Golden Lies (26 page)

"Probably not," he said, surprising her.

"Really?"

"You're not the only one with ambition, Alyssa. I'd like to work for one of the bigger metropolitan newspapers, or maybe an arts magazine "

"That might mean moving away from Chinatown."

"It's not a ball and chain around my leg. I could leave—if I had a good reason." He paused. "I like your hair. I'm glad you left it long."

"It's too thin and too straight."

"It's perfect. You're perfect."

"I'm not," she said with a shake of her head.

"I wish you could see yourself the way I see you."

Alyssa got to her feet, suddenly restless under his intense gaze. She walked over to a desk that held a computer and more books. "What's all this?"

"Research on your dragon." He came up behind her. "I found out that the set I told you about was discovered in an archaeological dig in southern China in the early 1900s. The pieces were sent to China's National Palace Museum, but at some point they were lost."

"From a museum? That sounds odd."

"There was a lot of turmoil and war in China. Many artifacts were lost."

"My mother only saw one dragon. She didn't see a box or another dragon."

"It's not surprising that the pieces have been separated. It would probably be more shocking if they were still together."

"True." She picked up a pile of newspaper clippings. "What are these?"

"I'm doing a story on the Chinese New Year celebrations in San Francisco, a composite look at the traditions. My cousin Fae is going to be Miss Chinatown this year."

"That's great. She must be excited."

"She is, because she's the third generation." He flipped through the photos on the desk. "Here's the one of her mother getting crowned, and here's the one of her grandmother."

Alyssa looked at the photos. The Miss Chinatown Pageant was a very big deal. When she was a young girl, she'd even had thoughts of trying out for it herself. Until she was reminded that only a pure Chinese girl could win.

"See anyone familiar in this picture?" Ben asked her, pointing to the one of Fae's grandmother. It had been taken at the party after the pageant, and there were a number of people in the picture, but none really jumped out at her. Although ...

"Is that my grandfather?" she asked in astonishment, recognizing the familiar profile.

"Yes, and he's talking to Wallace Hathaway. David Hathaway's father."

And her grandfather.

A shiver ran down her spine at the connection.

"Hathaway was probably the Master of Ceremonies for the pageant," Ben continued. "They usually had someone from the city council or chamber of commerce announce the winner."

"I had no idea they'd ever met," she murmured. These two men, who had shaken hands some fifty years ago, were her grandfathers.

"It's a small world," Ben commented.

"Yes," she agreed. And it was getting smaller by the moment.

* * *

Riley set his grandfather's armchair back into its upright position and adjusted the cushions. He looked around at the living room his grandmother had always kept so neat and wondered if it would ever look that way again. Whoever had ransacked her house had been hastily and ruthlessly brutal in their search. Obviously time had been a factor. There was also a sense of purpose. This hadn't been a random burglary. It didn't appear that anything had been taken.

He moved over to the end table, staring down at the piles and piles of photographs that had been dumped out of the box his grandmother kept them in. It had been a family joke for years that Nan was not a photo-album kind of person. She'd been talking about organizing the photos of her life for as long as he'd been alive, but here they were, a mass of black and white and color photographs from a lifetime of living.

He sighed. He wished he could just hire a cleaning service to come in and tackle this mess, but his grandmother had already told him that she didn't want any more strangers in the house. She'd do it herself tomorrow, and that would be fine, but he couldn't let her face this.

His cell phone rang, and he answered. "Yes?"

"There's a beautiful blonde casing the house," Gilbert, one of his security guards, told him. "She's been standing on the sidewalk for almost five minutes. You want me to talk to her?"

"No, I think I know who it is," he said, feeling an unexpected jolt at the information.

"She's walking up to the door now."

"I've got it, thanks."

Riley slipped his phone back in his pocket and went to open the front door. Paige was in the process of reaching for the doorbell. "Looking for me?" he asked, surprised and pleased to see her. He'd spent most of the day with her, but he'd missed her the past few hours. Damn, not a feeling he wanted to examine too closely.

"How did you know I was out here?" Paige asked.

"I have a sixth sense."

Her gaze narrowed speculatively."You have an undercover guy sitting in a car at the corner."

He grinned at her. "Very good, Miss Hathaway. He said you were stalling. Why?"

"I was having second and third thoughts. Can I come in?"

Riley held the door open for her. "It's a mess, I warn you."

Paige walked into the room, her eyes widening as she took in the destruction. "My goodness. When most people say their house is a mess, it's usually spotlessly clean. But this really is a mess."

"They did quite a job. Take a look." He led her around the downstairs, showing her the living room, dining room, and kitchen, where they had to step over pots and pans to get to the back stairs. The upstairs was just as bad. The bedding had been tossed off all the beds, the drawers upended, items pulled off the shelves.

"Oh, Riley." Paige shook her head at the sight of his grandmother's bedroom. "Whoever did this was very serious."

"I know. You live in a secure building but you should be careful, Paige. Until your father can tell us what happened, we need to be cautious."

Paige's face lightened at his words. "That's what I came to tell you. My father is awake."

"That's great. How is he?"

"He's okay, I think. But he doesn't remember what happened this week at all. He only spoke for a few minutes, and he seems to have lost a few weeks. I asked him about the dragon, but he didn't know what I was talking about. The doctor said it's not unusual for there to be short-term memory loss."

"Probably not, but it's damned inconvenient," Riley grumbled. He couldn't help wondering if David really couldn't remember or if this was just another trick, but in light of Paige's happiness at her father being awake, he decided to keep that thought to himself.

"Everything seems so much better now," she said. "I know we don't have the dragon back yet, but I feel as if we're getting closer. As soon as my dad can tell us why he went to Chinatown, we'll have an idea of who is behind all this."

Her smile took his breath away. He liked the optimism in her voice. She reminded him of his grandmother in that way, always wanting to see the best, the potential, the possibilities. Meanwhile his brain was spinning with the complications. "Your father may not be safe," he began.

"My mother is hiring a security guard."

"That's good. We don't want anyone to take another shot at your father."

"My mother will make sure that doesn't happen. She knows how to protect what's hers." She paused. "Anyway, why don't I help you clean up? That's what you came here to do, right?"

"Surely Hathaways don't clean."

Her brown eyes sparkled. "Not usually, no. But I think I can stumble my way through the process. Besides, I've seen your apartment, and I don't think you're exactly an expert."

"You don't have anything better to do with your Friday night? No hot date with Marty?"

"Martin."

"Whatever. How come you're not out with him?"

"He didn't ask."

"Are you one of those girls who must be called by Wednesday for a Friday date?"

"Monday or Tuesday at the latest. What about you? Are you one of those guys who calls at four o'clock on Friday and says, " 'Hey, babe, want to hang out tonight?' "

"What's wrong with that?"

"No finesse. No style." She walked into Nan's room and picked up one of the drawers from the floor. She set it on the bed and began folding his grandmother's shirts and shorts.

Riley watched her from the doorway. Once again her behavior was surprising him. She should have been out celebrating her father's awakening with her fancy friends in a fancy restaurant. Instead she'd come here—to him. That thought was more than a little disturbing. What was she doing here? What did she want?

"Are you going to help?" She cast him a curious look. "Or are you going to stand there and stare at me?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Paige finished with one drawer and returned it to the dresser. "You probably don't want to go through your grandmother's underwear, do you? I can understand that women's lingerie would make you a little uncomfortable."

"My grandmother's underwear definitely makes me uncomfortable," he said with a smile. "Women's lingerie is another story entirely."

"I'll bet. Red teddies and black garter belts, right?"

"I keep an open mind. And I don't discriminate."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you don't. Do you have a woman in your life right now?"

"Yeah, an irritating, nosy blonde who asks a lot of questions."

Paige finished with another drawer. "Help me get the bed together," she said, ignoring his comment. "Maybe we should wash the sheets. I bet your grandmother would feel better if everything was cleaned."

"She is a big believer in clean sheets. I had to strip my bed every Saturday morning like clockwork. For the first fourteen years of my life, I was lucky to sleep on any kind of sheets. Sleeping bags and old blankets were more the norm." He was sorry he'd mentioned it when he saw the pity come into her eyes. "It was like camping. It was fun," he added, not wanting her to feel bad for him

"It was wrong. Every child deserves at least the basics—food, shelter, clothes, security."

"That requires money. I don't expect you to understand."

Paige tossed the bedding in a pile on the floor, leaving the mattress bare. "You always bring up money. You always point out how different we are. It's as if you want to make sure I know there's a line between us that we can't cross."

She was right. He was drawing a line between them, because right now, alone in a bedroom with a bed only a few feet away, it would be easy to forget there was anything to keep them apart. Her flowery scent was tantalizing, her brown eyes beckoning with the fire of challenge in them. And her body. Hell, he'd have to be a saint not to notice the curve of her breasts through her silk blouse or the shapely ass encased in a pair of black pants. She was quite a package, and he was dying to unwrap her.

"Well? Nothing to say?" she asked.

"You seem to be talking enough for both of us." "

Show me your room, Riley."

"I haven't lived here in a long time."

"Show me where you slept when you did live here."

It was another dare; he could see it in her eyes. She wanted to get to know him better, to get inside his head. And he wanted to get inside her body. Two distinctly opposing goals. Although they didn't have to be, if he gave her what she wanted ..

He turned and walked down the hall to his old bedroom. It had been his mother's room when she was a girl, but there was no sign now that any female had ever lived here. Now the room housed a full-sized bed with a blue bedspread, a simple oak dresser and matching desk where he'd once done his homework. There were a few items from childhood in the room, the model airplanes he'd made when he'd dreamed of being a pilot and flying away from it all, the posters of football players that had never quite come down. Now he was almost embarrassed to see them.

"Did you make these?" Paige asked, pointing to one of the airplanes.

"Yeah." He picked up the globe and the stand that his grandfather had given him. It had been knocked over during the burglary.

"You like to fly."

"I do. I like looking down on the world. How about you?"

"I love flying, especially takeoff, when you're speeding down the runway and the plane is shaking and suddenly you're up and away. It's a wonderful feeling."

He frowned, hating the way she'd echoed his own feelings. He didn't want to have anything in common with her. "I'm sure it's a better experience in first class than in coach."

She groaned. "Oh, my God, Riley, would you knock it off? You may have grown up poor, but you're not poor anymore."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know. There's nothing wrong with this house, either. It's nice, comfortable, a lot warmer than the one I grew up in."

She sat down on the bed, which was disheveled but intact. Apparently, their uninvited guest had done only a cursory run through this room. Probably because there wasn't much in it. Riley swallowed hard as Paige did a little bounce on the bed. His bed. His teenage bed. The bed he'd dreamed of sharing with a beautiful, sexy blonde like Paige.