Page 11 of Temptation at His Door

He wasthatdesperate.

On the pro side, she had au pair experience and she was immediately available. And Keely, someone he knew and trusted, could vouch for her good character.

If he wasn’t attracted to Joa, he wouldn’t have hesitated to try and talk her into coming to work for him. But something about her caught his attention in a way that both scared and annoyed him. Yeah, she was beautiful, stunningly so, with her light eyes and warm skin.

And that wide, sensuous mouth made for kissing...

A huge con was that Joa was the first woman to pique his curiosity and interest after Thandi, and if he was smart, which he obviously wasn’t, he’d be running in the opposite direction.

But, because dividing his attention between two young boys and his demanding career was freakin’ exhausting, he’d texted her last night and asked if she’d pop around to meet him early this morning, before work, to discuss Keely’s out-of-the-blue proposal.

Because she was a little early, and he was very late, he was only dressed in exercise shorts and trainers when she walked into his house at eight the next morning. Ronan wished he’d had time for a quick shower after his workout or, at the very least, to toss on a shirt before her arrival, but nope...

Ronan led her into the kitchen area of his great-room-slash-kitchen-slash-living-room. In comparison to him, she looked fresh and feminine, filling the air with her subtle fragrance.

The urge to bury his sweaty face in her neck, to taste those sexy lips, was strong. Ronan closed his eyes. In his gym clothes, if he sported some wood, there would be no way to hide it. He looked past Joa’s shoulder to the photograph of Thandi on his fridge and his erection subsided.

Sorry, love. Forgive me.

Ronan rubbed his hand over his jaw, feeling his stubble. He needed to shave, but that wouldn’t happen this morning. “Sorry, we’re running late.”

Joa placed her bag on the granite counter of the center island. “I see that.”

Ronan couldn’t help noticing how her cranberry-colored silk sweater flowed over her amazing breasts. He swallowed and started to recite mathematical equations in his head. Unlike his brother Finn, Ronan didn’t find math a turn-on.

“The kids are still asleep. They wouldn’t settle down last night, so I eventually put them into my bed and put on a movie, thinking that would lull them to sleep. No such luck. I also overslept, so it’s a bit mad around here,” Ronan said. “And I have a crazy day ahead of me.”

“How so?” Joa asked, sliding onto a barstool and crossing one long leg over the other. Those legs went on for miles and he’d love to feel them around his hips or, if she was adventurous, around his neck.

Ronan wrenched his mind off what a naked Joa would look like and, needing something to do that hid his reaction to her, turned his back to check the water and coffee beans in his state-of-the-art machine.

Right, she’d asked about his day.

“This time of the year, as we plan the spring sales, every day is crazy. I will be home late tonight. I’m running a specialized sale on sports memorabilia.”

As he turned to look at her over his shoulder, he caught the flash of irritation in her eyes and wondered if she thought he’d assumed she’d be available to babysit for him tonight. He wasn’t that arrogant.

Ronan turned to face her and gripped the counter behind him. He answered the silent question he saw in her eyes. “Finn, my younger brother, agreed to look after the boys for me tonight. Luckily it’s only a small auction, so I should be done by ten.”

“I thought you only ran the big sales.”

It was a fair observation. As director of global sales and marketing and the company’s head auctioneer, he normally didn’t bother with the nuts-and-bolts auctions. “Normally I let the junior auctioneers run the smaller sales but my sports guy had a family emergency. I do have other auctioneers but there are some pretty big spenders in the audience. I thought I’d run the sale, connect with them on a guy-to-guy level.”

“I’d like to see an auction,” she admitted.

If she attended, he wouldn’t be able to concentrate. “You’re always welcome,” he lied, “though I am assuming you will be at the auction for Isabel’s collection. It will be one of the biggest auctions any house has conducted. It’s been billed as a once-in-a-generation sale. So it’s not a big deal or anything,” Ronan quipped.

Joa tipped her head to the side. “I presume that you know that Sadie thinks only one of the three paintings might be by Homer?”

Ronan nodded. “If Sadie manages to prove the painting’s provenance and if it turns out to be by Homer, it will be the last item auctioned.”

Joa had the prettiest frown he’d ever seen. “Do you think it’s genuine?”

For her and Keely’s sake he hoped it was, but he never, ever gave anyone false hope. And it was important to manage expectations. “I genuinely don’t know. Obviously, for your and Keely’s sakes, I’d like it to be genuine. But I never emotionally invest in anything that passes through our house. I can appreciate the skill and rarity and beauty but I know we are only temporary guardians of the artwork. And I refuse to waste my energy worrying whether a piece is genuine. It either is or isn’t and I can’t change the result.”

Instead of pouting, sulking or looking disappointed by his prosaic statement, Joa tipped her head to the side and seemed to give his words some thought. “That’s a fair assessment,” she eventually told him.

Smart and thoughtful. Damn, his life would be so much easier if she was just another pretty face. Pretty and sexy he could easily ignore, but pretty, sexy and smart was a killer combination.

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