She walked over to study the equipment. Two Mac Pro six-core computers with matching 33-inch monitors perched next to a pair of Sennheiser HD 800 wireless headphones. Cassidy silently swooned at the 78-inch curved Samsung television with Bose SoundTouch audio. It was good to be king.
Her gaze moved away from the expensive technology to the modern fireplace, the sleek brown sofa and chair in front of it, then to the built-in blond credenza and bookshelves behind the desk. She moved toward them like a zombie, compelled to know what Beau read.
Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newmanrubbed bindings with a book of racing photos by Louis Klemantaski. On another shelf, sat a row of how-to books on marketing and sales. He was, after all, the head of marketing for a billion-dollar corporation. She recognized Zig Ziglar’sSelling 101.Next to it wasSocial Media Marketing for Business.
There were a number of contemporary art books: Picasso, Miro, Jackson Pollack. Current artists like Cattelan, Cindy Sherman, and Jeff Wall were included.
She turned to him with a smile, found him no longer scowling. “You can tell a lot about a person by what they read.”
His mouth edged up. “That so? What do you like to read?”
She shrugged. “I’m into fiction. I like to escape the problems of the world. I read everything from literary fiction to mysteries, thrillers, and romance.”
He started smiling. “Romance, huh?” The gleam was back in his eyes.
“Yeah . . .” She looked at him and hoped he didn’t hear the little hitch in her voice. The men in romance novels were sexy as hell, but Beau Reese had them beat by a mile.
He tipped her face up and very softly kissed her. “We’d better get our work done, so we can take that nap.”
Heat washed through her. She had never met a man who affected her the way he did.
“One last question,” she said, and he stiffened, definitely not wanting to talk more about the past. “How did you get that very sexy scar on the side of your face?”
Beau relaxed. “Fistfight in high school. Guy was wearing his senior class ring.”
“Who won?”
“I did.” He rubbed the side of his face. “Not sure it was worth it.”
“I think you owe him. Otherwise you might have been too pretty.”
Beau smiled and just shook his head. As Cassidy went to work setting up her computer, then plugging her cell phone in to charge, Beau brought over another desk chair. She sat down and adjusted the seat, opened her laptop, and brought up the file she’d been working on.
“Here’s what I’ve got so far,” she said. “As you know, Alamo was jointly owned by Stewart and Charlotte Reese. That didn’t change even after the divorce. But the company is no longer in business. Alamo closed its doors after a firedestroyed a three-hundred-unit apartment project they were building in Iron Springs.”
Beau frowned. “The company went broke? There must have had been insurance money.”
“There was. The building was still under construction when the fire occurred. The insurance company paid the claim, but Alamo decided to cancel the project. They said the rental market had changed. Demand was low. The project was no longer viable, so they took the money and closed the doors.”
“When did it happen?”
She looked down at the monitor. “November twenty-first of last year.”
“So about two months ago.”
“That’s right. The thing is, Beau, the blaze was deemed arson by vandals. There was writing on the unfinished walls, piles of workplace debris were set on fire. But the police never caught the vandals.”
Beau kept watching her. “There’s something else. What is it?”
There was definitely something else. She wasn’t sure she liked the way he was beginning to read her. “From what I can tell, the senator was right about the market. If they had completed the project, they never would have been able to fill that number of rental units. Alamo would have lost millions of dollars. Instead, Stewart and Charlotte took the insurance money, paid off any debts against the property, sold the land to a guy who wanted it for part of a subdivision project, and came out with a very nice profit.”
His gaze remained on her face. “So you’re saying my dad was behind the fire.”
She shrugged, though that was exactly what she thought. “Maybe he just got lucky.”
“My dad had a way of getting lucky that always seemed to cost other people money.” He walked over to the windowthat looked onto a stretch of manicured lawn. A narrow creek carved its way through the land.
Beau paced back. “What about Milford?”
