His Illegitimate Heir

Richards stepped forward and traced a finger over the top of the conference table. It was an oddly intimate motion—a caress, almost. Watching his hand move over the wood...

She broke out in goose bumps.

“Tell me, Ms. Johnson‚ was it Chadwick Beaumont who put on the hiring freeze? Or Ethan Logan?”

There was something about his voice that matched his caress of the conference table. Casey studied him. She had the oddest feeling that he looked familiar but she was sure she would remember seeing him before. Who could forget those eyes? Those...everything?

“Logan did.”

“Ah,” he said, shifting so he wasn’t silhouetted against the window anymore. More light fell on him and Casey was startled to realize that the green eyes were set against skin that wasn’t light but wasn’t exactly deep brown, either. His skin was warm, almost tan, and she realized he was at least partly African American. Why hadn’t she seen that right away?

Well, she knew why. First off, she was mad and when she was mad, she didn’t exactly pay attention to the bigger picture. She hadn’t noticed the fullness to his frowning lips or the slight flare of his nostrils. Second off, his eyes had demanded her total attention. They were striking, so gorgeous, and even...familiar?

His hand was still on top of the conference table. “So what you’re telling me is that the only non-Beaumont to run this company instituted a series of policies designed to cut costs and, in the process, hamstrung the operations and production?”

“Yes.” There was something about the way he said the only non-Beaumont that threw her for a loop.

And then—maybe because now she was paying more attention—it hit her like a ton of bricks.

This guy—this Zeb Richards who wasn’t quite black and wasn’t quite white—he looked vaguely familiar. Something in the nose, the chin...those eyes...

He looked a little bit like Chadwick Beaumont.

Sweet merciful heavens. He was a Beaumont, too.

Her knees gave in to the weight of the revelation and she lurched forward to lean on the coffee table. “Oh, my God,” she asked, staring at him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

Richards snatched his hand back and put it in his pocket like he was trying to hide something. “I can neither confirm nor deny that—at least, not until the press conference on Friday.” He moved away from the conference table and toward his desk.

If he was trying to intimidate her, it wasn’t working. Casey followed him. He sat behind the desk—the same place she had seen Chadwick Beaumont too many times to count and, at least three times, Hardwick Beaumont. The resemblance was unmistakable.

“My God,” she repeated again. “You’re one of the bastards.”

He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Everything about him had shut down. No traces of humor, no hints of warmth. She was staring at the coldest man she’d ever seen. “The bastards?”

“Beaumont’s bastards—there were always rumors that Hardwick had a bunch of illegitimate children.” She blinked. It all made sense, in a way. The Beaumonts were a notoriously good-looking group of men and women—far too handsome for their own good. And this man... He was gorgeous. But not the same kind of blond handsomeness that had marked Chadwick and Matthew Beaumont. She knew he would stand out in a crowd of Beaumonts. Hell, he would stand out in any crowd. “He was your father, wasn’t he?”

Richards stared at her for a long time and she got the feeling he was making some sort of decision. She didn’t know what—he hadn’t fired her yet but the day wasn’t over.

Her mind felt like it was fizzing with information. Zeb Richards—the mysterious man who was rumored to have single-handedly driven down the brewery’s stock price so he could force AllBev to sell off the company—was a Beaumont? Did Chadwick know? Was he in on it or was this something else?

One word whispered across her mind. Revenge.

Because up until about thirty-seven seconds ago, Beaumont’s bastards had never been anything but a rumor. And now one of them had the company.

She had no idea if this was a good thing or a very, very bad thing.

Suddenly, Richards leaned forward and made a minute adjustment to something on his desk. “We’ve gotten off track. Your primary reason for barging into my office unannounced was about résumés.”

She felt like a bottle of beer that had been shaken but hadn’t been opened. At any second, she might explode from the pressure. “Right,” she agreed, collapsing into the chair in front of his desk. “The problem is, some of my employees have been here for twenty, thirty years and they don’t have a résumé ready to go. Producing one on short notice is going to cause nothing but panic. They aren’t the kind of guys who look good on paper. What matters is that they do good work for me and we produce a quality product.” She took a deep breath, trying to sound managerial. “Are you familiar with our product line?”

The corner of Richard’s mouth twitched. “It’s beer, right?”

She rolled her eyes at him, which, surprisingly, made him grin even more. Oh, that was a bad idea, making him smile like that, because when he did, all the hard, cold edges fell away from his face. He was the kind of handsome that wasn’t fair to the rest of humanity.

Sinful. That was what he was. And she had been too well behaved for too long.

She shivered. She wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with the smile on his face or the fact that she was cooling off and her sweat-soaked shirt was now sticking to her skin. “That’s correct. We brew beer here. I appreciate you giving me the go-ahead to hire more workers but that’s a process that will take weeks. Training will also take time. Placing additional paperwork demands on my staff runs the risk of compromising the quality of our beer.”

Richards didn’t say anything. Casey cleared her throat. “You are interested in the beer, right?”

He gave her another one of those measured looks. Casey sighed. She really wasn’t so complicated that he had to stare at her.

“I’m interested in the beer,” he finally said. “This is a family company and I’d like to keep it that way. I must say,” he went on before Casey could ask about that whole “family” thing, “I certainly appreciate your willingness to defend your staff. However, I’d like to be reassured that the employees who work for this brewery not only are able to follow basic instructions,” he added with a notch of his eyebrow that made Casey want to pound on something, “but have the skills to take this company in a new direction.”

“A new direction? We’re...still going to brew beer, right? We’re not getting into electronics or apps or anything?”

“Oh, we’ll be getting into apps,” he said. “But I need to know if there’s anyone on staff who can handle that or if I’m going to need to bring in an outside developer—you see my point, don’t you? The Beaumont Brewery has been losing market share. You brew seven thousand gallons a day—but it was eleven thousand years ago. The popularity of craft breweries—and I’m including Percheron Drafts in that—has slowly eroded our sales.”

Our sales? He was serious, she realized. He was here to run this company.

“While I understand Logan’s cost-cutting measures,” he went on, oblivious to the way her mouth had dropped open, “what we need to do at this point is not to hunker down and hope for the best, but invest heavily in research and development—new products. And part of that is connecting with our audience.” His gaze traveled around the room and Casey thought there was something about him that seemed...hopeful, almost.

She wanted to like her job. She wanted to like working for Zeb Richards. And if he was really talking about launching new products—new beers—well, then she might like her job again. The feeling that blossomed in her chest was so unfamiliar that it took a second to realize what it was—hope. Hope that this might actually work out.

“Part of what made the Beaumont Brewery a success was its long family traditions,” Richards went on in a quiet voice. “That’s why Logan failed. The employees liked Chadwick—any idiot knows that. And his brother Phillip? Phillip was the brewery’s connection with our target market. When we lost both Phillip and Chadwick, the brewery lost its way.”

Everything he said made sense. Because Casey had spent the last year not only feeling lost but knowing they were lost. They lost ground, they lost employees, they lost friends—they lost the knowledge and the tradition that had made them great. She was only one woman—one woman who liked to make beer. She couldn’t save the company all by herself but she was doing her damnedest to save the beer.

Still, Richards had been on the job for about two hours now—maybe less. He was talking a hell of a good game, but at this point, that was all it was—talk. All talk and sinful handsomeness, with a hearty dollop of mystery.

But action was what this company needed. His mesmerizing eyes wouldn’t right this ship all by themselves.

Still, if Richards really was a Beaumont by birth—bastard or not—he just might be able to do it. She’d long ago learned to never underestimate the Beaumonts.

“So you’re going to be the one to light the path?”

He stared her in the eyes, one eyebrow gently lifted. God, if she wasn’t careful, she could get lost in his gaze. “I have a plan, Ms. Johnson. You let me worry about the company and you worry about the beer.”

“Sounds good to me,” she muttered.

She stood because it seemed like a final sort of statement. But Richards stopped her. “How many workers do you need to hire?”

“At least ten. What I need most right now is maintenance staff. I don’t know how much you know about beer, but most of what I do is automated. It’s making sure to push the right button at the right time and checking to make sure that things come together the right way. It doesn’t take a lot of know-how to brew beer, honestly, once you have the recipes.” At this statement, both of his eyebrows lifted. “But keeping equipment running is another matter. It’s hot, messy work and I need at least eight people who can take a tank apart and put it back together in less than an hour.”

He thought about that for a moment. “I don’t mean to be rude, but is that what you were doing before you came in here?”

She rolled her eyes again. “What gave it away?”