Simon Says...

“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?”