Page 13 of Temptation at His Door

That would be a betrayal. Shaking his head, he forced the thought away.

He needed to get his morning, and his life, back on track. “You’re a sexy woman and yeah, I’m attracted,” Ronan conceded. “But—”

“But it’s still not going to happen,” Joa finished his sentence for him, rolling her eyes. “Damn straight it’s not. I prefer my lovers to be excited about taking me to bed, not angry and resentful.”

Ouch. But fair.

“So let’s admit that there’s a mutual attraction that will not be acted on. Agreed?”

Ronan managed a sharp nod and begged his blood to return to his brain.

Joa reached for her bag, pulling it over her shoulder. She looked past him and Ronan turned to see what captured her attention. Damn, it was the photo of Thandi, her hand holding her hat to her head, blue eyes sparkling, and her smile wide.

His heart cracked. Asking Joa to come here had been such a bad idea, one of the worst he’d had. He needed to backtrack, but Joa beat him to it.

“Going back to why I am here...” She gripped the bridge of her nose before forcing her eyes to meet his. “I’m sorry, but no, I can’t help you with your boys.

“Best of luck, I hope you find someone suitable.” Joa added, walking toward the huge square entrance to the hallway. Then she turned and sent him a tight smile.

“Oh, and if you don’t want your female employees lusting after you, then I strongly suggest you put on some clothes when you conduct job interviews, Murphy. Walking around half-naked isn’t conducive to keeping the arrangement businesslike and might give potential nannies the wrong impression.”

The heels of her boots clicked on the marble floor in his hallway and then he heard his front door opening, then closing. Ronan slumped onto the closest stool. Joa wielded a mean verbal punch. It was just another thing he liked about her.

Crap.

Four

He was late...

Again.

Ronan stepped out of the lift, looked at his watch and grimaced. Thanks to Sam’s teacher wanting to talk to him this morning—apparently it was his turn to provide the class with nut-and gluten-free cupcakes on Friday—he was ten minutes late for the Murphy weekly management meeting.

Eli stepped out of their suite of offices, holding out Ronan’s favorite cup. Ronan wrapped his fingers around it and took a big sip of coffee before dumping his coat and leather briefcase into Eli’s arms.

“You know I hate asking you to do personal stuff for me, but please will you organize cupcakes, free of gluten, dairy, peanut and tree nut, to be delivered to Sam’s school on Friday?”

Eli’s love of food was reflected in the slight paunch under his lime green shirt. Today, his pants were a sober black. Eli wrinkled his nose. “What’s the point of having cupcakes, then?”

“I’m presuming they are trying to avoid a kid being rushed to the hospital in anaphylactic shock,” Ronan dryly replied.

Eli sniffed. “The idea offends me.”

Ronan smiled. Eli was often dramatic but he was smart and efficient and often caught the balls Ronan dropped.

And he made truly excellent coffee.

Ronan sipped, sighed and gestured for Eli to walk with him. “Anything I need to know before I go into the meeting?”

Eli nodded, his usually merry face sober. “Yeah. As you well know, the Beijing office is holding a sale in Chinese ceramics...”

Ronan nodded. For the last twenty years, rich Chinese citizens were on a mission to bring Chinese art and artifacts back to their country. The French collector who’d decided to liquidate his extensive collection of Asian ceramics and jade through Murphy International was expecting a multimillion-dollar payday.

“...the head auctioneer was rushed to the hospital with a suspected burst appendix. He’s currently in ICU.”

Ronan grimaced. He liked Wu, a longtime employee of their Beijing office. “Crap. Is he going to be okay?”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. But Mei Lien isn’t comfortable asking Chen to run the auction.”

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