LITMIR.BIZ

       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

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