Page 44 of Temptation at His Door

Not, on any planet, a good thing.

Joa swallowed, closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then she counted to twenty, telling herself she had to get it together. She was in his employ. She shouldn’t be having naughty-but-nice thoughts about him.

But dammit, he looked like a sports model—six foot three of defined muscles topped by a masculine face. How could shenotwant to jump him?

Joa gripped the strap of her bag and held on for dear life. Dimly remembering where they were, she gave herself a mental slap and hauled in some air. She’d tell him about Abigail later. “So, was there a reason you called me down here?”

Ronan took a minute to make sense of her words and he eventually nodded, excitement replacing lust. “Oh, right! Yeah, there’s something I want to show you.”

Joa couldn’t work out what he could possibly want to show her at his place of work. Their only connection, apart from their take-me-hard attraction, was the boys and the sale of Iz’s collection. She wasn’t an art buff and knew nothing about antiques.

“Okay.” Joa shrugged.

Ronan threaded his fingers in hers, pulling her toward the bank of elevators at the end of the hall. He keyed in a code on the far right and when they stepped inside, Joa realized the elevator was smaller than normal and couldn’t take more than two people, maybe three.

“Where are we going?”

“A secure storage room in the basement,” Ronan explained. “It’s where we store our most valuable works.”

She was still in the dark. “Why are we going there?”

Ronan ran his knuckle over her cheekbone, his abalone-shell eyes glinting with an emotion she couldn’t quite read. Tenderness? Excitement? A mixture of both? “You’ll see.”

The elevator opened into a small vestibule and was guarded by a solid, opaque door. Ronan keyed in another code and the door opened. They walked into a massive storage room filled with shelves. In the center of the room was a long table and on it, packages in bubble wrap.

Joa glanced around, saw the cameras on each corner and raised her eyebrows at the security. “I feel like a hundred eyes are watching me.”

“Not quite a hundred but, yes, this room is constantly monitored by our security team. Finn, Carrick and I are the only people allowed down here on our own and if someone needs to retrieve an item from storage they are accompanied by the head of our security. Everything that happens in this room is recorded from every angle.”

Joa resisted the urge to wave at the nearest camera.

Ronan walked across the room to a panel on a monitor on the wall and Joa looked over his shoulder to see herself looking over his shoulder in the screen.

It was weird seeing what the security team was seeing...

Ronan pushed a button on the intercom next to the screen and when he spoke, his voice was strong and commanding. “Please cut the camera and audio feed to this room.”

There wasn’t a response but the screen was replaced with snow. Ronan walked over to the table and Joa followed him, dropping her bag onto a stool he pulled out from the table.

She looked back at the fuzzy screen. “You can cut the feed?”

Ronan nodded. “The art and auction world is highly sensitive and sometimes Carrick, Finn and I, or a combination of all three, have conversations down here that are highly confidential. We are the only ones who have the authority to order security to shut down the cameras and audio.”

Joa sent him a small smile. “Are you going to tell me some sensitive company secrets? Please don’t, I can’t cope with the pressure.”

Ronan grinned. “Nope, sorry. But I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to keep my hands off you and I’d prefer not to have witnesses while I kiss you stupid.”

Joa’s mouth fell open and it took her ten seconds, maybe twenty, for her to come up with a response. “Putting aside the fact that any sort of physical contact between us is not a good idea, and we agreed it wouldn’t happen, you could’ve just taken me into your office and kissed me there. Why did you bring me to the bowels of the building?”

Ronan rested his forearms on the table and nodded to the cardboard boxes, openly amused. “Because of those?”

“I don’t understand.”

Ronan reached for a roughly shaped square and handed it to her. “Here, unwrap it.”

Joa, still trying to understand Ronan’s rather prosaic statement about kissing her, took the parcel and peeled the plastic away to reveal a photo frame.

Joa felt her breath hitch. The frame was square with bracket corners and a deep, vibrant royal blue. Each corner held a fleur-de-lis constructed from what could only be big, fat diamonds. In the middle was an oval cut out, framed in more diamonds.

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