Page 10 of Temptation at His Door

“Why? Is there something you want to keep? We can withdraw anything at any time,” Keely quickly replied.

Joa held up her hand. “I’m happy with your selection, Keels. But as I walked through the house, I noticed that there’s still a lot of furniture and stuff left in the house. What are we going to do with it all? And what are we going to do with the house?”

Keely shrugged. “We need to talk about that. And we need to discuss Isabel’s foundation. The CEO left a month back and we need to look for someone to run it. It’s a full-time job and I can’t do it, I’m swamped.”

Keely was a speech therapist and loved her work. Joa was happy her practice was thriving. “Now that I am back, maybe I can help out with the foundation, take a little of the load off you.”

Keely smiled her appreciation. “That would be awesome, thank you. So, about this house. Do you agree that it’s too big for either of us, or even both of us?”

She did. Who needed a fifteen-bedroom house with four reception rooms, two libraries and a ballroom?

“We could sell it...”

Joa pulled a face. “I don’t want to live in it, but I don’t think I want it to go out of the family, either. Besides, who would buy such a huge house?”

Keely’s eyes turned stormy. “Stuffy Seymour says we could convert it into luxury apartments. He has a developer friend who is interested in doing just that.”

Joa tipped her head to the side, intrigued by the annoyance she heard in Keely’s voice. Keely was the friendliest person she knew—bossy, sure, but she liked people and people liked her back—so Joa couldn’t understand her antipathy to Isabel’s lawyer. “What on earth did he do to upset you?”

Keely refused to meet Joa’s eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Keely, you’ve done nothing but grumble about him since the day you met. From what I can see, he’s been professional and he’s done a great job of looking after our interests. Yet you seem to be perpetually pissed off with him. Why?”

Keely’s shoulders inched upward. “He just annoys me. He’s arrogant and bossy and thinks he knows everything about everything.”

Pot. Kettle. Lots of black.

Joa swallowed her smile, intrigued by the idea that Keely had finally met a man she couldn’t wind around her baby finger. So what was it about Dare Seymour that raised such fury in Keely? Joa couldn’t wait to find out. “Let’s invite him to dinner.”

Keely looked horrified. “What? Why?”

Joa felt laughter in the back of her throat. Payback wassuchfun. “I’d like to thank him for all his hard work.”

“He’s getting a percentage of Iz’s estate for working that hard,” Keely complained.

As Dare was one of the most successful lawyers in the city and came from a famous and cash-flush old Boston family, they both knew he didn’t need Iz’s money. “Keels...”

“I’d prefer to keep it businesslike,” Keely muttered.

If Keely really wanted to keep it professional then she wouldn’t be squirming in her chair. And why were her cheeks flushed?Oh, Keely Matthews, what is going through your head?

Joa made up her mind. “I definitely think he should come to dinner.”

Keels drooped her head to the surface of the table and gently banged her forehead against the laminated surface. “Why do you hate me so much?”

“More to the point, why do you hate Dare Seymour?”

“I don’t hate him.” Keely’s reply was muffled. “He just irritates me. I don’t know why.”

Joa thought it was time that Keely found out. “Tell me what date suits you and I’ll set it up.”

Keely groaned. “I hate you so much right now.”

Joa reached across the table to pat her head. “No, you don’t, you love me.”

“I can do both. It’s a skill I’ve perfected,” Keely mumbled.

After Keely’s surprise pronouncement two days before—and after trawling through résumés of nannies, finding problems with all of them—and two days of hell juggling the boys—Ronan thought he should talk to Joa again about the possibility of her coming to work for him as a temporary nanny.

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