Summer Reads Box Set: Volume 1

by Freethy, Barbara

  "Yeah, yeah. So?"

  Paige gave him an irritated look. "So, these three pieces were very valuable. Others in the kingdom were jealous of the little girl's new status. You can imagine what happened next."

  "Someone stole the flute."

  "The whole thing, the dragons, the box, and the flute. What was worse, the emperor had his daughter killed, because he was so angry. He then had a ton of bamboo brought to the palace, but no one else could make any of the pieces sing like the original flute. There was no longer any healing magic. Nothing could be heard but the sound of weeping throughout the kingdom."

  "Where's the happy ending?"

  "There isn't one. The emperor swore a curse of revenge on all first daughters. He said that until the box and the flute were put back in their rightful place, all first daughters of whoever came in contact with any piece of the set, the box, the dragons, or the flute would suffer terrible misfortune."

  "So what happened?"

  "I don't know."

  "What do you mean you don't know?" He reached over and pushed the scroll key only to find that they had come to the end of the passage. "That's it? That's the whole story?"

  "There's a moral."

  "Right. I got that. Stealing is a bad thing. What I want to know is who took the box and the flute and the dragons, and what the hell happened to them?"

  Paige smiled. "That sounds like a security expert talking. You have to solve the crime, otherwise the world is off balance. One plus one always equals two. Missing things must be found. Every beginning has to have an ending.”

  "That's the natural order of things. I still don't see what that story has to do with my grandmother's dragon."

  "Maybe nothing, but it might be worth looking into. Did you happen to notice a connecting joint on the dragon, a piece that looked like it might fit into another piece?"

  Riley shook his head. "I didn't look at it that closely. I'll bet your father did, though. What about that other guy who was working in the lab that day?"

  "Raymond Li?" Her eyes widened. "My God. I just remembered. I never spoke to Mr. Li. He called in sick yesterday. I know that, because I was looking for my father, and I went down there thinking they'd be together, but Mr. Li's assistant told me that he was out."

  Riley felt his heart begin to pump faster. He checked his watch. It was almost nine o'clock. "Do you have his home number?"

  "I'm sure it's in the personnel file, but I don't have that."

  "You can get it, can't you?"

  "Tomorrow when the store opens.”

  "What about tonight?"

  "I don't have access to those files on my computer."

  "Don't worry about that. You get me into the store. I'll get you into those files."

  Chapter Eight

  "This feels wrong," Paige said as she let Riley into her dark office just before nine thirty. The store closed by six o'clock on weekdays, five o'clock on the weekends. The Hathaways had never felt compelled to offer longer hours. Her grandfather always said if the people wanted to buy their goods, they could damn well find a way to come during the day.

  She flipped on the lights, but it still didn't ease the tension in her body. She'd been at the store after hours before, but never for the purpose of looking into files that weren't any of her business.

  "You own the store, Paige," Riley reminded her. "You have the right to access any information having to do with it."

  "My mother would not agree with you." Paige walked around her desk to turn on her computer. "She's the boss."

  "More so than your father? Isn't it his family's business?"

  "Yes, but my mother doesn't think of it that way. She's probably more of a Hathaway than my father is. Once she married my dad, she got rid of her own family. I've never even met my maternal grandmother or my mother's sisters."

  "Really?" he asked with a note of surprise in his voice. "So, your mother has some skeletons in her closet. That's interesting."

  "My mother grew up poor and angry about it. Now, she's rich and angry about other things, like the fact that my grandfather won't name her CEO. She's not a blood Hathaway, and therefore she can't have the title. My father can't have it, either, because he doesn't spend enough time at the store. But that's not an issue, because he doesn't want the title."

  "Which leaves you."

  "Exactly. If I prove myself worthy, someday all of this will be mine, but it certainly won't be anytime soon."

  "Sounds like your grandfather still runs the show," Riley commented.

  "He's a very strong-willed person, strong in body, in mind, and in opinions." She punched a button on her computer, then stepped aside so Riley could sit down. She perched on the edge of the desk, watching as he quickly riffled through the programs.

  "Passwords?" he asked.

  She gave him the ones she had and watched his fingers fly across the keyboard as if this were very familiar territory. She couldn't help wondering about his background. "Where did you learn to do this?" she asked, noting how quickly he got into the personnel files.

  "Self-taught," he said, his attention still focused on the screen.

  "You majored in computers in college?"

  "I didn't go to college."

  "Really? Why not?" Everyone she'd ever known had gone to college. Even Jerry had managed to make it through a state school.

  "No money. What's the name of the guy we're looking for?"

  "Raymond Li. They have scholarships, financial aid to help you get through school."

  "Yeah, what would you know about that?"

  "Enough to know that you were smart enough to go if you wanted to go."

  "I went into the service instead. Here it is, Raymond Li." He jotted down the address on a piece of paper.

  Riley had been in the service? Although given his commanding air, that wasn't all that surprising. "Which branch of the military?"

  "Marines."

  "You seem to be more comfortable giving orders than taking them."

  "One reason I'm an ex-marine," he said with a brief smile.

  She frowned as her gaze drifted to the screen and she realized that Riley wasn't looking at the personnel files anymore. "What are you doing?"

  "Just checking a few things out."

  "Our inventory?"

  "Wouldn't someone have recorded the dragon as part of the inventory on the day we brought it in? Your father gave us a receipt for it. But I don't see it."

  "It would have been temporary, most likely under possible acquisitions or something like that." She paused, knowing she should probably stop him, but reviewing their inventory list was hardly worth shouting about, and at the moment she was interested in learning more about him. "What was it like being a marine? Did you see any combat?"

  "Some. Nothing I want to talk about," he added, flinging her a pointed look before turning back to the computer.

  "What's that expression the marines always say? Semper something."

  "Semper Fi. Always faithful."

  "And are you?"

  "To my country—absolutely."

  She picked up a pen from her desk and played with it. "What about with a woman?"

  "I've never been married."

  "But you've been in relationships."

  "What makes you so certain?"

  "Because you're—you're not bad to look at."

  He smiled. "You think so?"

  She felt a wave of heat cross her cheeks. "I was speaking from a purely observational point of view."

  "Is that what they call it these days?" He suddenly swung the chair around and stood up. He put his hands on either side of the desk, trapping her in what could have been an embrace, only he wasn't touching her, just crowding her, making her very, very aware of every inch of his long, muscular, masculine body.

  "What—what are you doing?" she asked quickly, her heart speeding up at the look in his eyes.

  "Getting a better look at you—from a purely observational point of view."

  She licked h
er lips, then wished she hadn't as his gaze settled on her mouth. "We should get back to..." What were they supposed to be doing, anyway? She couldn't seem to remember. He was too close. He was stealing her breath, making it hard to think, to concentrate. And then he moved closer still, his mouth covering hers in a kiss that he hadn't asked for, a kiss he simply took, a kiss she couldn't help giving back. He tasted good, his mouth warm, demanding, impatient as his tongue swept inside, deepening the kiss, making her want to melt right into him. His hands were hot and firm on her waist as he pulled her against the solid wall of his chest.

  She stroked his back, loving the feel of the hard muscles beneath her fingers. Their legs tangled up as they each searched for a better position. It wasn't until her back touched the top of her desk that she realized how quickly things were moving along. Was that Riley's hand on her leg, on her hip, sliding up under her shirt?

  Good God! Another minute and she'd be having sex on top of her desk.

  Paige hastily sat up, pushing him away with a breathless "Stop."

  Riley stared at her with dark, intensely blue eyes that were filled with desire for her. She almost wished she hadn't asked him to stop. But this wasn't right. She wasn't the kind of woman to have sex with a man she didn't know. And she didn't know Riley, not enough, anyway. The fact that he was the sexiest, most attractive man she'd met in a long, long time, and that he made her want to do reckless, impulsive things wasn't a good enough reason—was it? Suddenly logic didn't seem important. Nor did common sense or rational thinking.

  Riley had made her feel good, like a woman, like a sexy feminine creature. But she wasn't just a woman. She was a Hathaway. Hathaways didn't have sex on the office furniture.

  Paige drew a deep breath and ran her hand over her hair, still acutely conscious that Riley hadn't taken his eyes off her. "Why did you do that?" she asked, stumbling over the question.

  He thought for a moment, then said, "I wanted to."

  "Well, you can't just do what you want like that—without asking."

  "Do men always ask before they kiss you?”

  "As a matter of fact, yes, they do."

  "And what do you usually answer?"

  "That depends on the situation and the man and everything else." She waved her hand in the air, not liking the grin spreading across his face. "It's not funny."

  "Yes, it is."

  "Well, don't do it again. Don't kiss me without any warning."

  "So you didn't like it? I must have imagined your fingernails burrowing into my back, the little gasp you made when my tongue—"

  "Would you stop?" she interrupted, feeling awkward and embarrassed. "It's bad enough that we kissed. We don't have to talk about it."

  He laughed again. "God, you're funny. You're not a virgin, are you?"

  She bristled in defense. "What I am or am not is none of your business."

  "Maybe I'm making it my business."

  "Why would you want to?"

  "Because I want you, Miss Hathaway. What do you think about that?"

  She caught her breath at his blunt words. She wasn't a virgin, but her experience wasn't all that extensive. In fact, she could count her lovers on the fingers of one hand, and she suspected Riley would need more than a few hands to total his conquests. He was cocky and confident, a man who knew he was attractive to women. That arrogance should have turned her off, but for some reason she found it oddly appealing, almost irresistible, in fact.

  "You're just trying to get to me," she said finally. "And we're done here."

  Sliding off the edge of the desk, she pushed him aside to look at the computer. Her eyes widened as she took in the details of the screen. Riley had somehow hacked his way into the accounting program—not just the company's financial records, but what looked to be her father's personal money program. "What is this?"

  "Your father's electronic checkbook. Apparently, he does all his transactions online. He's very efficient that way. Probably because he's out of the country so much."

  "You should not be looking at that. It's private."

  He leaned over her shoulder and hit the scroll key, showing the check transactions for the past few years. "See anything interesting, Paige?"

  "No. I don't want to see anything at all. This is none of our business." She moved to close the window on the computer, but Riley stopped her.

  "Wait a second. There's something I noticed before you distracted me."

  "I didn't distract you. I was merely asking a few questions."

  "Whatever. Check this out—payments to Jasmine Chen, once a month like clockwork."

  She saw the look in his eyes and knew what he was thinking. It was what she was thinking, too. "That probably confirms they were having some sort of an affair," she said slowly, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  "An expensive sort. We're talking several thousand a month. The number varies a bit." He scrolled through a few more screens, taking them back to the previous year and the year before that. "There are also several payments to UC Berkeley. Is that where you went?"

  "I went to Stanford."

  "Did you take classes at Berkeley?"

  "No." She frowned, wondering why her father would have made payments to the university. "Maybe it was some sort of Hathaway grant, although that wouldn't have come out of my father's checkbook."

  She moved aside as Riley sat back down in the chair, his fingers flying once again. She should stop him. This was going beyond the investigation of the dragon. Riley was delving into her father's business, his personal life, a life she was beginning to realize she knew very little about. She'd never given much thought to the possibility that there were other people who meant something to him, people besides her mother or her grandfather or herself. Friends never seemed to be that important to him. In fact, most of the couples her parents spent time with seemed to be her mother's friends, not her father's.

  "Who is Alyssa Chen?" Riley asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  "I don't know. Why?"

  "She's the one who was going to Berkeley. Your father referenced her name on several transactions."

  Alyssa Chen? A relative to Jasmine? A daughter?

  Paige suddenly felt a knot in her stomach, a knot that grew tighter and twisted painfully with each passing second. "Turn it off."

  Riley shot her a quick look. "Turning it off won't make it go away."

  "Yes, it will. I don't want to know."

  "Then don't look. But my gut tells me Jasmine Chen has something to do with the dragon. And maybe this Alyssa does, too."

  Paige walked away from him, staring out the window behind her desk, which overlooked Union Square. She wasn't seeing the stores or the park; she was seeing Jasmine Chen's face, her apartment, the painting of the dragon on the wall, the photographs of a young woman on the table. Alyssa?

  Well, so what if her father gave Jasmine money?

  It also didn't matter if Jasmine had a daughter, and her father had generously given that daughter money for college. He was a generous man. He gave to lots of charities. Jasmine probably couldn't afford to send her child to college; she was a painter, an artist, and her father would have wanted to support an artist. He was all about art, about making it possible for people to create freely, to express themselves without worrying about how to make a living.

  "Hmm, this is interesting," Riley murmured behind her.

  She didn't like the sound of that. She was almost afraid to ask. But she had to. Turning, she asked, "What are you looking at now?"

  "Vital statistics."

  "Whose?"

  "Alyssa Chen. She's twenty-two years old. Mother: Jasmine Chen. Father: Unknown."

  Paige's heart skipped a beat. "Why is that important? Lots of women have children without knowing who the father is."

  He cast her a speculative look. "True. But how many receive money from a complete stranger for that daughter every month for the past four years at least?"

  "Okay, maybe my father has been involved with J
asmine, but that has nothing to do with your dragon, so turn it off."

  "She has a picture of my dragon on her wall. I don't think that's a coincidence. And your father took the dragon to her. Another connection."

  "He just showed it to her. He didn't leave it there."

  "So she said."

  "Their relationship is not relevant to you. An affair is only important to me, to my family."

  He didn't say anything right away, but his silence was damning. She didn't need his words to put the equation together.

  "Paige—"

  "Don't say it."

  "Fine. I won't say it."

  She stared at him for a long moment. "You think Alyssa Chen is my father's...”

  "Daughter." Riley met her gaze head-on. "And you think so, too."

  * * *

  It was easy to get his room number. Jasmine's neighbor's daughter worked in pediatrics. So Jasmine bypassed the information desk and took the elevator to the fourth floor. Visiting hours were almost over and the hallways were quiet. Now that she was here, she wasn't sure she could go through with it. She had spent most of the day worrying about David. What if he died? She didn't want to face that possibility, but it was there all the same.

  David Hathaway had been so many things to her. She had liked him, loved him, hated him, then loved him again. Every time she had tried to cut him out of her life, he had come back in some unexpected way. He had brought with him nothing but trouble, nothing but pain. He had shamed her, and in turn she had shamed her family. She had spent the past twenty-two years being shunned by the people who had once loved her. And all because of David. So why had she come here now?

  Because she still cared. God help her.

  She found herself in front of his room. The door was closed. Was he alone? What would she say if he was not? They would wonder who she was, why she was here. Or maybe they knew. She thought back to Paige's visit. There had been a question in Paige's eyes that had nothing to do with the dragon or her father's accident. Paige suspected something; she just hadn't had the courage to ask, and for that Jasmine was grateful.