expect more from him than he was willing to give.
Sean glanced at her photo. “She looks...nice.”
Brady snorted at Sean’s pitiful attempt to be kind. Even he had to admit that the Irishwoman wasn’t much to look at. In that photo, her hair was scraped back from her face, probably into a tidy bun. She wore glasses that made her green eyes look huge, and her pale skin looked white against the black blouse she wore buttoned primly up to the base of her throat.
“She’s a hotel manager, not a model,” Brady pointed out, for some reason feeling the need to defend the woman.
“Let me see that,” Mike said.
Sean passed the slightly out-of-focus photo across the table. Mike studied it for a minute. Lifting his gaze to Brady’s, Mike shrugged. “She looks...efficient.”
Shaking his head at the two of them, Brady took the picture back, slid it into the file and closed the folder. “Doesn’t matter what she looks like as long as she can do the job. And according to the reports we got on the hotel and its employees, she’s good at what she does.”
“Have you talked to her about the changes we’ve got planned?”
“Not really,” he told Mike. “It was pointless to try to explain everything long distance. Besides, we only just got the finalized plan for the remodel.”
Since the construction crews would begin work in a month, it was time to bring Aine Donovan up to date.
“Well, if we’re finished with the Irish news,” Sean said, “I had a call from a toy company interested in marketing some of our characters.”
“Toys?” Mike sneered. “Not really who we are, Sean.”
“Gotta agree.” Brady shook his head. “Our games are more for the teenagers-and-up crowd.”
“True, but if they were collectibles...” Sean’s voice trailed off even as he gave them both a small smile.
Brady and Mike looked at each other and nodded.
“Collectibles is a different story,” Brady said. “We get people excited about owning our characters—that will only push the games themselves higher up the food chain.”
“Yeah, that could work,” Mike finally said. “Get some numbers. Once we have a better idea of the licensing agreement we can talk it over again.”
“Right.” Sean stood up and looked at Brady. “You picking up Irish from the airport?”
“No.” Brady stood, too, and gathered up the file folder. “I’ve got a car meeting her and taking her directly to the hotel.”
“That’s the personal touch,” Sean muttered.
Brady snapped, “It’s not a date, Sean. She’s coming here to work.”
“You setting her up at the Seaview?” Mike asked, interrupting Sean.
“Yeah.” The company kept a suite at the nearby hotel for visiting clients. It was within walking distance to their business, which made meetings easier to arrange. It was also where Brady lived, in a penthouse suite. “I’ll go over there this afternoon to meet with her. Tomorrow’s soon enough for us to show her what we’ve got in mind for the remodel.”
Once the three of them explained the situation to Aine Donovan, she could get back to Ireland and, more important, Brady could get back to his life.
* * *
“I’m here, Mum, and it’s just lovely.”
“Aine?”
She winced at the sleepy tone of her mother’s voice. Standing on the balcony off the living room of her hotel suite, Aine stared out at the blue Pacific and finally remembered the time difference between California and home. Here in Long Beach, it was four in the afternoon and a warm sun was shining out of a clear sky. Back in County Mayo, it was...after midnight.
Now that she thought about it, Aine realized she should be exhausted. But she wasn’t. Excitement about the travel, she guessed, tangled with anxiety over what was going to happen once she met with Brady Finn about her castle. All right, not her castle, but certainly more hers than his, despite his having bought the place a few months ago. What did he know of its traditions, its history and legacy, its importance to the village where her friends lived? Nothing, that’s what, she told herself, though she’d make him aware of all of it before he began whatever remodeling he had in mind.
It worried her to be sure—what did a video game maven want with a centuries-old castle in a tiny village in Ireland? It wasn’t as though Castle Butler had ever been a tourist draw. There were far finer estates, much easier to get to, dotting the Irish countryside.
Thoughts whirled in her brain, circling each other, making her mind a jumble that only cleared momentarily when her mother spoke again. “Aine. You’ve arrived, then?”
“I have. I’m so sorry, Mum. I completely forgot—”
“No matter.” Molly Donovan’s voice became clearer and Aine could almost see her mother sitting up in bed, trying to wake herself. “I’m glad you called. Your flight was all right, then?”
“More than all right.” She’d never flown in a private jet before, and now that she had, Aine knew she’d never be happy in coach again. “It was like flying while relaxing in a posh living room. There were couches and tables and flowers in the loo. The flight attendant made fresh cookies,” she said. “Cooked them up right there on the plane. Or maybe only heated them. But there was a real meal and champagne to go with it and really, I was almost sorry when the flight ended.”
A hard truth indeed, because once her travel was over, it meant that she had no choice but to face down the man who owned the company that had the power to ruin her life and the lives of so many others. But, she argued with herself, why would he do that? Surely he wouldn’t purchase the castle only to shut down the hotel? True enough that profits hadn’t been what they should be in the past couple of years, but she had ideas to change all that, didn’t she? The previous owner hadn’t wanted to be bothered. She could only hope that this one would.
Although, she had to say, he was setting the scene perfectly to keep her off balance, wasn’t he? Sending a private jet for her. Then, rather than meeting her himself, he’d had a driver there holding a sign with her name on it. Arranging for her to stay in a suite that was larger than the entire first floor of the guest cottage where she and her family lived, yet not a whisper of a personal greeting from the man.
He was letting her know, without speaking a word, that he was in charge. Master to servant, she supposed, and wondered if all exceedingly wealthy people were the same.
“It sounds lovely. And now?” her mother asked. “You’re tucked into a hotel?”
“I am,” Aine said, turning her face into the wind driving in from the sea. “I’m standing on a terrace looking out at the ocean. It’s warm and lovely, nothing like spring at home.”
“Aye,” her mother agreed. “Rained all day and half the night. Now, you’ll have your meeting with the new owner of the castle soon, won’t you?”
“I will.” Aine’s stomach fluttered with the wings of what felt like a million butterflies. She laid one hand on her abdomen in a futile attempt to ease that stirring of nerves. “He’s left a message for me saying he’ll be here at five.”
A message, she told herself and shook her head. Again, she recalled the man hadn’t bothered to meet her at the airport or give her the courtesy of being here when she arrived. All small ways to impress upon her that she was on his territory now and that he would be the one making the decisions. Well, he might hold the purse strings, but she would at least be heard.
“You’ll not be a terrier at the man from the beginning, will you?” her mother asked. “You’ll have some patience?”
Patience