stitched into it, clearly marking her as someone who worked there.

Shifting so that the clutched tags were shielded as much as possible, she said, “I’m sure it’s right here. I’ll—Just let me find it and you can get back to sleep.”

She held her breath, hoping, praying, he was hungover enough, and groggy enough with sleep, that he took her casually stated request at face value and face planted back into the sheets. Maybe by the time he truly woke up and roused himself out of bed, he’d wonder if he’d dreamed the whole thing. That was if he remembered it at all.

Problem was, even in the early morning gloom, he didn’t look too hungover. And other than that delicious rasp to his voice, he didn’t sound all that groggy, either. In fact, despite the tousled hair and shadowed jaw, he looked remarkably well rested for a guy who’d just gone to sleep a few hours ago at best. And that after some very—very—energetic sex. If Delia were to be believed, anyway.

Sophie squinched her face a little, digging her hand farther down alongside the cushion. The clock was ticking, and whatever she ended up having to tell this Daniel Templeton in order to talk her way out of his room, none of it was going to mean anything unless she found that damn phone and got it to Delia in the next—She glanced at the clock. Crap! Nine minutes!

But then he was sitting up and the sheet was falling farther down his ridiculously beautiful chest to pool at his perfectly narrow hips. He tossed the panties to the foot of the bed. “Perhaps I could be of some assistance.”

Sophie’s throat closed over, even as her body hummed with quite a few ideas on exactly how he could very personally assist her. “No, really, don’t trouble yourself. After all, you’ve, ah, done quite … enough.” She would have tried for a flirty laugh, or something else that a morning-after lover might have done. If she’d had a clue what that was.

She shoved her hand down even farther and rooted frantically around. “Really, it’ll just be a moment and I’ll be out of here. I—uh, didn’t mean to stay. You know, I know it’s not like that, I just—” If she didn’t find the damn thing in the next—five minutes!—the ringing of Adam’s incoming call would tell her exactly where it was.

At least it would be Sophie answering the call and not some strange man, as Delia had feared. She’d just tell Adam that Delia had accidentally left it in her office last night when she’d stopped by after closing the club, and Sophie was planning on dropping it off this morning on her way home. Yeah, that sounded plausible. He’d be pissy, because he hated anything altering his very specific schedule, but she doubted he’d call the wedding off because of it. Which would have been highly likely if the man presently staring at her with a rather bemused look on his drop-dead gorgeous face had answered the phone instead.

Then Sophie had another idea. What if Delia was wrong? What if the phone hadn’t dropped out into the cushions when they’d been playing cowgirl and bucking bronco? Given the way Delia had described them entering the room, clawing each other’s clothes off, the phone could really have fallen off Delia’s belt clip anywhere.

She scanned the room, half-tempted to rip open the curtains so she could see better, only that would give Mr. Sexy Voice a better opportunity to see what she looked like … and possibly remember she wasn’t the same woman he’d dragged home from the bar last night.

“Not that I mind waking up to find a beautiful woman crawling around my hotel room floor, but might I ask how you got in here?”

She should have been scrambling for a good answer, but her brain had gotten stuck on he thinks I’m beautiful? Of course, there was very little light. And the guy was obviously a horrible womanizing bar troll. Except she’d never once seen a bar troll who looked like this guy.

“I—uh.” She hesitated, then tried to bat her eyelashes. “Don’t you recall? I think I’m a tiny bit insulted here.” God, she sounded like a bubble-brain moron. No guy would fall for that. Except maybe a bar troll.

She silently prayed and kept on digging. One glance at the clock had her blanching. Three minutes. In three minutes, her friend’s fairy-tale marriage to Chicago’s wealthiest bachelor was going to go up in smoke, and Sophie’s hard won career advancement was going to go down in ignominious flames. And she only had herself to blame.

It had been her idea to have the non-Wingate-sanctioned stealth bachelorette party for Delia in the first place. They’d had it early in the evening, since both Sophie and Delia were supposed to report for work that night. Only Sophie made it in, but when she’d left Delia and some of their friends in the pub, her friend had assured her she’d covered her shift, using a last-minute wedding emergency as an excuse.

Sophie wasn’t entirely sure doing tequila shooters with an out-of-town investor—who just happened to be staying at the Wingate!—was exactly an emergency, but she’d trusted that no one would find out, given any Wingate worth their trust fund wouldn’t have been caught dead at a local pub anyway. Of course, how the two of them had left the pub and gotten up to this room in the hotel at some point last night without anyone seeing a very drunk Delia, Sophie had no idea. She could only assume Mick, their concierge, had played a large role there, given he shared her views on Delia’s Prince Charming, and the fact that there had been nary a whisper along the very healthy hotel grapevine by the time her best friend had found her an hour ago, just as Sophie was getting off shift. She’d arrived in Sophie’s office still wearing the same outfit she’d been wearing the evening before, hungover, contrite, crying … and begging Sophie to help her out of a jam.

In hindsight, Sophie should have left well enough alone and let the Wingate’s official bachelorette party be the standard-bearer. Adam’s sisters were planning a stunning bash for their beloved brother’s bride-to-be this very evening, with a guest list anyone would drool over. A guest list that did not include any of Delia’s actual friends, of course, but … minor detail. Those would be the same friends she’d had increasingly little time for over the past six months, anyway, as the wedding plans had kicked into high gear, and the Wingate clan had slowly absorbed Delia into the fold. Assimilating her. Like the Borg.

“I beg your pardon,” Mr. Sexy Accent said, jolting her back to the moment at hand. He was sitting on the side of the bed now, sheet at his waist, well-toned calves braced apart and manly feet planted on the bedside carpet. “No insult intended, but are you claiming we … know one another?”

Sophie was no actress, but she gave it her best shot. “I’m hurt you’ve so quickly forgotten. Must be the tequila.”

“Tequila? Never touch the stuff. Unless, perhaps, you’re referring to your proclivities?” He leaned forward and braced his arms on his knees, so he could get a closer look at her.

Sophie shrank back, but the angle of her hand, presently buried elbow deep in seat cushion, kept her from scooting away.

“Because, tequila or no, I’d have remembered you.”

A sliver of daylight speared the crease between the curtains. Just enough to illuminate his face more fully when he leaned forward. Green eyes. He had dark green eyes. And thick lashes. So unfair. No one should get all the goods in one package.

She tried to keep her gaze from dipping to what goods he might have in his other … package. Maybe he wasn’t so gifted there. Maybe that was the karmic balance. All that perfection on the outside, but then when you unwrapped it … Except Delia had been pretty specific about … things.

Things Sophie wished her friend had never, ever mentioned. Ever.

Things that made her wish she’d been the one to go pub crawling in the wee hours with the rest of the gang as the party had wound down, instead of having to report to work for her shift. Things that made her wish she’d ended the night doing tequila shooters flat on her back on some sticky, nasty bar while some guy licked salt from around her navel.

Specifically this guy.

Her gaze dipped to his mouth and her own went dry.

“Tequila does crazy things,” she said.

“I’m beginning to believe that, yes.”

Suddenly there was a knock on the door, making Sophie jump, then freeze. Now what? Room service probably. Great. If whoever was delivering recognized her, and there was a better than average chance of that happening, she was well and truly screwed. Like you’re not already.

Then she noted that his entire demeanor had changed. No longer smiling, the muscles across his chest and shoulders tensed—and even more clearly defined—he grabbed the sheet and dragged it around his hips as he stood. “Don’t move.”

Sophie looked up—way up—to where he towered, Roman godlike, over her, and was pretty sure she couldn’t have moved even if she’d wanted to. He was quite intense and very serious, his amusement regarding her unexpected presence completely gone now.

The knock came again, quite loud and insistent, and Sophie automatically found herself thinking she’d have to speak to the room service manager about tempering the enthusiasm of the delivery staff. Or maybe—what if it was someone coming to see him who didn’t need to discover him with a woman in his room? A coworker, or worse, a girlfriend … or a wife!

Sophie watched him stride to the door, then she glanced frantically around the room, her gaze landing on the connecting door between rooms. She could use her key and be through that door in a flash. Or course, she risked rousing whoever was in the adjoining room, but a few quickly made apologies and a fast escape into the hall might still be a better strategy than staying in this room another minute longer and facing … whatever it was she was about to face.

Surely he wouldn’t give chase wrapped in a bedsheet.

Except, she hadn’t found the cell phone yet. Well, maybe it was for the best. Delia was simply going to have to face the consequences of her actions after all. Sophie winced as she tried to imagine the very public spectacle that consequence was likely to be, given the level of attention being paid to what everyone was calling the most romantic wedding of the year. The tycoon and the cocktail waitress. Despite Delia not having been one for years. Nightclub manager apparently didn’t make nearly as good a headline.

Sophie slid her hand from the cushion. Maybe they’d both luck out and the battery would have died and it wouldn’t ring. Then she could come back in here later after he checked out and do a more thorough search before housekeeping did their thing. But in order to do that, she had to get out of here. Right now. And pray like hell he didn’t complain to hotel security … and that he checked out while the day staff was still on duty.

She was just starting to inch her way across the floor, when he stepped back into the room.

“And where might you be going?”

“Really, I’ll get out of your hair. I don’t need my phone that badly. Just, if you find it, would you turn it off and leave it on the dresser? The cleaning staff will find it and turn it in and it will all be okay and—” She was babbling.

But that came to an abrupt stop when she finally turned and looked at him.

He was standing in the space where the hallway opened into the bedroom. The sheet was tucked low around his hips. In one hand, he held a white envelope that she recognized as hotel stationery.

In the other hand, he held a gun.

2

SIMON LASSITER HAD A NUMBER of concerns at the moment, each carefully accounted for, each with a plan of action in place. Every move he made while he was here in Chicago had to run like a perfectly crafted Swiss timepiece. There was no room for error. One mistake, and all would be lost.

He looked at the woman presently perched on the chair in his hotel room, and tried to tell himself she wasn’t that fatal mistake.

He certainly hadn’t accounted for her. And there was no plan in place to deal with something like this.

But Simon hadn’t gotten to this point in life by being a pessimist. According to the note he’d just received, one he’d paid handsomely to have delivered instantly, day or night, under any circumstances … Tolliver had checked in. His quarry was on the premises. Finally, it was all coming together. Not that getting his hands on the Shay Emerald was going to be easy, but he was a damn sight closer now than he’d been before. And it was a certainty that he’d never have a chance again.

Which had him thinking that, perhaps, the hotel key card currently dangling from his surprise guest’s lovely neck might be of great assistance in that endeavor.

“Mr. Templeton,” she blurted, her gaze fixed on the gun in his hand. “Really, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“This?” He wiggled the barrel slightly, making her tense further. “I believe you broke into my room. I’m merely protecting myself.” He frowned, then. “Who’s Templeton?”

“Daniel Templeton?”

He slowly shook his head.

“Seriously?”

“Quite.”

Her chin dropped, along with her shoulders. She closed her eyes and swore quietly. “All this, and I snuck into the wrong damn room. This is 706, right?”

He nodded.

“If the Wingates don’t kill her, I’m going to kill her myself.”

Simon didn’t understand what she was muttering about, but whatever had pissed her off wasn’t his problem. Getting into Tolliver’s room and stealing—retrieving—the emerald before it went on display at the Art Institute Museum this weekend, that was his problem. “Have a seat,” he told her, motioning to the chair behind her with the gun barrel. “We need to have a little talk.”

“Do you really need to point that gun at me? I assure you, I’m not dangerous. Just let me go and we can pretend we never met.”

“Ah, but you did pretend we’d met. In fact, you wanted me to believe we’d had something of a fling. Under the influence of tequila, I believe you said.”

She didn’t respond to that, squirming a little in her seat instead. So, she was game to be bold—her presence in his room was evidence enough of that—but when pushed, she really wasn’t a very good liar. Good to know.

“Of course, you thought I was a certain Mr. Templeton. Just how many men’s rooms do you visit every night?” He motioned to the key card. “Perhaps in America, a five-star hotel provides a level of personal service we don’t typically experience in London hotels of the same caliber.”

“London?” Her brow furrowed. “You are British, then? Because you don’t really sound—”

“English? It’s home currently, but I’m native Kiwi. New Zealand,” he added, when her brow wrinkled even further. And why on earth was he telling her any of this? Was it those oh-so-wide gray eyes? Or perhaps it was the combination of the strawberry blond curls and milkmaid skin. Skin that hadn’t been baked or painted within an inch of its life, as most American women seemed to favor. Innocence. She projected it. And yet, here she sat, in his room, without invitation.

Simon well knew that looks could not only be deceiving, they often were. In fact, these days, he’d come to bank on that fact, and used it for his own advancement whenever it suited his needs, adopting the Yankee sentiment that if you couldn’t beat them, joining them was often the wise alternative. Perhaps he straddled that line a bit, but the premise still worked.

“You should do a better job keeping your … callers straight. Men like to feel as if they’re the only one, after all, even if it is a shaky illusion at best.”

Those lovely dove-gray eyes widened. “You think I’m a hooker?”

“You sneak into a man’s room and start digging around the furnishings looking for a purported cell phone. Not on the bedside table or dresser, but wedged down in a chair. You then imply we slept together after an evening spent at least partly consuming an ambiguous quantity of alcohol, and call me by some other bloke’s name. Which, in my book, means one of two things.”

She folded her arms and, for the first time, he saw a spark of defiance. Albeit, barely more than a flicker. After all, he was holding a gun on her.

“And those two things would be?”

“One, you had a fling with a gentleman who was in this room prior to me and are only now tracking back to where you might have lost your phone.” He leaned against the wall, careful to keep the gun poised and aimed at her. “Or two, you broke into my room to steal something from me and the rest was just a clever ruse to make me think you’re not really a common thief.”

“Why would I steal something from you? I thought you were Daniel Templeton. I don’t even know you.”

“You apparently don’t know Mr. Templeton well, either, if you didn’t know I wasn’t him.” He tugged at the sheet tucked around his waist. “Or perhaps it’s some other part of Mr. Templeton you’d recognize.”

Her mouth dropped open in instant offense, which both heartened and amused him. Because while he honestly had no idea why she was there, the fact remained, she was. He was fairly certain that key card hanging around her neck was a master key, as it was the most likely way she could have gotten into his room. Which meant she was probably employed here, and though the Wingate’s extensive marketing campaign wanted you to believe they could anticipate their guests’ every need, he doubted those of the more carnal variety were on that catered-to list.

Clearly, she’d ignored more than a few rules. All of which was in his favor, as a passkey to any room in the hotel—one in particular that he had in mind—could come in very, very handy right about now.

If only her skill at lying was a bit more sharply tuned, he might be able to use her in a few other ways, as well.

“So, if you are neither thief nor … gentleman’s companion, then please explain why you are here, uninvited.”

“I told you. I was trying to retrieve a phone. And the reason I didn’t recognize you, or that this wasn’t the right room, was because I’m not retrieving my phone, it’s my friend’s phone.”

“Ah. Your friend’s phone is it now?”

She sighed. “I know that sounds like a cliché, but it’s true.” She looked at him, as if sizing him up, her gaze clearly wary. “I’ll tell you the whole story, but could you please lower the gun? It’s not like I can go anywhere or do anything.”

He lifted a casual shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re capable of. What I do know of you is that you are capable of breaking and entering. Not a point in your favor, I might add, so who knows what other lengths you’d go to? Or what other hidden skills or weapons you might have?”

“Please,” she said. “I’m just a friend trying to do a friend a favor and get her out of a potential jam with her fiancé. Which, since I trusted her to remember which room she was in, by now has already exploded in her face, as I didn’t get the phone back in time. Trust me, I don’t make a habit of breaking into strange men’s rooms, or any rooms. It was a one-time thing, which I only did out of desperation, and because I felt a little responsible for getting her into a situation where she might use bad judgment, which, you know, boy, did she.”

Simon listened to her sudden explosion of chatter with one ear tuned to how he could use the information to his advantage, and another ear just, well, amused by her. She was certainly unlike any woman of his acquaintance. “It’s so implausible, I actually want to believe you.”

She heaved out a sigh of relief and started to stand up. “Great, thank you. And I promise I won’t tell anyone that you have a gun, which I completely understand, by the way. You can’t be too safe when traveling, and I’m sure it’s registered to you and all that, and, of course, we could always hold it in the hotel safe for you, but then, I guess that would defeat the purpose of having one in case of … well …”

“Someone breaking into my room?” He couldn’t help it, he smiled. She was quite something when rattled. She was quite something, period.

“Right,” she said on a half laugh, even as she blushed quite prettily in embarrassment. She edged away from the chair. “And please accept my apologies for starting your day off like this. If I can do anything to make it up to you—” Her eyes widened when his smile spread to a grin. “I mean, not anything anything, but, you know, anything within reason. Or maybe just letting me go and pretending we never met is enough. I’d be fine with that. Whatever you think is best, really. I’ll just be going and—”

He waved the gun casually, motioning her back to the chair. “What I think is best is that you sit back down and we talk about how you might make it up to me.”

Her throat worked, and she wetted her lips. He was surprised to feel his body respond to the sight of that pink tongue and those lips that he was only now realizing had a rather kewpie-shaped bow to them. Quite delectable really.

“Is that really necessary? I mean, I’m sure you have important things to do—” She nodded jerkily at the envelope he still had in his other hand. “And I would be happy to make myself scarce. You’ll never see me again. I promise.”

He forced his thoughts away from watching those lips move and back to the moment at hand. “Indeed, I do have important things to do, and I think you can be of some assistance with that.”

Her gaze dipped to the sheet wrapped at his waist, and his body responded with another twitch of awareness. Best to get them off that path as soon as possible. That was the last kind of distraction he needed at the moment. No matter what his body would have him believe. “I assure you, I am not looking for those kinds of favors.” He waited until she mercifully looked back at his face. “What would be more helpful in the way of making up for this … disturbance, would be that you extend your life of crime to include one more round of breaking and entering.”

She frowned now, clearly surprised by the request. “What do you mean?”

He motioned to the key card dangling between her breasts.

“Can you please not wave that around?” she asked. “In fact, can we agree you don’t really need that anymore?”

“Not quite yet. When I can keep the odds stacked in my favor, I do.”

“So … what do you want, then? I can’t give you this key.”

He leaned against the wall, wrapping one arm around his waist and bracing his other elbow on it to keep the gun steady. “Really?” Because he was thinking she might be persuaded to let him have the key. When she wet her lips again, his body decided maybe he could convince her to give up a few other things, as well. He ignored his body. Now was not the time. Nor was she his type. She’d come into his life as trouble, and he was pretty certain that was what she’d always be.

“Really,” she said, though her voice was a bit unsteady.

He wiggled the gun when she started to argue. “Not only am I holding encouragement for you to do just that, but even if I wasn’t, I have the weapon of knowledge. I don’t know who you are or where you came by that key, but I imagine hotel security would be quite interested to know of its whereabouts and usage in the past hour.”

She sat a bit more rigidly in her seat, but didn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right. I know what I did wasn’t ethical, but it was for a good cause and no one was harmed in any way. Still, I should have been more direct. Just knocked on the door and disturbed a guest at the crack of dawn … or—or something. But I won’t compound my bad judgment by doing something even more wrong.”

“Unfortunately, it’s the only thing you have that I want.”

Her gaze dipped down again, and he would have sworn a brief flash of insult crossed her face. He hadn’t intended the slight, but perhaps it was just as well she believed he had.

He drew her attention upward. “How do you know I don’t want to use it for some benevolent reason? Such as the one you purportedly had?”

“Because you carry a gun. I only carry a key.”

“Both pretty powerful weapons,” he pointed out. “Both capable of creating leverage where none might otherwise exist. And of getting the user into unplanned trouble when mismanaged.” He lowered the gun. “In my case, my weapon has a safety, to keep bad things from inadvertently happening. I’m assuming your key didn’t come with a similar safeguard.” He smiled. “More’s the pity for you.” He tucked the hotel stationery under his arm, then stuck out his free hand. “I promise I’ll turn it back in to you. Unless, of course, anything should happen. Say, you run and tell someone I’m a bad guy with a gun and a passkey. Then all bets are off.”

“Are you?” she asked. “A bad guy, I mean? Isn’t this where you tell me you work for Interpol, or some hush-hush government agency, and by giving you my passkey, I’ll be helping to maintain national security?”

“No, nothing so exciting as all that.” His smile spread to a grin. “Although, as cover stories go, that one is quite good. I’ll have to remember it.”

“So … who are you, then? And why do you need a master passkey?”

“Those are probably questions it’s best you don’t have the answers to. You’ll have to trust me.”

“Like you trust me?”

“Look at it this way. We’ll both have something on the other that is likely to keep us in line. What better measure of trust is there?”

“That’s blackmail, not trust.”

He just shrugged.

“Whose room do you want to get into?”

“More information you don’t need to know.”

“I will if I’m going to help you get into it.”

He cocked a brow. “So you agree to help me, then?”

She nodded at the gun. “I hardly see where I have a choice.”

He didn’t believe her innocent face, not for a second. More likely she was hoping to learn as much as possible so she could find a way to get out, and report him. He wiggled the fingers of his still outstretched hand. “I’ll return the key when I’m done.”

“My trust doesn’t extend that far. For my own future protection, I need to know where it was used. The key and I stay together.”

“Except that wouldn’t protect you. Quite the opposite. If something goes awry with my … mission, you can honestly disavow any knowledge of how it was used, as you truly won’t know. It’s to your advantage to hand it over. And if it’s not actually yours, then you can step out of the chain of ownership completely. I won’t point the finger at you and I can leave it wherever it would best suit your needs for someone to find it when I’m done. I think that’s a very fair trade.”

“Just show me where you want to go and I’ll let you in, then keep the key on me. We part ways and no one is the wiser. On either side.”

“Then you’d be a willing accomplice. Not a good thing. You’re really not that good on this whole criminal acts thing, are you?”

“I told you. This is an aberration. I’m the Goody Two-shoes of my group, trust me. It was a wild act of rebellion for me just to stage the damn stealth bachelorette party in the first place.”

He half-laughed. “The goodie-what?”

“Never mind.”

“Sounds like you’re rather making a new sport out of rebellious behavior. Although what a stealth bachelorette party is, I couldn’t hope to fathom.” He held up his hand. “And don’t wish to.”

“You can mock me all you want, but I’m not giving you the key. If something goes awry, as you said, and I’m implicated in any way, then I’ll tell them you forced me, threatened me. Given the gun, I think I’ll be perfectly believable. So, give me the room number and let’s go.”

Under other circumstances he might have found her adorably stubborn, but at the moment, he wasn’t so amused. “I won’t be using it immediately. So I will take the key now … or you can prepare to be my guest for a while.”

Her gaze narrowed. “How long is ‘a while’?”

He shrugged. “A day or two, probably, at the most.”

“You can’t keep me here that long,” she exclaimed.

“I don’t see why not. The hotel offers very nice room service. You’ll live in relative comfort, lend me the key when it’s needed, then we’ll part ways.”

“I have a job, friends, a wedding. I’ll be missed.”

Now his eyes widened. “So, was it your own party you were arranging, then?” He couldn’t say why the news disappointed him so. Considering he wasn’t planning on doing anything with her other than obtaining her helpful little key card, it didn’t matter if she was already otherwise involved. And yet the thought didn’t make him happy.

“My best friend is getting married this weekend. Sunday. Here. In the hotel. It was her phone I was trying to retrieve.”

“Ah.” He smiled as the puzzle pieces began to align themselves. “Well, perhaps you won’t have to concern yourself with that if that unanswered call was as important as you say. And, think of it, you’ll be out of the line of fire, which might be to your advantage given the role you say you played in your friend’s downfall.”

“Her fiancé is Adam Wingate.”

Bloody hell. Simon tried not to visibly react. Of course he couldn’t just luck into an easy solution to the job at hand. He had to get a whole handful of new obstacles. “Of the Wingate Hotel Wingates, I presume?”

She nodded. “You know, I’m still okay with just getting up and walking out of here and pretending we never met.”

“Good try.” He tapped the barrel of the gun against his thigh, sorting through the possibilities. “How close are you with the Wingate family, then?”

“I’m not. My friend is. They aren’t big fans of friends from what will soon be her former life, so don’t get any ideas.” She kept looking at the gun, then back at him. “And after they find out I threw the bachelorette party …” He was surprised to see a rueful smile touching the corners of her mouth when she looked back at him. “You know, on second thought, maybe I will hide out here.”

His smile returned. She was an interesting woman, he’d give her that. She had pluck. And heart. She’d broken into a stranger’s hotel room for the sake of a friend. He might be able to use that good heart to his advantage.

But he hadn’t missed the slight tremor in her fingers. Not quite as insouciant as she’d like him to believe, then.

“If you don’t tell me something of what your plans are,” she added, “then I don’t really have anything on you. You said we’d both have leverage.”

“I have the gun. You have the key.”

“Guess who wins that matchup? If you’re really willing to shoot me, that is.”

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

She shuddered. “Exactly.” With a considering look on her face, she looked at the bed.

He followed her gaze, more intrigued than he should be by her sudden interest in that particular part of the room. In fact, he was more intrigued by her than he should be, period. He had never minded working alone, living alone. It suited him, or he’d grown to embrace it, anyway. It was essential to his line of work, at which he excelled. And it made sense to stick with what one was good at, didn’t it?

Partners led to problems. Personally and professionally. That was his motto and nothing that he’d learned in life thus far had encouraged him to change that belief. He certainly had no business changing it now, of all times. For the first time he was operating on his own, not in the employ of someone else. He had this one chance to fix what he’d screwed up, and right a very lamentable wrong.

“Somebody else might,” she said, pulling him from his straying thoughts.

“Somebody else might what?”

“Know what you’re capable of. The owner of those panties, for instance.”

He smiled. “The cleaning staff here might need a bit of prodding to be more thorough in their cleaning.”

“Indiana Jones wouldn’t have found those panties. I don’t even want to know what you were doing to bury them so deep.” Her cheeks turned rosy as her unintentional entendre hung out there for a long beat. But she recovered and bulled on with an attempt at a carefree lift of the shoulder. “For all I know you want to get into another guest’s room over some woman you’re involved with. Is this a domestic situation?”

“Hardly.”

“You say that as if you can’t imagine a woman being so important.”

“Your supposition, not mine,” he said, more irritated than he should be by her summation. After all, hadn’t he just had the exact same thought?

“So, if it’s not a lover or significant other behind all this, then who?”

“Who said it was a who?” He immediately gave himself a swift mental kick. She had this way of easing information out of him when he wasn’t paying attention. Those soft curls, big eyes and cupid-bow lips, made it too easy to forget she could potentially ruin everything. He wasn’t entirely sure what his plans were going to be, moving forward, but if he didn’t get the Shay back under Guinn’s deserving ownership first, it might not matter.

“So, you don’t want access to someone, you want access to something. But guests generally don’t keep anything of great value in their rooms. Anything valuable would be in the hotel safe. Which is well guarded,” she hurried to add. “With everyone so concerned these days about security, the whole system was overhauled recently and now uses the latest technology.”

“Yes, I believe you offered its protection earlier, for the safekeeping of my leverage here.” He wiggled the gun barrel. “So … given your insight into the inner workings of the hotel, including security, I assume that passkey is yours, then?”

The flash that crossed her face was answer enough, but he waited to hear her response. It was a small measure of comfort to know he wasn’t the only one having difficulty keeping delicate information under wraps. Except he was the professional here. So it was a surprise when she opted to not risk damning herself further and kept silent. An admirable trait not often seen in the fairer sex, in his experience.

“Well, your having access to the vault does add a new element to the situation,” he said. “A good one, I might add.”

She looked away and he could see the self-recrimination on her lovely face. She really wasn’t having a good day.

Any other time, he’d be sympathetic. In fact, he’d probably have even offered to help her out. More than was probably wise, he’d been the champion of the downtrodden and the underdog when considering which job to take on. His bottom line wasn’t often improved by those choices, but he slept better at night, which was a fine trade-off as far as he was concerned. If only he’d followed his gut where Guinn was concerned, 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?”

3

SOPHIE GULPED BUT COULDN’T get it past the knot in her throat. He’d snapped those cords with such casual violence. She realized, perhaps truly for the first time, even after having a gun aimed at her, just how much trouble she was in. He’d seemed so … civilized. Before.

As civilized as a half-naked man who looked and sounded like he could be in the next Bond movie could seem, anyway. It was the accent. So smooth, so polished. With just that hint of Down Under to roughen up his gorgeous edges.

Now all she could do was stare at the swift way he looped those cords around his hand … and wonder how many women he’d tied up before. “I’m—That won’t be necessary,” she said, forcing herself not to shrink back as he crossed the room toward her. “I’ll stay here.”

He extended his hand. “Your key.”

She instinctively covered it with her hand. “You’re going to use it right now? I thought you said—”

“Consider it insurance. I come back, and you’re not here, I go immediately to hotel security.”

“I could claim you stole it from me.”

“They have cameras mounted in the hallways, do they not? I’m assuming we could prove you entered my room using this key.”

“I could come up with a plausible reason for doing that.”

“One that precludes you wearing your uniform? And not being seen exiting the room for some time? I’m afraid that the only explanations that work won’t paint you in a flattering light. You either snuck in to take something … or you snuck in to get something.”

Damn him for making her cheeks heat up like that. She hated being fair complexioned most of the time, but none more so than right now. He’d probably noticed her almost genetic inability to keep from staring at him—but in her defense, he was mostly naked, and an Adonis to boot—and he was using her … her weakness against her. The cad. Of course, he could be using it against her in a far more nefarious way. He could be trying to seduce the damn key from her. But no.

What it said about her that she felt insulted rather than relieved by that little fact, she didn’t want to know.

“You go take care of your errand and I’ll be here when you get back. Then we can discuss what you want to use the key for and when you plan to use it.” There. She’d sounded almost businesslike. Like she worked with gun-wielding thieves all the time. She just wanted to get him out of the room so she could get away from him and figure out what her options were. “As you’ve pointed out, running wouldn’t be a very smart move on my part.” Not that she’d made any smart moves thus far this morning, but why stop now?

“The key. Or I secure your presence here in other ways.” He dangled the electrical cords. “Primitive, I know, and my apologies. But your company was unexpected and I’m afraid I didn’t come prepared.”

So damn smooth, that voice, that smile, those eyes. Were ruthless thieves supposed to have kind eyes? And a body made for complete, unadulterated sin?

He wants to steal something from your hotel. Think, Sophie, think. And what she was thinking was that her only defense against his threatened accusations of breaking into his room—which, of course, happened to be true—would be if she somehow managed to thwart whatever mission he was on, thereby saving the hotel from both the robbery, a possible lawsuit from the guest he planned to steal from and the resulting negative media splash that scenario would provoke.

She’d started the morning with a headache from working all night on too little sleep and too much alcohol, and a very real concern for her best friend’s future. Somehow, since then, she’d landed herself in a remake of It Takes a Thief. Complete with devastatingly handsome leading man.

“You said trust was built on mutual blackmail,” she said, scrambling. She couldn’t let him take that key.

“Did I?” The corners of his mouth kicked up in an amused smile that put a little devilish twinkle in his eyes. God, they were so green. Honestly, the gene fairy had just had a field day with this guy.

“More or less. The way I see it, the career I’ve worked so hard for is in jeopardy.” She lifted a hand. “My fault, I know, but other than invading your personal space uninvited, I haven’t committed any real crime or hurt anyone. But you could report me and cost me everything. So I’m inclined to help you. Even if you hadn’t held a gun on me, though that did make an impression, let me tell you. Not only do I want to protect my job and my reputation, but if I were to run, you know where I work. You could track me down pretty easily. And we both know you’re armed and dangerous.”

Her gaze dipped to the cords and she stifled an involuntary shudder. She told herself it was the image of him ripping those cords from the wall that caused the reaction, when, if she were really honest, it was the image of him putting those hands on her, for any reason. Pathetic, really, but there it was. If she got out of this in one piece, the first thing she was doing was getting laid. Clearly she’d neglected that part of her personal maintenance for far too long if she was fantasizing over a guy who was threatening to either shoot her or tie her up.

“You don’t even need to order room service for me,” she went on. Like she could eat anything. But … could it be he was seriously considering her argument? “Probably better we don’t take a chance that any of the staff catches me in here anyway.”

“Another good point.” He cocked his head. “You’re a surprise, Sophie Maplethorpe.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, you have an angelic look about you.” His smile grew. “And yet, here you are. Bargaining with an alleged thief.”

“I’m just trying to save my job, my future,” she said, feeling a bit miffed at his characterization of her. Here she was giving him her femme fatale best, going head to head with Bond II, and he thought she was an innocent angel.

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you decided to break into a guest’s room.” He knelt down. “Sorry, love, but you’re a flight risk. And that’s one risk I can’t take.”

“But—”

“You keep your key. For now. And I keep you.” He nodded. “Palms together.”

She gripped her tags more tightly. “What’s to keep you from taking my key once you tie me up? Where’s the trust here?”

“I suppose you were right about that after all.”

“No trust amongst thieves, then?”

His eyes twinkled. “Most unwise, I’d think. But I operate alone, so I can’t rightly say.”

“So you do admit it, you are a thief.”

“Recovery specialist.”

“That’s clever, but doesn’t it mean the same thing?”

“It’s the truth, actually.”

He moved so suddenly, so smoothly and swiftly she couldn’t react until it was too late. He pinned his weight against her knees, preventing her from kicking out at him, while he took her hands, still gripping the tags on her lanyard, and quickly and quite expertly looped the electrical cord around her wrists, binding them just tightly enough that she couldn’t wiggle them free. The instant he was done with that, and while she was still reeling—much to her own shame—at the feel of his big, warm hands on her skin, he had them on her ankles. He shifted just enough to loop the cord around them in seconds flat, then cinched them together and tied the remaining cord to the wooden cross bar that connected the legs of the chair to each other.

She tried to kick out, but her heels were snug to the wooden bar. She swung her tied hands at his head, as much out of frustration as anything, but he easily caught them in one fist. “Now, now.” He took the loose end of the cord from her wrists and tugged it down, pulling her joined hands between her knees, then, pinning them there, tied the wrist cord to the one at her ankles.

Then he rocked back on his heels, and released her as he stood and moved out of reach. Not that she could swing anything at him at the moment. He walked into the bathroom and came back a moment later with what looked like the belt to a Wingate Hotel bathrobe.

She eyed him warily. “Now what? You’ve already roped me like a prize heifer. I can hardly go anywhere, or do anything.” Which was, unfortunately, quite true. She wriggled against her bonds, but it just made the cords cut more tightly into her skin.

“You still have one weapon left,” he told her, and stepped behind her.

She craned her neck, trying in vain to see what he was doing, then felt him kneel behind her chair, his breath fanning the side of her neck. Only she could have a mostly naked man breathing softly against the tender, sensitive skin of her neck, whispering in her ear … so he could explain why he had to gag her with a bathrobe belt.

“I’m truly sorry, but I can’t have you yelling out for assistance now, can I?”

To his credit, his hands were gentle and he didn’t tie it tightly, just snugly enough that any noise she made was muffled enough not to carry.

He stepped around in front of her.

She glared at him, but didn’t give him the satisfaction of trying to scream or kick, much less beg.

“I am sorry.” A smile played at his mouth. “But you did get to keep your key.”

She might have growled at that. Just a little.

“I promise not to take long.” He disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later, she heard the shower come on.

Was he kidding? He’d trussed her up like a holiday turkey, gagged her, and now he was going to take a leisurely shower?

Steam wafted out from beneath the bathroom door. Sophie was pretty certain the same was coming out her ears. What on earth had she been thinking to let Delia talk her into this stupid, cockamamie stunt? Of course, Delia had been crying, half-hysterical and still a little bit drunk at the time, so what was a best friend to do? Get the right room number, for one, her little voice mentioned. Sometimes she hated her little voice. Where was it when she’d really needed it? Like when it should have stopped her from kicking her entire career into the gutter, all to retrieve a stupid cell phone because her best friend’s fiancé was an asshole whom she shouldn’t even be marrying in the first place.

And God only knew what was going on with Delia right this moment. Had Adam called as usual? What was she thinking, of course he had. The man was an android. Had Daniel Templeton, wherever he was, answered the call? Sophie shivered at the very idea. It was quite possible that all holy hell was being wrought right at this very moment—the Wingate Wedding of the Century imploding, media swarming, caterers and florists in three states collapsing. And where was she when her best friend needed her most? Tied to a damn chair in one of her own hotel rooms, while an incredibly hot thief stood naked under the shower in the adjoining bath, that’s where.

Her gaze shifted back to the bathroom door, and she hated herself a little, but even that didn’t stop her from imagining what he looked like, all slick and soapy. It’s not like she didn’t have a pretty good idea, given she’d seen almost all of him already. Almost. God. The mental movie went on for a few more frames before she finally, albeit reluctantly, shut it down.

She sighed and slumped in the chair, as much as she could anyway. Truly pathetic.

Her head jerked up when the door opened and he strolled out in a cloud of steam, a damp hotel towel clinging precariously to his hips, thick black curls matted to his neck.

“Sorry.” He stepped to the closet, rooted around, grabbed some clothes, then ducked back into the bathroom.

“Don’t mind me,” she muttered through the bathrobe belt, wishing she hadn’t noticed that he’d shaved. The shadow of a beard had actually been sexier. But now he looked downright deadly.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Sex. Seriously, the second thing she was doing when she got loose. Right after she found a new job. Of course, no hotel in the universe was going to hire her once word got out. The Wingates would see to that. So, what if managing a hotel was the only thing she’d ever really wanted to do?

Thank goodness Grandma Winnifred wasn’t alive to witness her downfall. She would be so hurt and disappointed if she could see her favorite granddaughter right now. Sophie glanced upward and sent a silent prayer of forgiveness, remembering the smells, sounds and sights of the family restaurant her grandmother had run, the one Sophie had grown up in after the loss of her parents at age nine. Her world had always been filled with people, and conversation, good food and contented smiles. Everyone loved her grandmother, and Winnie’s was where people came to relax, to get away from their troubles, to enjoy a good meal, a place where they would always be welcome.

Sophie had known early on that she wanted to create that same world for herself, to carry on in her grandmother’s stead, bringing that kind of home away from home to others. She’d also discovered early that cooking was never going to be her forte, but where her palate might fail her, her eye did not. She had a special flair for creating the perfect atmosphere, for managing and hostessing. It was at Winnie’s urging that she’d considered her other options, such as running her own inn, providing a different sort of home away from home. And had known immediately it was the perfect dream. But that took money.

So she’d done it the smart way, gone to school, getting her degree in hotel management, working her way up, putting away money, until the time was right to launch her own place, her own way. She’d had Winnie’s support, and that of everyone at the restaurant. And though both were gone now, her focus had never wavered, and that was in large part due to the confidence they’d all given her. She’d been a night manager of the Chicago Wingate for seven months. The ladder was there, just waiting for her to keep climbing it.

Until this morning, anyway.

She had to get out of here. As things stood, her career was trashed and her life was in danger. If she could get out of this hotel room, she could at least take care of the latter problem. Or give herself a good running start anyway. Maybe she should just give him what he wanted. Would he let her go then? Surely he wouldn’t want the added complication of having to kill someone needlessly cluttering up an otherwise harmless burglary? Then she remembered how swiftly and coolly he’d snapped those cords and tied her up. And there was that gun he happened to carry.

Then he was stepping out of the bathroom again. She hadn’t thought it possible, but he was even better-looking dressed. He was wearing black slacks, nice leather shoes, a crisp white shirt that looked like it had been tailor made for his broad shoulders, and a tie in a muted pattern of black, forest green and gold. He’d combed his hair back off his face, leaving it to kick up and curl around the collar of his shirt.

As if reading her thoughts, he flashed a smile at her. “Back in a jiff.”

She glared at him, but it seemed to have little impact as he strolled to the front hall and snagged a suit jacket from the closet. She didn’t see the gun, which meant he was probably wearing it on his person. Nothing had been tucked in the back of his waistband. Ankle holster, she decided. Right before she decided she really needed to stop watching old detective shows on cable when she got up in the afternoon, before going on night shift.

She watched as he slid on his jacket, then took a slim black case from the nightstand and tucked it in an inside pocket. “Sit tight,” he said, having the grace to look a little abashed as he said it, even with the twinkle still in his eyes.

She glared more fiercely and swore at him around the terry-cloth in her mouth, but he remained unfazed. Despite what he’d said, she’d half expected him to come over and take her key presently trapped between her hands. There was no way, short of head butting his solar plexus, that she could stop him. And that was only if he got really, really close. But, to her surprise, he left the room. The door shut behind him with a solid click. She craned her neck to see down the short hallway to the front door. Sure enough, the Do Not Disturb sign was gone. Any hope of a hotel maid rescue was gone.

It wasn’t until she was truly alone that she began to panic in earnest. Which made no sense. He was gone, now was her time to focus. To channel her inner MacGyver and come up with a handy, homespun solution to getting out of this stupid chair and out of this room. The thing was, all those old detective shows had prop people to handily leave all the right items within reach.

She looked around, thinking if she could find anything that appeared sharp enough to cut through her bonds, she might be able to hop the chair in the direction, position herself accordingly and go to work. Except electrical cords were a lot harder to saw through than flimsy cotton rope.

Maybe if she tipped herself over onto her side, she could somehow get her fingers close enough to her ankle ties to loosen them up, but she then realized that changing position wouldn’t really change the dynamics any. Which was why her degree was in hotel management, not physics. She tried bending forward far enough to see if she could get her teeth anywhere in the vicinity of her lap, but the moment she dipped down too far, the chair threatened to topple forward. Not a great idea since she had no way to protect herself from making a full face-plant. And fat lot of good that position would do her.

Then she remembered. He’d shaved his face. Which meant there was a razor in the bathroom somewhere. Maybe she could body hop the chair over to the bathroom. There was a small coffee table in the way, and she’d have to maneuver around the end of the bed, but it was worth a try.

It took her a few tries to do more than bobble the chair dangerously from one side to the other. The way he’d tied her feet, only her tippy toes touched the ground. Not much for leverage, but if she pushed and simultaneously lifted her butt off the seat, the chair did move a little. The only problem was she had no control over direction. Definitely looked a hell of a lot easier in the movies.

She tried not to get discouraged. She had no idea how long his idea of a “jiff” was, so she couldn’t afford to waste any time. She bumped, leaned and bobbled until she’d managed to move the chair a whole two inches toward the end of the bed. Wonderful. She was sweating a little now, both from panic and exertion, which only served to make the electrical cords feel kind of icky. If only she sweat something helpful, like, say, olive oil, she might have been able to slip her wrists free. But no.

Then she had another thought. Slippery. He’d been in the shower, so maybe he used body soap. At the very least there’d be shampoo in there. Of course, she had no idea how she was going to retrieve these items while tied to a chair, but she wasn’t going to sit there and do nothing. She’d figure that part out when she got in there.

Redoubling her efforts, she bobbled and scraped her way almost a whole foot, before the edge of the chair caught at the foot of the bed and went tottering all the way forward on two legs, before she swung the momentum back. The unfortunate result of that maneuver was that the chair overcorrected and tipped over backward, which she had no way of stopping. Thankfully the bed blocked the chair’s descent, so she didn’t whack her head on anything. But now she was tilted back like she was in some kind of recliner, with her feet completely off the floor, leaving her with no leverage at all.

MacGyver would be so disgusted with her right now. She was disgusted with her right now.

She carefully tried to shift her weight forward to see if she could tip it forward again, but that only served to make the back two chair legs—the only ones presently touching the floor—start to slip. She froze and tried to figure out what to do next.

Which was how Silas found her when he came back into the room. And did he honestly expect her to buy that as his name? Although, maybe it was a popular name in New Zealand. She really didn’t know.

He stood next to her, his head tipped sideways. “How on earth did you manage that position?” Then he smiled. “What are the odds of using that line with a woman in my own hotel room, and we’re both fully clothed?”

She glared at him as fiercely as she was able. Her jaw was sore from having the stupid belt tucked in it, so she didn’t bother trying to swear at him. She did wiggle a bit, but that proved to be a bad idea. The chair legs went out from under her, and it was only his amazingly swift reflexes that kept her from cracking her head on the floor.

He cradled the chair and gently tipped her upright. The whole time his body was in very close proximity to hers, which was why she couldn’t help but notice how good he smelled. Not aftershave or cologne, not strong enough for that. Which meant shampoo. Or the body soap she’d been hoping to find earlier, when she’d started her ill-conceived mission. So much for channeling her inner MacGyver. More like her inner Lucy.

“You’re a tenacious one. A shame we’re on opposing sides.” He moved around behind her. “I’m going to remove this, and while you might be tempted, I’ll ask you not shout out, or right back on it goes.”

She was so thankful to have the horrid thing off, she didn’t do more than work her jaw once he’d removed the gag. “Thank you,” she said, once he’d stepped around in front of her again and sat on the end of the bed. At least he had the decency to look slightly guilty. Of course, decency in a thief was highly overrated.

She wiggled her hands. “Can you untie me now?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But there is too much at stake to take any chances with you.”

“I wasn’t tied up before you left and you managed to survive just fine.”

He did smile a little at that, but it faded quickly. “We have to have a little talk.”

She stilled. He looked … regretful. Had he decided she was too much trouble after all? The gun hadn’t made a reappearance, so that was good news. But maybe he’d told someone about her misuse of the master passkey. Was someone on the way up to escort her from the hotel right this very second? “I’m sure we can come to some kind of mutually agreeable solution to this situation. Let’s not do anything hasty.”

“Oh, I believe I’ve found a solution to my problem. And perhaps, in the slightly longer term, yours as well. It seems I’m going to need a partner to help me complete my assignment here. If all goes well, we’ll both get what we want.”

4

SHE DIDN’T LOOK NOTICEABLY upset or even put off by the proposal. Instead she wiggled her fingers. “I could help you break the law much better with my hands free.”

“We’ll get to that part.” She looked adorably pathetic, but he refused to feel guilty. Sophie had, more or less, brought this on herself. She’d chosen a life of crime. Or at least a very early morning of it. He was merely going to extend her spree a wee bit.

She seemed to note that he still wasn’t smiling, and sobered a bit herself. “What is it you want me to do? Am I going from trashing my career to risking serious jail time?”

“You haven’t trashed anything. Yet. Help me get what I want, I return home, you go back to work. You’ll have done a good deed, and for that, no one will ever be the wiser about your early morning breaking and entering.”

“I entered, I didn’t break. I had a key. And that was also an attempt at doing a good deed, and look where that landed me?” But her attempt at bravado was short-lived, as, a moment later, her expression faltered causing her to look down at her still-tied hands.

On anyone else, he’d have suspected it to be a calculated ploy of some sort, but he already knew that to be beyond her. “What is it?” he asked. When she didn’t look up, he said, “Sophie?”

She took another moment, then sighed and looked at him. “I realize this means nothing to you, it’s just, I’m worried. About Delia. That’s my friend, whose phone I was trying to retrieve. There’s a better than average chance that all hell is breaking loose right about now.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She’d been fascinating before, with her so-innocent eyes and nervous babble. But she was truly something when her heart was in play, as it clearly was where her friend was concerned. And, she was right, he didn’t—couldn’t—care about that. The only good that knowledge did him was provide him with possible leverage to get what he wanted. This Delia was a weakness to be exploited. Nothing more.

Now it was his turn to look away, away from those beseeching eyes of hers. He couldn’t let himself care, he knew that … but that didn’t mean he was particularly fond of himself at that moment. “If your friend is as toxic as you’ve made her seem, perhaps it will be a good thing you’re not to be found then. For both of your sakes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning you’ll be mercifully removed from having to do God knows what to rescue your friend, and she’ll be forced to handle her own problems. Might not be a bad thing for her to deal with the consequences of her actions.”

“Yes, well, given I’m not exactly loving being schooled on that particular lesson myself at the moment, it’d be a bit hypocritical to wish it on my best friend. And I told you, her fiancé is Adam Wingate. The wedding reception will be held here this coming weekend and—”

“I thought you also said that you weren’t invited.”

“What I’m saying is that the hotel is going to be crawling with all kinds of extra people and security, planning, setting up and in general getting ready for what will be a major media event, at least here in town.”

He frowned. Bugger. That could complicate things. “We can work around that. In fact, maybe we can use the general frenzy to our advantage.”

Now she frowned. “How? You already know I’m a lousy liar, so having me try to pretend that nothing is going on is going to be hard enough, much less pretending around my best friend and my coworkers. And I can’t exactly sneak around in my own hotel and not be noticed.”

“I don’t need you to be noticed.”

“You said accomplice.”

“I said partner. A … covert partnership.”

“Covert.” She narrowed her eyes. “I know you caught me sneaking in here, but if you think I’m going to sneak into some man’s room and … You know, I thought I made it clear before that I wasn’t—”

His brows lifted a bit at her meaning. “Trust me, that’s the last thing I’d ask of you.” He frowned when she looked insulted.

“Is it so impossible to believe that I could seduce someone?”

What? His attention was all caught up in her eyes. So expressive, so direct. So at odds with the sweet, innocent face and those oh-so-soft-looking lips. It was their collective impact that had him speaking before he could think better of it. “Oh, I think you have weapons and wiles you’re not even aware of, which makes you particularly dangerous.”

Her lips parted at that, and he watched her pupils expand. It made parts of him expand a little, too. How was it they went from sparring to … this, he had no idea, but he had to regain control over whatever it was she seemed to so effortlessly do to him, and keep his focus on the prize.

Which was the Shay emerald … not Sophie Maplethorpe.

And yet, in her own way, Sophie sparkled far brighter than that priceless heirloom he was trying to re-retrieve. Whether vulnerable or irritated, there was always a spark of vitality in her eyes. It struck him as truly remarkable that she’d come all this way in life, and didn’t seem to have the slightest grasp of where her powers truly lay. But that’s what made her so intoxicating.

“Thank you. I think.”

“It was a compliment,” he assured her, trying not to shift to find a more comfortable fit to his trousers. “Though perhaps one better kept to myself.”

She looked at him then, truly looked at him. As if seeing something in him she hadn’t seen before.

“What?” he asked, warily knowing he shouldn’t.

“In my field, it pays to be a good reader of people.”

“And?”

She tilted her head just slightly. “While, on the surface, it might be quite plausible that you’re some kind of international criminal, a closer look tells me that you’re no ruthless thief.”

“I’ve threatened you with a gun, bound and gagged you.”

“You have kind eyes.”

He should have laughed at that. Outright. Instead he found himself simply looking at her. Perhaps into her. So innocent, and yet, not really. Not when it came to knowing things that others never took the time to notice. Dangerously innocent, his Sophie Maplethorpe.

“Ruthless thieves are supposed to have soulless eyes. Yours are warm, and they crinkle at the corners. You smile often.” She smiled a little herself at that. “Ruthless thieves probably don’t.”

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that, and her simply stated assessment took him somewhat aback. He felt oddly exposed. “I’m sure there are plenty of thieves, ruthless and otherwise, who can fake all kinds of appearances.”

“You’re probably right. You were quite … efficient with those electrical cords.” She sighed, just a little, but the coinciding tug it elicited inside him had him straightening and striding across the room.

He needed some space between them. Moreso, he needed to get his equilibrium back, and swiftly. “So—”

“Still,” she interrupted, “I was thinking that maybe you should just tell me why you’re here. You already know I’m a sucker for a sob story, or I wouldn’t have been in your room in the first place. Maybe I’ll want to help you, blackmail not required.”

“You think I came here for a kindly reason, then, is that it? A mission to match the eyes, as it were.”

She lifted her shoulder, then winced when it tugged at the cord on her wrists. So, in addition to becoming a thief, he was officially a cad of the first order. He could honestly say that this was his first time tying up a woman in his hotel room—for any reason—and it wasn’t a proud moment, seeing her there, like that.

“Have you ever used your gun?”

“What?” If she’d simply be consistent for more than five minutes, maybe he’d get a handle on this situation, on her, but she was dashedly quixotic. “I believe I did, earlier.”

“I don’t mean waving it around. Have you ever shot … anything?”

“I wasn’t waving it about, I was aiming it. At you.”

She shivered. “Yes, I haven’t forgotten that part. But that’s not what I asked.”

“If you’re trying to insinuate that because I haven’t shot at anything, that I’m somehow a kinder, gentler thief—”

“Recovery specialist,” she corrected him, the barest hint of mockery in her voice.

“The use of a firearm is hardly an accurate measure of the man wielding it. And why in bloody hell are we having this conversation?” He stalked to the other corner of the room, opened the bar fridge, then realized it was far too early in the day for a drink, and slapped it shut again. “We have business to attend. No more tomfoolery.”

“No, we wouldn’t want any more of that.”

He raked a hand through his hair, swore under his breath, then walked back to the bed and forced himself to sit calmly on the edge, his knees inches now from hers. How was it she could so frustrate him … and yet all he could think, even now, when he looked at her, was how she’d look bound to the bedposts instead of that chair. Writhing, those too-soft curves of hers, straining against—”We need to discuss the plan,” he said, abruptly.

“The plan,” she repeated, unfazed by his harsh tone.

“The … recovery plan.”

“Ah.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t throw the gun away, you know.”

“I doubted I’d be that lucky.”

He wanted nothing more than to kiss that too-knowing look right off her face. Would serve her right, possibly even shock her into some much needed silence. Her feminine wiles seemed to be the only weapon she didn’t realize she had.

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