“Three weeks?”
Her surprise sounded in her voice even if he hadn’t seen it in her eyes. Brady paid no attention and continued, “I’ll want your input on some of the changes to the bedrooms, the furnishings, the setup to the new kitchens. There we want the medieval look and feel but naturally all modern appliances...”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “Did you say three weeks?”
“Yeah.” He looked at her. “Is that a problem?”
“I never thought I’d be here that long.”
Brady watched her and could almost see the wheels of her brain turning. She chewed at her bottom lip, and the action tugged at something inside him. Her face was an open book, he thought. There was no artifice there, no poker face. She obviously wasn’t as used to schooling her features as he was.
But then, he’d spent a lifetime hiding what he was feeling from the rest of the world.
And over the years that had become easier because Brady had simply avoided feeling anything at all. Friendship was one thing. He couldn’t stop caring for the Ryan brothers because they were the only family he’d ever known. Cutting them out of his life would be impossible even if he wanted to. It hadn’t been easy, lowering his defenses enough to let them in, but Mike and Sean had simply refused to be shut out of Brady’s life. They’d steamrolled over his objections and had drawn him into a circle of friendship he’d never known before them.
They were the only people who saw Brady’s laughter or anger or fears. They were the only people he trusted that much. And he had no intention of risking anyone else getting that close. Especially a woman who worked for him.
Didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the rush of desire that came out of nowhere to knock his legs out from under him.
“Three weeks,” she repeated, more to herself than to him.
“Is there a problem?” He heard the stiffness in his own voice and didn’t bother to soften it. She worked for Celtic Knot, whether she was in Ireland or America.
She responded to his tone and he watched as she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Why those subtle movements would affect him as much as a more sensual move would have was beyond him.
“Three weeks is a long time when you’re not prepared for it,” she said, then she became thoughtful. “I can call home, let the staff know I won’t be about, and then call my mother...”
Now she surprised him. “Your mother?”
“She’d worry otherwise, wouldn’t she?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Brady said simply. How the hell would he know what mothers were like? His own had dropped him off at Child Services when he was six years old, with the promise to come back by the end of the week. He’d never seen her again. As for the Ryan brothers, whenever they went home to visit with their folks, Brady stayed away. He’d gone with them once, during college. And though their parents had made every effort, Brady had spent that incredibly long weekend too uncomfortable to accept their open hospitality. He had no idea how to deal with the threads of family and he told himself it was too damn late now to try to understand it. Not that he wanted to.
Aine looked at him in confusion, but that expression quickly faded. “I’m happy to stay, of course,” she said a little too tightly to be believable. “I’ll help in any way I can, obviously.”
“Good.” He nodded shortly and refused to acknowledge the fact that the next three weeks with Aine Donovan were going to be a test of the self-control he’d always prided himself on. Hell, even sitting here beside her in the sunlight was making him burn. Watching her eyes narrow on him kindled those slow-moving flames inside him until his skin buzzed with expectation. She was unexpected, but damned if he could regret having her drop into his lap—so to speak.
Maybe he would regret it later. But for right now, that quickening fire was all he could think about.
* * *
For the next week, Aine felt as if she was living in a tornado—the Brady Finn Tornado. It seemed he was tireless. They roamed through countless antiques stores—and Brady kept insisting that old furniture was the same, whether European or American. She’d fought him on several tables, chairs and even a bed or two, and to give the man his due, he was willing to be nudged away from his first decision when offered a better choice. But he was monopolizing her time. They were together every day and talked of what still needed to be done over dinner.
And every day it became just a little bit harder to ignore the heat she felt just being around him.
Ridiculous, and she knew it, to feel this way, but it appeared she had no control over her body’s reaction to a man she had no business getting dizzy over. He was autocratic, opinionated, and he tended to speak to her as if he were expecting her to pull a steno tablet from her bag and start taking notes.
If anything, she should be infuriated at his domineering attitude. Yes, he was her employer, but he wasn’t the Prince of Wales, was he? And even if he were, Aine admitted, an Irishwoman wouldn’t be bowing down to him.
But instead of this very rational reaction to being ordered about on a daily basis, Aine spent entirely too much time watching his mouth as he spoke, wondering what his lips would feel like. Taste like. And it wasn’t as if she could escape these thoughts when she slept, because her dreams were full of him, as well.
Because, she acknowledged, bossy and controlling wasn’t all there was to the man. She’d also seen him stop and hold a door for a woman burdened down with bags of groceries. Whenever they went walking he never failed to drop a bill or two into the open cases of street musicians or to hand money to a homeless man holding a cardboard sign. He was a confusing mixture of rough and kind, of sharp and soft, and he fascinated her more with every passing day.
“I think that takes care of today’s business,” Brady said, snapping Aine’s attention back to him.
The sea wind ruffled his dark hair like fingers running through it and Aine folded her own fingers into her palm to avoid the urge to do it herself. He pulled off dark glasses and laid them on the table in front of him. Lunch at this sidewalk café in Newport Beach had become something of a habit over the past week. Here was where they sat, went over his plans and purchases made for the castle.
“Really? No more looking for just the right linens today, then?”
He slanted her a sardonic look. “You don’t want to shop? I never thought I’d hear that particular statement from a woman.”
“Allow me to be the first,” Aine said, picking up her tea and taking a sip. She winced slightly at the taste and idly wished for a real cup of tea. “’Tis fair, I think, to say that my shopping quota has been met for the year, at least.”
“Tired of looking at towels, huh?”
“You aren’t?”
“I couldn’t be more bored,” he admitted and picked up his coffee for a long drink. “But it’s important that we have everything just as it should be at this new hotel. Even down to the towels.”
While she could admire his attention to detail, it surprised her that the owner of a hotel was taking such personal responsibility for every aspect of his business. “I agree,” she said, tipping her head to one side to watch him. “It’s only that the previous owner never bothered with such minutiae so I’m a bit surprised.”
He set his coffee cup down. “But the previous owner ended up losing his hotel to me, didn’t he?”
“True.”
“I don’t lose,” he said shortly.
She was willing to bet that Brady Finn had never lost anything important to him. What must it be like, she wondered, to