“No,” he said candidly.
“Do you have suspects in mind?”
“Yes.”
“Who are they?”
He gave her a piece of the truth. “I have two business rivals, Smedley and Trowbridge. On several occasions, I gained success at their expense, and they’ve held grudges.”
“You think these competitors would try to murder you?” Gigi said, aghast.
“Industrialists are like sharks,” he said candidly. “They’re vicious, and if they smell blood, they’ll go after it. After I outbid Trowbridge on some factories, he came to my office and issued threats.”
Gigi’s eyes were huge. “What sort of threats?”
“The usual kind.” Conrad shrugged. “I would pay for what I’d done, he would destroy me, etcetera.”
“Did you report him to the police?”
“Idle threats are common in my line of work. There was nothing to report. As for Smedley, I fed false information to the spies he’d planted in my office, and he lost a small fortune because of it. A few weeks later, my office was set on fire. Although I have no proof, I know Smedley was responsible.”
“Heavens.” Gigi wetted her lips. “Are there other suspects?”
Tread carefully.
“There was a woman I was involved with.” He cleared his throat. “She didn’t take it well when I ended things.”
“When was this?”
“Before I came here.”
She bit her lip. “You ended an affair a few weeks ago?”
“Duchess, it meant nothing.” He nabbed her hand, pulling her close. “We both had an itch to scratch and scratched it with one another.”
Gigi tugged at his hold, but he didn’t let her go.
“There were no promises or feelings involved,” he insisted.
“Then why would she bother trying to end your life?”
“I don’t think she is the guilty party,” he said. “But it would be remiss not to mention her as a possible suspect. Her motive would likely be injured pride…hell hath no fury, after all.”
“Perhaps if you had ended things on a more positive note,” Gigi said tartly, “she wouldn’t feel scorned.”
Conrad was starting to get annoyed. “First of all, our understanding did not involve commitment, which means there was no bad way to end it. Either of us could have gone our own way at any time—and we frequently did, even when we were seeing one another.”
“Oh.” Twin lines appeared between Gigi’s brows.
“Second, the reason things did not end well was because of her actions, not mine. I caught her snooping in my study.”
“Snooping? For what?”
“Most likely for confidential business information, that sort of thing. It’s possible that she was working for Smedley or Trowbridge. Or maybe she thought to unearth something scandalous she could use to get revenge.”
Gigi frowned. “Do you have scandalous secrets?”
Sweetheart, where to begin.
