Having Her Boss's Baby. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      “All right,” she said, then hesitated, remembering she hadn’t even changed clothes since her flight. “But I’m not dressed for it, really.”

      “You look great,” he assured her.

      How like a man was all she could think.

      “If we could stop by my hotel first,” she said, dismissing his words, “I’d like to change.”

      He shrugged and said, “Sure.”

      * * *

      She was worth the wait, Brady thought, looking across the linen-draped tablecloth at Aine. She wore a simple black dress with wide shoulder straps and a square neckline that displayed just the hint of the tops of her breasts. Her skin glowed like fine porcelain in the candlelight, and the candle flames seemed to shoot golden sparks through her dark red hair and wink off the tiny gold stars she wore at her ears.

      His insides burned, and watching her smile and sip at her wine was only stoking the flames. She was...temptation, Brady told himself. One he didn’t want to resist but would have to.

      “It’s lovely wine,” she said, setting her glass down.

      “Yeah. Lovely.” He didn’t mean the wine and, judging by the flash in her eyes, she knew it. Damn. This upscale restaurant with the candlelight had probably been a mistake. He should have taken her for a nice casual burger in a crowded diner. This setting was too damn intimate.

      The only way to keep the want clawing at him in check was to steer this conversation to business and keep it there. A shame that his brain didn’t exactly have dibs on his blood supply at the moment. “Tell me about the castle. From your perspective, what needs to be done?”

      She took a breath, then another sip of wine, and set the glass down again before speaking. “It’s true, there does need to be some remodeling. Bathrooms updated, new paint throughout, of course, and the furniture’s a bit shabby. But the building itself is strong and sure as it has been since it was first built in 1430.”

      Almost six hundred years. For a man with no family, no personal history to talk about, that kind of longevity seemed impossible to understand and accept. But as a man with no roots, changes came easier to him than they would to people like her. People who clung to traditions and tales of the past.

      “We’re going to do all of that, of course,” he said. “And more.”

      “That’s what worries me,” she admitted. “The more. I know you’ve said we’d talk about this tomorrow, but can you tell me some small things that you have in mind?”

      Hard to concentrate on the conversation when listening to her speak made that twist of desire inside him curl tighter. But maybe talking about the castle would help give him something else to focus on. Deliberately, he took a gulp of his wine to give himself time to settle. When he could think clearly again, he said, “Our company, Celtic Knot, is going into the hotel business.”

      She nodded and waited for him to continue.

      “Starting with Castle Butler, we’re buying three hotels and reimagining them.”

      “Reimagine sounds much grander than a few simple changes,” she said, suspicion clear in her tone.

      “It is,” he said. “We’re going to turn them into mock-ups of our three bestselling games.”

      “Games.”

      Warming to his theme, Brady said, “The first will be Fate Castle.”

      “Fate...?”

      “Designed after our first successful game.”

      “I know of it,” she said quietly.

      His eyebrows shot up, and he couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of his voice when he asked, “You’ve played it? And here I was thinking you didn’t look the gaming type to me.”

      “There’s a type, is there?” She ran her fingers up and down the stem of her wineglass, but the movement was anything but smooth and relaxed. “As it happens, you’d be right. I don’t play, but my younger brother, Robbie, does. He’s mad for your games.”

      Brady smiled in spite of the coolness in her eyes. “He has excellent taste.”

      “I wouldn’t know,” she said with detachment, “for the idea of using a toy to chase down zombies and wraiths doesn’t appeal to me.”

      “You shouldn’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

      “What makes you think I haven’t?”

      “You’d like it more if you had,” he said simply. He knew their games were addictive to players. “Our games are more than just running and shooting. There are intricate puzzles to be solved. Choices made, and the player takes the consequences for those choices. Our games are more sophisticated in that we expect our players to think.”

      She smiled briefly. “To listen to Robbie shouting and railing against the game, you wouldn’t know it was a test of intelligence.”

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