Having Her Boss's Baby

The door opened and there she was.

Auburn hair and green eyes identified her as Aine Donovan, but there the resemblance to the woman in the employee photo ended. He’d been prepared for a spinsterish female, a librarian type. This woman was a surprise.

His gaze swept her up and down in a blink, taking in everything. She wore black slacks and a crimson blouse with a short black jacket over it. Her thick dark red hair fell in heavy waves around her shoulders. Her green eyes, not hidden behind the glasses she’d worn in her photo, were artfully enhanced and shone like sunlight in a forest. She was tall and curvy enough to make a man’s mouth water, and the steady, even stare she sent him told Brady that she also had strength. Nothing hotter than a gorgeous woman with a strong sense of self. Unexpectedly, he felt a punch of desire that hit him harder than anything he’d ever experienced before.

Discomfited, he tamped down that feeling instantly and fought to ignore it. Desire had its place, and this definitely wasn’t it. She worked for him, and sex with an employee only set up endless possibilities for problems. Even that fact, though, wasn’t enough to kill the want that only increased the moment she opened her mouth and the music of Ireland flavored her words.

“Brady Finn?”

“That’s right. Ms. Donovan?” He stood up and waited as she crossed the room to him, her right hand outstretched. She moved with a slow, easy grace that made him think of silk sheets, moonlit nights and the soft slide of skin against skin. Damn.

“It’s Aine, please.”

She pronounced it Anya and Brady knew he never would have figured that out from its spelling. “I wondered how to say your first name,” he admitted.

For the first time, a hint of a smile touched her mouth, then slipped away again. “’Tis Gaelic.”

He took her hand in his and felt a buzz of sensation shoot straight up his arm, as if he’d grabbed a live electrical wire. It was unexpected enough that he let her go instantly and just resisted rubbing his palm against his pant leg. “I assumed so. Please, have a seat.”

She sat down in one of the chairs in front of his desk and slowly crossed one leg over the other. It was an unconsciously seductive move that he really resented noticing.

“How was your flight?” he blurted out, wanting to steer the conversation into the banal so his mind would have nothing else to torment him with.

“Lovely, thanks,” she said shortly and lifted her chin a notch. “Is that what we’re to talk about, then? My flight? My hotel? I wonder that you care what I think. Perhaps we could speak instead about the fact that twice now you’ve not showed the slightest interest in keeping your appointments with me.”

Brady sat back, surprised at her nerve. Not many employees would risk making their new boss angry. “Twice?”

“You sent a car for me at the airport and again at the hotel.” She folded her hands neatly atop her knee. If she was uneasy about speaking her mind, she didn’t show it.

He merely looked at her for a long moment before saying, “Was there something wrong with the car service?”

“Not at all. But I wonder why a man who takes the trouble to fly his hotel manager halfway across the world can’t be bothered to cross the street and walk a block to meet her in person.”

When Brady had seen her photo, he’d thought, Efficient, cool, dispassionate. Now he had to revise those thoughts entirely. There was fire here, sparking in her eyes and practically humming in the air around her.

Damned if he didn’t like it.

It was more than simple desire he felt now—there was respect, as well.

Which meant that he was in more trouble here than he would have thought.

* * *

Aine could have bitten her own tongue off. Hadn’t she promised herself to rein in her temper? And what did she do the moment she met her new boss? Insult him was what. An apology was owed him and Aine knew it, though the words stuck in her throat and wouldn’t come free. Yes, she shouldn’t have spoken to him so, but nothing she’d said was untrue, was it? Oh, she should have taken a moment to calm herself before coming into his office. Instead, she’d allowed her temper to simmer into a fine boil and then spill over the moment she met the man. Now there was an unwanted tension between them and she had to find a way to try to smooth things over.

The trouble was, Aine told herself as she met his steady gaze across the wide expanse of his desk, she hadn’t expected him to be so...wildly attractive. On the short ride to his office, she’d told herself to be confident. Then the door had opened and she’d taken one look at the man and gone light-headed enough that all her good intentions had simply dissolved.

His thick black hair fell across his forehead, making her want to reach out and smooth it back. His strong jaw, sharp blue eyes and just the barest hint of whiskers on his cheeks made him seem so much more than a man who made his fortune by inventing games. He looked like a pirate. A highwayman. A dark hero from one of the romance novels she loved to read. Something raw and wild in him teased to life all sorts of inappropriate thoughts in her mind and stirred something warm and wonderful through her blood.

This wasn’t something she wanted, or was even interested in, she assured herself. But it seemed she had no choice but to feel that whip of heat and tendrils of desire snaking through her body. When he shook her hand, she’d wanted to hold on to that tight, firm grip just a bit longer, but she was grateful, too, when he deliberately let her go. Well, now she wasn’t even making sense to herself. This was not a good sign.

Trying to distract herself, Aine admitted that not only was the man himself unexpected, but his office was, as well. She had thought to find Celtic Knot in one of those eerily modern glass-and-chrome buildings. Instead, the old home they’d transformed into a work space was both charming and surprising. And it gave her just a bit of hope for the castle—if this man’s company could modernize an old building such as this and maintain its character, perhaps they could do the same with Castle Butler, too.

With that thought firmly in mind, Aine settled into the uncomfortable chair, swallowed her pride like a bitter pill and forced herself to say, “I’ll apologize for biting your head off first thing.”

His eyebrows arched, but he didn’t speak, so Aine continued on in a rush—before he could open his mouth to say, “You’re fired.”

“It’s the jet lag, I’m sure, that’s put me in a mood.” Though she wasn’t at all tired, she would reach for the most understandable excuse.

“Of course,” he said, though it was clear from his tone he wasn’t buying that. “And I’ll apologize for not meeting you personally. We’re very busy right now, with one game being released this week and the next due out in December.”

Games, she thought. Wasn’t her younger brother, Robbie, forever playing this man’s games? Ancient legends of Ireland brought to life so people around the world could pretend to be Celts fighting age-old evil. She didn’t yet see why a company that built video games was buying a hotel in Ireland, though, and she was willing to admit, at least to herself, that she was worried about what might be coming.

“There isn’t time enough today to get into all of our plans for the castle, but I did want to meet with you to let you know that changes are coming.”

Instantly, it seemed, a ball of ice dropped into the pit of her stomach as every defensive instinct she possessed fired up. “Changes, is it?”

“You had to assume things would change, Aine.” He sat forward, propping his arms on the desk, and met her gaze. “The past couple of years, your castle has been losing money.”

She bristled and felt the first tremor of anxiety ripple through her. Was he saying she was at fault for the hotel losing money? Had he brought her all this way just to fire her? Was she about to lose not only her job but her home? Now it seemed she not only needed to defend her castle but herself, as well. “If you’re thinking my management of the castle has been lacking—”

“Not at all,” he interrupted her, and held up one hand to keep her from speaking again. “I’ve gone over the books, as have my partners, and we all agree that your skills are what held the place together the past couple of years.”

A relieved breath escaped her, but that sensation didn’t last long.

“Still,” he continued, and Aine felt as though she were hypnotized. She couldn’t tear her gaze from him, from his eyes. There was something pulling her toward him even as her common sense was shrieking a warning. Working with him would have been so much easier if he had been the stereotypical computer nerd—skinny, awkward. Instead, Brady Finn was obviously the kind of man who was used to issuing orders and having them obeyed without question. That worried her a bit, as she’d never been one to blindly fall in line.

“We’ll be making some substantial changes both to the castle itself and the way it’s run.”

Well, that simple sentence sent cold chills dancing through her. “What sort of substantial changes did you have in mind?” The words forced their way out of her mouth.

“Time enough to get into all of that,” he said and stood up. “We’ll get started on it tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. She was worried enough that she didn’t mind putting off whatever was coming. Yet at the same time, she knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink for thinking of it.

Her gaze tracked him. He was tall and broad shouldered, and in his white dress shirt his chest looked as wide as the sky. Her mouth went dry as she stood to face him. His eyes were fixed on her, and there was power in those blue depths. The kind of power only rich men knew. It was a mix of wealth and confidence and the surety of his own convictions. And that kind of man would not be easy to stand against.

“You must be hungry,” he said.

“I am, a bit,” she admitted, though if he continued to stare at her in just that way, she’d be lucky to swallow a single bite.

“Then, we’ll go to an early dinner and talk.” He walked to a closet, opened it and pulled out a black jacket. Shrugging it on, he went back to her side and waited.

“Talk?” she asked. “About what?”

He took her arm, threaded it through his and headed for the door. “You can tell me all about yourself and the castle.”

She’d no interest in talking about herself, but maybe, she thought, she could impress on him what the castle meant to those who worked there and the people in the nearby village, as well.