LITMIR.BIZ

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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.”

      He smiled again as her voice twisted the knots in his belly even tighter. “Well, even smart guys get angry when they don’t succeed at first try.”

      “True enough,” she said, then paused as the waiter delivered their meals.

      La Bella Vita was Brady’s favorite restaurant. Elegant, quiet, and the food was as amazing as the atmosphere. The walls were a pale yellow, with paintings of Italy dotting the space. Candles flickered atop every one of the linen-draped tables, and soft music sighed through the speakers tucked into the corners of the room. The clink of crystal and the rise and fall of muted conversations around them filled the silence while Aine took a bite of her crab-stuffed ravioli in Alfredo sauce.

      “Good?” he asked.

      “Wonderful,” she said, then asked, “Do you often bring your employees to such a fine restaurant?”

      “No,” he admitted and couldn’t have said, even to himself, why he’d brought Aine here. They could have stopped for a burger somewhere or eaten at the restaurant in her hotel. Instead, he’d brought her here, as if they were on a date. Which they really weren’t. Best to steer this back to work. “It’s quiet here, though, and I thought that would give us a chance to talk.”

      “About the castle.”

      “Yes, and about your part in helping us make this happen.”

      “My part?” Genuine surprise flashed in her eyes.

      Brady took a bite of his own ravioli, then said, “You’ll be there on-site, for the day-to-day changes. We need you to oversee the workers, make sure they stay on schedule, on budget, things like that.”

      “I’m to be in charge?”

      “You’re my liaison,” he told her. “You come to me with problems, I take care of them, then you make sure they’re handled right.”

      “I see.” She dragged her fork listlessly across her plate.

      “Is there a problem?”

      “Have you given thought to who will be doing the work?”

      “We’ve got the best contractor in California lined up,” Brady said. “He’ll be bringing in crews he trusts.”

      She frowned a bit. “Things might go easier and more quickly if you hired Irish workmen.”

      “I don’t like working with people I don’t know,” he said.

      “Yet here we are, and you don’t know me from the man in the moon.”

      “True.” He nodded. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

      “Good. But you’ve yet to tell me what kind of changes you’re talking about.” She met his gaze. “You said only that you were going to ‘reimagine’ things. Which could mean anything at all. What exactly are you planning?”

      “Nothing structural,” he told her. “We like the look of Castle Butler—that’s why we bought it. But there will be plenty of changes made to the interior.”

      She sighed, set her fork down and admitted, “To be honest, that’s what I’m worried about.”

      “In what way?”

      “Will I be seeing zombies in the hallways?” she asked. “Cobwebs strung across the stone?”

      She looked so worried about that possibility, Brady grinned. “Tempting, but no. We’ll go into all the details starting tomorrow, but I’ll say tonight I think you’ll like what we’ve got in mind.”

      Folding her hands on the table, she looked at him and said, “I’ve worked at Castle Butler since I was sixteen and went into the kitchens. I worked my way up from there, becoming first a maid, then moving on through reception and finally into managing the castle.

      “I know every board that creaks, every draft that blows through broken mortar. I know every wall that needs painting and every tree in the garden that needs trimming.” She paused, took a breath and continued before he could speak, “Everyone who works in the castle is a friend to me, or family. The village depends on the hotel for its livelihood and their worries are mine, as well. So,” she said softly, “when you speak of reimagining the castle, know that for me, it’s not about games.”

      Brady could see that. Her forest green eyes met his, and he read the stubborn strength in them that foretold all kinds of interesting battles ahead.

      Damned if he wasn’t looking forward to them.

       Three

      By the following day, Aine was sure she’d stepped in it with Brady at dinner. She’d had such plans to mind her temper and her words and hadn’t she thrown all those plans to the wind the moment he mentioned “substantial changes”?

      She sipped room-service tea and watched the play of sunlight on the water from her balcony. The tea was a misery, and why was it, she wondered, that Americans couldn’t brew a decent cup of tea? But the view was breathtaking—the water sapphire blue, crested with whitecaps, and in the distance, a boat with a bright red sail skimmed that frothy surface.

      She only wished the vista was enough to clear her mind of the mistakes made the night before. But as her father used to say, she’d already walked that path—it was useless to regret the footprints left behind.

      So she would do better today. She’d meet Brady Finn’s partners and be the very essence of professionalism...

      Not two hours

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