“I’ll not say a thing until I’ve heard him out, and that’s the best I can promise,” she said and hoped she could keep that vow.
It was only that this was so important. To her. To her family. To the village that looked to the castle’s guests to shop in their stores, eat in their pubs. Now a trio of American businessmen had purchased the castle and everyone was worried about what might happen.
For the past three years, Aine had managed the castle hotel and though she’d had to fight the owner for every nail and gallon of paint needed for its upkeep, she felt she’d done a good job of it. Now though, things had changed. It wasn’t only the hotel she had to see to—it was the survival of her village and her family’s future she fought for. She hated feeling off balance, as if she was one step behind everyone else in the bloody world. It was being here, in California, that was throwing her. If Brady Finn had come to Ireland, she might have felt more in control of the situation. As it was, she’d have to stay on her toes and impress on the new owner the importance of the responsibility he had just acquired.
“I know you’ll do what’s best,” her mother said.
It was hard, having the faith of everyone you knew and loved settled on your shoulders. More than her mother and brother were counting on her; the whole village was worried, and Aine was their hope. She wouldn’t let them down.
“I will. You go back to sleep now, Mum. I’ll call you again tomorrow.” She paused and smiled. “At a better time.”
Aine took the time before the arrival of her new employer to freshen up. She fixed her makeup, did her hair and, since she was running out of time, didn’t bother with changing her clothes, only gave them a quick brush.
But when five o’clock came and went with still no sign of her new employer, Aine’s temper spiked. So much for her vow of patience. Was he so busy, then, that he couldn’t even be bothered to contact her to say his plans had changed? Or did he think so little of her that being late for their appointment didn’t bother him? The phone in her suite rang and when she answered, the hotel desk clerk said, “Ms. Donovan? Your driver is here to take you to the Celtic Knot offices.”
“My driver?”
“Yes. Apparently Mr. Finn was delayed and so sent a driver to take you to your meeting.”
Irritation rippled along her nerve endings. In seconds, her mind raced with outraged thoughts. Hadn’t she flown thousands of miles to meet with him? And now, after being ignored by the great man, she was being sent for, was she? Lord of the manor summoning a scullery maid? Had he a velvet rope in his office that he tugged on to get all of his servants moving in a timely fashion?
“Ms. Donovan?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, yes.” It wasn’t this man’s fault, was it, that her new employer had the manners of a goat? “Would you please tell the driver I’ll be down in a moment?”
She hung up, then took another moment to check her reflection. But for the anger-infused color in her cheeks, she looked fine, though she briefly considered changing her clothes after all. Aine decided against it as she doubted very much her new employer would be pleased if she kept him waiting.
Thankfully, flying on a private jet hadn’t left her looking as haggard as surviving a twelve-hour flight in economy would have. So she would go now to meet the man who clearly expected his underlings to leap into motion when he spoke. And she would, even if it killed her, keep her temper.
“We need the new storyboards by tomorrow afternoon at the latest,” Brady barked into the phone. He’d been hung up for the past two hours with call after call and his patience was strained to the breaking point. “No more excuses, Peter. Meet the deadline or be replaced.”
Artists were difficult to deal with in the best of times. But Peter Singer was an artist with no ambition and no idea of how to schedule his time. With the best of intentions, the man laid down deadlines, then because he was so disorganized, he never managed to meet the dates he himself had arranged.
His talent wasn’t in question. Peter was good at sketching out the boards the programmers would use to lay out the basic story line of their newest game. And without that road map, the whole process would be brought to a crawl. In fact, Peter was good enough at his work that Brady had given him several extensions when he’d asked for them. But he wasn’t getting another one.
“Brady, I can have them for you by the end of the week,” the man was arguing. “I’m on a roll here, but I can’t get them by tomorrow. That’s just impossible. I swear they’ll be worth the wait if you—”
“Tomorrow, Peter,” Brady said flatly, as he turned in his desk chair to stare out the window behind him. “Have them here by five tomorrow or start looking for another job.”
“You can’t rush art.”
“If I can pay for it, I can rush it,” Brady told him, idly watching a blackbird jump from branch to branch in the pine tree out back. “And you’ve had three months on your last extension to make this deadline, so no sense in complaining now that you’re being rushed. Do it or not. Your choice.”
He hung up before he could be drawn into more of Peter’s dramatic appeals. He’d been dealing with marketing most of the day—not his favorite part of the job anyway—so he admittedly had less patience than he normally would have for Peter’s latest justification for failure. But the point was, they had a business to run, schedules to keep and for the past year Peter hadn’t been able to, or wasn’t interested in, keeping to the schedule. It was time to move on, find another graphic artist who could do the job. Sean was right. Jenny Marshall deserved a shot.
And now, rather than head home for a well-deserved beer, Brady had one more meeting to get through. As the thought passed through his mind, he heard a brisk knock at his door and knew the Irishwoman had arrived.
“Come in.”
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