Page 44 of Moonlit Colorado

I shook my head. “Not really. Just that you thought it was a good investment. But there must be even better investments in other places.”

He finished his last bite and leaned back in his chair. “I’d rather not talk about me tonight. I’d rather hear why you lied to Chief Landry.”

I hid my shock by taking a sip of water. “Why do you think I was lying?”

“A hunch. You said nothing was missing from your bedroom, but you looked at me right afterward.”

I bit my lip and drummed my fingers against the table. “It might be nothing.”

“Tell me so I can help.” Dane’s tone was gentle, but firm enough to emphasize that he wouldn’t back down. “That’s why you agreed to come here tonight, isn’t it? You’re trusting me already. So trust me with this.”

This man kept pushing his way into my life. Sticking around even when I tried to avoid him. I still didn’t understand exactly why, but if anyone could help me figure this out, it would be him.

Hard as it was to believe, even for me, I did want to trust him. At least with this.

“The red mask was missing from my room.”

His brows knitted. “The one you wore at the grand-opening party?”

I nodded. “I hung the mask on the edge of a frame on my wall, but after the break-in, it was gone. I lied to Teller because I didn’t want to explain about that night.”

“About seeing me there?”

“Yep.” And the fact that I almost went up to Dane’s suite to spend the night with him. Teller had those interrogation skills. And I was no hardened criminal. Teller would’ve gotten every last detail out of me. “Besides, it could be a coincidence. I didn’t have money in my room or jewelry worth stealing. Maybe the intruder thought the mask was expensive, and that’s why he took it.”

I thought of what Ms. Scarlet had said to me that night.Not everything that shines is a real diamond.

Dane pushed his plate aside and rested his elbows on the table. “You said a stranger gave the mask to you.”

“A redhead in the hotel ladies’ room. Just before I went into the party.”

“Then that VIP in the blue mask thought you were her.”

“Right. I assume so. Then later, when I was in the lobby after you went upstairs…”

“What happened?”

Memories from that night flitted through my mind in a hazy blur of music and color. The man in the blue mask grabbing my shoulder. Dane swooping in to my rescue. Flirting with him afterward. His invitation.

Do you want me to take you upstairs and worship you until the sun comes up?

And the way he’d spoken, the intense desire in his eyes—the memory made my breath catch and arousal tingle in all my nerve endings, just like it had weeks ago. I’d thought countless times about that night in the last couple of weeks, but not with the same man sitting right across from me.

My thighs squeezed together.

“What happened in the lobby?” Dane prompted.

I took another sip of cold water. “A man stopped me. A different one. He asked where I got the mask. I think he was looking for the woman I’d met in the bathroom earlier that night. Ms. Scarlet.”

“What did he look like?”

I closed my eyes, picturing the man. The hard lines of his mouth and the gleam in his eyes. It made me shiver. “He’s white. Has a goatee. And…a mole on his right cheek. His head was shaved. I almost thought he could be security at first, just from the way he carried himself. But then I figured he wouldn’t be wearing a mask.” I rubbed my eyes beneath my glasses. “Maybe I should’ve said something to the hotel staff about it. Made a bigger deal of it. But I just…”

I’d wanted to get away from the resort and forget about that night. Forget about sexy Mr. Black and his seventh-floor hotel suite.

From the way Dane was watching me, I figured he could guess that part too.

“The whole night was so strange,” I finished. “Now today, Ms. Scarlet’s mask goes missing from my room. And the person who took it trashed my bedroom and other parts of my house. It could be connected, but how?”

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