Cole smiled as he stared at the sleeping woman in his bed, memorizing every beautiful detail before quietly leaving the bedroom and closing the door. He headed downstairs and made some coffee, then sat at the table and wondered what the hell he was doing.
He and Jamie had spent the entire afternoon in bed, only coming up for air so he could draw them a luxurious bubble bath in the Jacuzzi. Afterward, he’d ordered her to lie down on the bed and proceeded to pamper her with a full body massage that had them both groaning with pleasure and impatience. His clothes had disappeared soon after and he’d tugged her onto his lap and let her take the lead this time, worried that he might hurt her shoulder if he was on top. Jamie had straddled him, moving in a slow, sexy rhythm that drove him wild, and when they both exploded with passion, she’d rolled over, closed her eyes and promptly fallen asleep.
And now he was alone, sifting through a pile of conflicting emotions and asking himself how on earth Jamie Crawford had managed to break through the shield he’d constructed around his heart. He shouldn’t want her this much. He shouldn’t care this much.
He was done with relationships, unwilling to take another risk and let down his guard. Truth was, Teresa’s betrayal had done a number on his pride. She’d cheated on him. Lied to him. Made his life a living hell. And yeah, Jamie was nothing like Teresa. She was kind, compassionate, patient, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have the power to destroy him.
And he refused to let another woman have that much power over him.
Cole closed his eyes, wondering how and why his life had turned into such a mess. It wasn’t just his growing feelings for Jamie weighing on his mind. It was also the business. He couldn’t quite explain it, but ever since Ian had told him about Lewis’s offer to buy the company, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. A year ago the idea of selling his empire would have sent him into gales of incredulous laughter. He was thirty-four years old, one of the richest men in the country, and if he wanted to, he could stay at the top for a very long time. Retirement had always seemed eons away.
But everything changed once Teresa died. He’d been forced to stay in Serenade, ordered not to leave town, and in the time he’d been here, he’d felt…at peace. For the most part anyway. Yes, he had this murder investigation lurking in the shadows of his life, but he wasn’t restless, or even all that motivated to return to Chicago and go back to work full time. Aside from answering emails, doing teleconferences and looking over the blueprints and contracts Ian brought, he wasn’t too involved with the running of the company anymore.
And he kind of liked it.
What had come over him? He loved his work. Loved staring at empty lots and envisioning the structures he could put up there. How had he become bored and unhappy with the job without even realizing it?
The ringing of his cell phone ended his troubling reverie. A glance at the caller ID showed Hank Shaw’s number, Cole’s private investigator.
“That was fast,” Cole said in lieu of hello. “Got something already?”
Hank chuckled on the other end. “Yes and no. Just wanted to tell you I did a quick check on George Winston. You said you wanted me to look into him first, right?”
“Yeah. What’d you find?”
“Nothing much. Aside from having the reputation of being an ass, Winston is squeaky clean. I did a soft check on his finances and nothing suspicious stood out to me, not in the company account, or his personal checking account.”
Cole didn’t bother inquiring how Shaw had managed to look into Winston’s personal and company bank accounts. There were some things you simply didn’t ask your P.I.
“I also managed to get into his date book and home calendar—”
Again, Cole didn’t even ask.
“—and he’s got an alibi for the night your ex-wife was killed. And he’s alibi’d for the past three days too. He was in Boston with his wife. Airline confirms it.”
“Could he have hired someone to kill Teresa and go after Jamie?”
“Maybe, but again, there was nothing fishy about the finances. No large withdrawals that indicate he may have paid someone to do his dirty work.”
Cole frowned, but he wasn’t really surprised. It had been incredibly far-fetched, the thought that a business rival was involved in Teresa’s death. There might be bad blood between them, but Winston didn’t strike him as a killer.
“Thanks for the update, Hank. Anything else I should know?”
“Word around town is that Winston is gloating over your current predicament,” Hank said in an apologetic voice. “He’s spoken to several bankers and urged them to cut your financing.”
“Shocking,” Cole mumbled to himself. Out loud, he said, “Thanks again, Hank. You’re looking into Donovan Enterprises next?”