She saw his face reset into a grim expression, as he leaned back against the desk. “But not much.” He sighed in his frustration. He’d decided to be upfront with her. Direct. He’d learned from his brother’s mistakes about going off halfcocked.
Jewel could tell he had something else on his mind as he searched her face, but still didn’t know why he was confiding all of this into her. It was something about the way he was looking at her that made her ask her next question. “Why are you telling me all this?”
He shook his head morosely before speaking. “I’m sorry,” he stopped, and then started again, “I, um . . . saw your brothers this morning. I thought they were on an overnight.”
Her face fell. Her eyes went round in shock. “You think they . . .,” she stammered at a loss for words.
His hands went straight to his cropped hair. She was in shock, and she could tell he was having difficulty looking for just the right words. “I know crazy, but I saw the tapes, and both of the men that got into the rooms were about their height and build. It’s stupid.”
She lost it. Her brothers would never do anything of the sort. “They had nothing to do this with this,” she lifted her chin in anger. Her eyes pierced his.
“They walked like . . .,”
She didn’t let him finish. “Don’t even say it. I know my brothers. And I thought I was beginning to know you,” she ripped out, and then turned her back to him. Her heart was pounding. Her head, too.
He grabbed her by the arm and turned her back towards him. “I really wasn’t accusing. I just wanted to get your take on it. I saw them this morning. You had left some time in the night, and then I saw the tape. I don’t know. I had you on my mind, and then saw that. I am just trying to be upfront.”
Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped. “You think I had something to do with this too,” her outrage was clear. But instead of getting louder, her voice had dropped to a menacing whisper.
This had gotten way out of hand. “No, I . . ,” he started, but to his shock her hand came up out of nowhere, and she smacked him soundly across the face. Hard.
He grabbed her hand to stop her from doing it again, and he could feel her struggling to break free. “If you think I slept in your bed, and then crawled out in the middle of the night to steal from hotel rooms in a casino you better think again. Long and hard. And before you even attempt to call me, you owe me and my brothers an apology.” She wrenched her hands away from him, and before he could blink, she stormed out of the small office.
Her outrage had been over the top. He hadn’t even thought of her being the other person. But it was she that had now put the idea into his head. Could she have been? The food in her car. Sneaking out last night. No. They had made love many times last night. It couldn’t have been her. But he needed to check the timelines. His gut clenched, and it felt like he swallowed a rock.
When he left the storage room a minute after she did, he didn’t see her at her station, but Louis was there. And he looked confused. He just shrugged his shoulders at him and looked towards the double doors he had come in through earlier. He must have seen her leave in a huff.
He just didn’t know what to think. Trust in him was hard to earn.
Chapter 12
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Three hours later Joseph sat at a table with Leanne Carne. She was the owner of Natural Wonders, her own line of creative skin care products made from local ingredients. Her company was only six years old, but already developing quite the following. Testimonials, and customer satisfaction after many years had helped her to get her struggling products the attention they deserved.
And if her face was anything to go by, the products did wonders. He knew she was forty-three, but could easily pass for thirty. His mother had tried the products herself recently and loved them. He was in negotiation with her to use her products exclusively for their casino in the state of Connecticut. And she was a tough negotiator. He tried to persuade her the advertising they would provide at The Mystic would help boost her online sales. They would also sell her items exclusively at their salon and spa.
But still she wanted more. In the strip of stores downstairs, she wanted a shop that carried her products and offered mini facials. It was a good idea, he had to admit, but it would mean another expansion or moving one of the lesser selling shops out.
“How about a kiosk?” he volunteered. She wrinkled her lovely nose at the idea. “We could hire a few of the spa personnel to run it and build into it a wall, a shelving system to sell your various products.”
“Well, that could work for now, but once my new line of cosmetics comes out, I don’t think that space would suffice.”