began to stuff himself with hot eggs and crisp bacon. At the moment, he was too hungry to calculate what the luxury of room service was costing him. Once he found the treasure, he could buy his own damn hotel.
“Just who are you, Whitney MacAllister?” he demanded over a full mouth.
She added a dash of pepper to her own eggs. “In what way?”
He grinned, pleased that she wouldn’t give easy answers. “Where do you come from?”
“Richmond, Virginia,” she said, lapsing so quickly into a smooth Virginia accent one would’ve sworn she’d had one all along. “My family’s still there, on the plantation.”
“Why’d you move to New York?”
“Because it’s fast.”
He reached for toast, scrutinizing the basket of jellies. “What do you do there?”
“Whatever I like.”
He looked into her sultry, whiskey-colored eyes and believed it. “Do you have a job?”
“No, I have a profession.” She lifted a piece of bacon between her fingers and nibbled. “I’m an interior designer.”
He remembered her apartment, the feeling of elegance, the melding of colors, the uniqueness. “A decorator,” he mused. “You’d be a good one.”
“Naturally. And you?” She poured them both more coffee. “What do you do?”
“A lot of things.” He reached for the cream, watching her. “Mostly I’m a thief.”
She remembered the ease with which he had stolen the Porsche. “You’d be a good one.”
He laughed, enjoying her. “Naturally.”
“This puzzle you mentioned. The papers.” She tore a piece of toast in two. “Are you going to show them to me?”
“No.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How do I know you have them? How do I know that if you do have them they’re worth my time, not to mention my money?”
He seemed to consider a moment, then offered her the basket of jellies. “Faith?”
She chose strawberry preserves and spread them on generously. “Let’s try not to be ridiculous. How’d you get them?”
“I—acquired them.”
Biting into the toast, she watched him over it. “Stole them.”
“Yeah.”
“From the men who were chasing you?”
“For the man they work for,” Doug corrected her. “Dimitri. Unfortunately, he was going to double-cross me, so all bets were called off. Possession’s nine-tenths of the law.”
“I suppose.” She considered for a moment the fact that she was breakfasting with a thief who was in possession of a mysterious puzzle. She supposed she’d done more unusual things in her life. “All right, let’s try this. What form is this puzzle in?”
Doug considered giving her another nonanswer, then caught the look in her eyes. Cool, unflappable determination. He’d better give her something, at least until he had the passport and a ticket. “I’ve got papers, documents, letters. I told you it went back a couple hundred years. There’s enough information in the papers I have to lead me right to the pot of gold, a pot of gold nobody even knows is there.” When another thought occurred to him, he frowned at her. “You speak French?”
“Of course,” she said, and smiled. “So some of the puzzle’s in French.” When he said nothing she steered him back again. “Why doesn’t anyone know about your pot of gold?”
“Anyone who did is dead.”
She didn’t like the way he said it, but she wasn’t about to back off now. “How do you know it’s genuine?”
His eyes became intense, the way they could when you least expected it. “I feel it.”
“And who’s this man who’s after you?”
“Dimitri? He’s a first-class businessman—bad business. He’s smart, he’s mean, he’s the kind of guy who knows the Latin name for the bug he’s picking the wings off. If he wants the papers, they’re worth a hell of a lot. One hell of a lot.”
“I guess we’ll find that out in Madagascar.” She picked up the New York Times Juan had delivered. She didn’t like the way Doug had described the man who was after him. The best way to avoid thinking about it was to think of something else. Opening the paper she caught her breath, then let it out again. “Oh, shit.”
Intent on finishing his eggs, Doug gave her an absent “Hmmm?”
“I’m in for it now,” she predicted, rising and tossing the open paper onto his plate.
“Hey, I’m not finished.” Before he could push the paper aside, he saw Whitney’s picture smiling up at him. Above the picture was a splash of headline.
ICE-CREAM HEIRESS MISSING
“Ice-cream heiress,” Doug muttered, skimming down to the text before he fully took it in. “Ice cream…” His mouth fell open as he dropped the paper. “MacAllister’s ice cream? That’s you?”
“Indirectly,” Whitney told him, pacing the room as she tried to work