only seemed to highlight that opinion. He expected things to go his way, so they did. If he met an obstacle, it was probably his nature to roll right over it. He wouldn’t be stopped. Wouldn’t be changed. Wouldn’t be ignored.
And God help her, she found all of that fascinating. She shouldn’t, Aine knew. But how could she ignore what it was that happened to her when he was near—or on those rare occasions when he actually touched her? A casual brush of his hand against hers. His hand at the small of her back when he guided her through one of the innumerable shops they’d been through in the past several days? The flash of pride she felt when he turned and asked her opinion on something. The look in his eyes when he would stop suddenly and stare at her as if she’d simply dropped from the sky.
All of this and more was what fed the dreams that kept her restless every night and woke her feeling on edge, as though she was standing on a precipice and needed only the slightest push to tumble over. It was pointless to have these feelings, to indulge in dreams that would lead nowhere, she knew. The chasm separating them was too wide, and deep. A woman from a small rural village in Ireland had nothing in common with a multimillionaire.
“Is there a problem?”
His voice, deep, low and somehow intimate, tore her from her thoughts. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“A problem?” he asked. “You went quiet, and the look on your face tells me you’re trying to think your way out of something.”
Wasn’t it an annoying thing, she thought, to not have your thoughts remain your own? “So easy to read, am I?”
One corner of his mouth lifted briefly. “Poker? Not your game.”
“Humiliating, but true enough,” she said on a sigh. Heaven knew he wasn’t the first person to see what she was thinking by studying her expression. Hopefully, though, he wouldn’t be able to suss out exactly what it was she felt when he was close. Her humiliation then would know no bounds. “But no, there’s no problem. I’m only thinking about home, wondering what’s happening while I’m gone.”
“You live with your mother and brother, don’t you?”
She looked at him and saw speculation in his eyes. “Yes, and you’re wondering why at my age I would be.”
He nodded and waited for whatever she had to say next.
Sighing a bit, Aine said, “The truth is, I moved out when I was twenty. Took a flat in the village and loved having my own space.” She smiled, remembering. “I love my family, but—”
“I get it,” he said companionably.
Her smile widened, then slipped away. “But then, five years ago, my father died.”
“Sorry.”
He looked uncomfortable, as most people did when faced with something they couldn’t change or help with.
“Thank you.” Aine smiled at him again, letting him know she was fine. She still missed her father, but the worst of the pain had faded over the years. She could talk about him now, think about him, without a crushing ache settling into her heart. “He was a fisherman and there was a ferocious storm one night. He never came home.” She frowned then, remembering how their family had changed so suddenly. “My mother was wrecked. Shattered without him, as he was the love of her life. They’d been together so long and had been true partners in everything. Without him, she was lost and didn’t want to be found. So I moved back home to help her care for Robbie, who was only twelve at the time and just as lost as Mum.”
“Must have been hard.”
She saw a glimmer of understanding in his eyes and responded to it. “It was, for some time. But things are better now and Mum is not so sad as before.”
“So you put your life on hold for your family.”
She shrugged. “’Tis what you do for those you love.”
He frowned a bit at that, and Aine wondered about it. Did he not understand after all? Had he no one in his life to matter so much? Her heart twisted at that thought.
“You miss it?”
“Ireland, you mean?” Surprised at the question, she said, “’Tis natural, isn’t it? It’s home after all.”
“Right.” He nodded, set his coffee aside and said, “Tell me about it.”
“About Ireland?”
That half smile appeared again and vanished in a blink. “Not all of it, just your part. The village. The castle.”
All around them, people laughed and talked. Waiters moved through the cluster of tables with the easy rhythm of long practice. The hum of traffic from the street became a drone of sound that mimicked the ocean just half a block away. Sunlight slanted through a bank of white clouds and glinted off the glass-topped tables.
As lovely as it was, the scene around her was a lifetime and more from what Aine knew and loved. She took a breath, smiled as she drew up the familiar images in her mind and started talking.
“The village is small but has everything we need in it. If you’re wanting more of a shopping experience, Galway city is but an hour’s drive.” Her voice softened as she described the country that seemed so very far away. “As I’ve always lived there, I might be a bit biased, but it’s a lovely village and the people are warm and friendly. The roads are narrow, lined with thick hedgerows of gorse and fuchsia—”
He laughed shortly. “Those are plants?”
She grinned. “Yes, fine, heavy hedges that bloom with yellow and red flowers in spring and early summer. You drive down roads so narrow that sometimes it’s a wonder two cars could pass each other. Farms abound, with their stone walls and grazing cows and sheep. There are ruins, of course,” she said, bracing her forearms on the warm tabletop. “Conical towers and the remains of castles long fallen stand near stone dances where, if you listen closely enough, you can hear the echoes of voices from the past.”
Her gaze caught his and she stared into those deep, guarded eyes as she said softly, “The sky is so blue in Ireland you could weep for it. And when the clouds roll in from the Atlantic, they carry with them either fine, soft rain or storms vicious enough to moan through the stones of the castle until it sounds as if souls are screaming.”
A moment of silence ticked past before Brady spoke and shattered the spell she’d woven for herself.
“Souls screaming,” he repeated thoughtfully. “That’ll go well with the guests at Fate Castle.”
“That’s what you heard? Something to help with your business?” she asked, wondering if he ever thought of anything else.
“It’s not all I heard,” he said. “But it’s my main interest. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” he asked with a shrug. “If not for my buying the castle, you’d still be in Ireland trying to think of a way to save the hotel you manage.”
So he’d heard nothing of the magic of Ireland in her description. Only the barest facts as it concerned his latest business. “You’ve a way of boiling things down to their center, don’t you?”
“No point in pretending otherwise, is there?”
“I suppose not,” she said, and knew he was probably reading her expression again. This time what he would see was exasperation, and she was comfortable with that. She might be determined to keep her temper, but the fact that the man could so easily dismiss a hotel that had been in operation for decades—never mind the centuries-old castle itself—was still annoying.
He laughed, and the sound was so surprising she forgot her momentary irritation. “What’s funny?”
“You. You’re insulted on behalf of your castle.”
“As you’ve continually pointed out, ’tis not mine but your castle,” she said more stiffly than she’d wanted.