This boss broke all the rules for just one night—a night with consequences...

A Beaumont by blood, Zeb Richards has waited years to take the company that’s rightfully his. But ownership of the Beaumont Brewery means dealing with a formidable adversary: brewmaster Casey Johnson. She’s insubordinate and opinionated—so why does Zeb burn to lay claim to the tempestuous beauty?

Casey earned her place at the company she loves, and no CEO—no matter how irresistible—will come between her and her ambitions. Until one night of wild abandon shifts the balance of power. Now Casey is falling for her boss...and expecting his baby!

Casey got her beer and moved off to the side. It was then she noticed that Zeb’s eyes hadn’t left her.

A shiver of heat went through her because Zeb’s gaze was intense. He looked at her like...like she didn’t even know what. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out because what if he could see right through her?

What if he could see how much she was attracted to him?

This was a bad idea. She was on a date with her brand-new CEO and he was hot and funny and brooding all at once and they were drinking their chief competitor’s product and...

Zeb glanced over at her as he paid for his food and shot another warm grin at her.

And she was in trouble. Big, big trouble.

* * *

His Illegitimate Heir is part of the The Beaumont Heirs series—One Colorado family, limitless scandal!

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to Colorado! The Beaumont Heirs are one of Denver’s oldest, most preeminent families. The Beaumont Heirs are the children of Hardwick Beaumont. Although he’s been dead for almost a decade, Hardwick’s womanizing ways—the four marriages and divorces, the ten children and uncounted illegitimate children—are still leaving ripples in the Beaumont family.

Especially now that some of those illegitimate children are revealing themselves. Zeb Richards has always known he was Hardwick Beaumont’s son—but no one else did. The fact that he was unacknowledged ate away at him, and he vowed to get even with the Beaumonts, one way or the other. He finally has his birthright—the brewery and the Beaumont name. Nothing can ruin his revenge.

Except for one outspoken brewmaster. When Casey Johnson bursts into Zeb’s office, she’s stunned to realize that Zeb is a Beaumont. She expects him to fire her—but she doesn’t expect the sparks that fly. Things heat up between Casey and Zeb—but when plans go out the window, will he stand by her or do what his father did and hide the problem?

His Illegitimate Heir is a sensual story about fighting for your dreams and falling in love. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it! Be sure to stop by sarahmanderson.com and sign up for my newsletter at eepurl.com/nv39b to join me as I say, Long Live Cowboys!

Sarah

His Illegitimate Heir

Sarah M. Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SARAH M. ANDERSON may live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out West on the Great Plains. Sarah’s book A Man of Privilege won an RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award in 2012.

Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and American Indians. Find out more about Sarah’s love of cowboys and Indians at sarahmanderson.com and sign up for the new-release newsletter at eepurl.com/nv39b.

To Lisa Marie Perry, who never ceases to shock and amaze me. We’ll always have Jesse Williams!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Extract

Copyright

One

“You ready for this?” Jamal asked from the front seat of the limo.

Zeb Richards felt a smile pull at the corner of his mouth. “I was born ready.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration. Finally, after all these years, Zeb was coming home to claim what was rightfully his. The Beaumont Brewery had—until very recently—been owned and operated by the Beaumont family. There were a hundred twenty-five years of family history in this building—history that Zeb had been deprived of.

He was a Beaumont by blood. Hardwick Beaumont was Zeb’s father.

But he was illegitimate. As far as he knew, outside of the payoff money Hardwick had given his mother, Emily, shortly after Zeb’s birth, no one in the Beaumont family had ever acknowledged his existence.

He was tired of being ignored. More than that, he was tired of being denied his rightful place in the Beaumont family.

So he was finally taking what was rightfully his. After years of careful planning and sheer luck, the Beaumont Brewery now belonged to him.

Jamal snorted, which made Zeb look at him. Jamal Hitchens was Zeb’s right-hand man, filling out the roles of chauffeur and bodyguard—plus, he baked a damn fine chocolate chip cookie. Jamal had worked for Zeb ever since he’d blown out his knees his senior year as linebacker at the University of Georgia, but the two of them went back much farther than that.

“You sure about this?” Jamal asked. “I still think I should go in with you.”

Zeb shook his head. “No offense, but you’d just scare the hell out of them. I want my new employees intimidated, not terrified.”

Jamal met Zeb’s gaze in the rearview mirror and an unspoken understanding passed between the two men. Zeb could pull off intimidating all by himself.

With a sigh of resignation, Jamal parked in front of the corporate headquarters and came around to open Zeb’s door. Starting right now, Zeb was a Beaumont in every way that counted.

Jamal looked around as Zeb stood and straightened the cuffs on his bespoke suit. “Last chance for backup.”

“You’re not nervous, are you?” Zeb wasn’t. There was such a sense of rightness about this that he couldn’t be nervous, so he simply wasn’t.

Jamal gave him a look. “You realize you’re not going to be hailed as a hero, right? You didn’t exactly get this company in a way that most people might call ethical.”

Zeb notched an eyebrow at his oldest friend. With Jamal at his back, Zeb had gone from being the son of a hairdresser to being the sole owner of ZOLA, a private equity firm that he’d founded. He’d made his millions without a single offer of assistance from the Beaumonts.

More than that, he had proven that he was better than they were. He’d outmaneuvered and outflanked them and taken their precious brewery away from them.

But taking over the family business was something he had to do himself. “Your concern is duly noted. I’ll text you if I need backup. Otherwise, you’ll be viewing the properties?”

They needed a place to live now that they would be based in Denver. ZOLA, Zeb’s company, was still headquartered in New York—a hedge just in case his ownership of the Beaumont Brewery backfired. But buying a house here would signal to everyone that Zeb Richards wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Jamal realized he wasn’t going to win this fight. Zeb could tell by the way he straightened his shoulders. “Right, boss. Finest money can buy?”

“Always.” It didn’t really matter what the house looked like or how many bathrooms it had. All that mattered was that it was better than anyone else’s. Specifically, better than any of the other Beaumonts’. “But make sure it’s got a nice kitchen.”

Jamal smirked at that bone of friendship Zeb threw him. “Good luck.”

Zeb slid a sideways glance at Jamal. “Good luck happens when you work for it.” And Zeb? He always worked for it.

With a sense of purpose, he strode into the corporate headquarters of the Beaumont Brewery. He hadn’t called to announce his impending arrival, because he wanted to see what the employees looked like when they weren’t ready to be inspected by their new CEO.

However, he was fully aware that he was an unfamiliar African American man walking into a building as if he owned it—which he did. Surely the employees knew that Zebadiah Richards was their new boss. But how many of them would recognize him?

True to form, he got plenty of double takes as he walked through the building. One woman put her hand on her phone as he passed, as if she was going to call security. But then someone else whispered something over the edge of her cubicle wall and the woman’s eyes got very wide. Zeb notched an eyebrow at her and she pulled her hand away from her phone like it had burned her.

Silence trailed in his wake as he made his way toward the executive office. Zeb fought hard to keep a smile off his face. So they did know who he was. He appreciated employees who were up-to-date on their corporate leadership. If they recognized him, then they had also probably read the rumors about him.

Zebadiah Richards and his private equity firm bought failing companies, restructured them and sold them for profit. ZOLA had made him rich—and earned him a reputation for ruthlessness.

He would need that reputation here. Contrary to some of the rumors, he was not actually heartless. And he understood that the employees at this brewery had undergone the ouster of not one but two CEOs in less than a year. From his reports on the company’s filings, he understood that most people still missed Chadwick Beaumont, the last Beaumont to run the brewery.

Zeb had not gotten Chadwick removed—but he had taken advantage of the turmoil that the sale of the brewery to the conglomerate AllBev had caused. And when Chadwick’s temporary replacement, Ethan Logan, had failed to turn the company around fast enough, Zeb had agitated for AllBev to sell the company.

To him, of course.

But what that really meant was that he now owned a company full of employees who were scared and desperate. Employee turnover was at an all-time high. A significant percentage of top-level management had followed Chadwick Beaumont to his new company, Percheron Drafts. Many others had taken early retirement.

The employees who had survived this long were holding on by the skin of their teeth and probably had nothing left to lose. Which made them dangerous. He’d seen it before in other failing companies. Change was a constant in his world but most people hated it and if they fought against it hard enough, they could doom an entire company. When that happened, Zeb shrugged and broke the business up to be sold for its base parts. Normally, he didn’t care if that happened—so long as he made a profit, he was happy.

But like he told Jamal, he was here to stay. He was a Beaumont and this was his brewery. He cared about this place and its history because it was his history, acknowledged or not. Not that he’d wanted anyone to know that this was personal—he’d kept his quest to take what was rightfully his quiet for years. That way, no one could preempt his strikes or lock him out.

But now that he was here, he had the overwhelming urge to shout, “Look at me!” He was done being ignored by the Beaumonts and he was done pretending he wasn’t one of them.

Whispers of his arrival must have made it to the executive suite because when he rounded the corner, a plump older woman sitting behind a desk in front of what he assumed was the CEO’s office stood and swallowed nervously. “Mr. Richards,” she said in a crackly voice. “We weren’t expecting you today.”

Zeb nodded his head in acknowledgment. He didn’t explain his sudden appearance and he didn’t try to reassure her. “And you are?”

“Delores Hahn,” she said. “I’m the executive assistant to the—to you.” Her hands twisted nervously in front of her before she caught herself and stilled them. “Welcome to the Beaumont Brewery.”

Zeb almost grinned in sympathy. His assistant was in a tough spot, but she was putting on a good face. “Thank you.”

Delores cleared her throat. “Would you like a tour of the facilities?” Her voice was still a bit shaky, but she was holding it together. Zeb decided he liked Delores.

Not that he wanted her to know that right away. He was not here to make friends. He was here to run a business. “I will—after I get settled in.” Then he headed for his office.

Once inside, he shut the door behind him and leaned against it. This was really happening. After years of plotting and watching and waiting, he had the Beaumont Brewery—his birthright.

He felt like laughing at the wonder of it all. But he didn’t. For all he knew, Delores had her ear to the door, listening for any hint of what her new boss was like. Maniacal laughter was not a good first impression, no matter how justified it might be.

Instead, he pushed away from the door and surveyed his office. “Begin as you mean to go on,” Zeb reminded himself.

He’d read about this room, studied pictures of it. But he hadn’t been prepared for what it would actually feel like to walk into a piece of his family’s history—to know that he belonged here, that this was his rightful place.

The building had been constructed in the 1940s by Zeb’s grandfather John, soon after Prohibition had ended. The walls were mahogany panels that had been oiled until they gleamed. A built-in bar with a huge mirror took up the whole interior wall—and, if Zeb wasn’t mistaken, the beer was on tap.

The exterior wall was lined with windows, hung with heavy gray velvet drapes and crowned with elaborately hand-carved woodwork that told the story of the Beaumont Brewery. His grandfather had had the conference table built in the office because it was so large and the desk was built to match.

Tucked in the far corner was a grouping of two leather club chairs and a matching leather love seat. The wagon-wheel coffee table in front of the chairs was supposed to be a wheel from the wagon that his great-great-grandfather Phillipe Beaumont had driven across the Great Plains on his way to Denver to found the brewery back in the 1880s.

The whole room screamed opulence and wealth and history. Zeb’s history. This was who he was and he would be damned if he let anyone tell him it wasn’t his.

He crossed to the desk and turned on the computer—top-of-the-line, of course. Beaumonts never did anything by halves. That was one family trait they all shared.

He sat down in the leather office chair. From as far back as he could remember, his mother, Emily Richards, had told him this belonged to him. Zeb was only four months younger than Chadwick Beaumont. He should have been here, learning the business at his father’s knee, instead of standing next to his mother’s hairdressing chair.

But Hardwick had never married his mother—despite the fact that Hardwick had married several of his mistresses. But not Emily Richards—and for one simple reason.

Emily was black. Which made her son black.

Which meant Zeb didn’t exist in the eyes of the Beaumonts.

For so long, he had been shut out of half of his heritage. And now he had the one thing that the Beaumonts had valued above all else—the Beaumont Brewery.

God, it felt good to come home.

He got himself under control. Taking possession of the brewery was a victory—but it was just the first step in making sure the Beaumonts paid for excluding him.

He was not the only Beaumont bastard Hardwick had left behind. It was time to start doing things his way. He grinned. The Beaumonts weren’t going to see this coming.

He pressed the button on an antique-looking intercom. It buzzed to life and Delores said, “Yes, sir?”

“I want you to arrange a press conference for this Friday. I’m going to be announcing my plans for the brewery.”

There was a pause. “Yes, sir,” she said in a way that had an edge to it. “I assume you want the conference here?” Already Zeb could tell she was getting over her nervousness at his unannounced arrival.

If he had to guess, he’d say that someone like Delores Hahn had probably made the last CEO’s life miserable. “Yes, on the front steps of the brewery. Oh, and Delores?”

“Yes?”

“Write a memo. Every employee needs to have an updated résumé on my desk by end of business tomorrow.”

There was another pause—this one was longer. Zeb could only imagine the glare she was giving the intercom right about now. “Why? I mean—of course I’ll get right on it. But is there a reason?”

“Of course there is, Delores. There is a reason behind every single thing I do. And the reason for the memo is simple. Every employee needs to reapply for their own job.” He exhaled slowly, letting the tension build. “Including you.”

* * *

“Boss?”

Casey Johnson jerked her head toward the sound of Larry’s voice—which meant she smacked her forehead against the bottom of tank number fifteen. “Ow, dammit.” She pushed herself out from under the tank, rubbing her head. “What?”

Larry Kaczynski was a middle-aged man with a beer gut, which was appropriate considering he brewed beer for a living. Normally, he was full of bluster and the latest stats on his fantasy football team. But today he looked worried. Specifically, he looked worried about the piece of paper in his hand. “The new guy... He’s here.”

“Well, good for him,” Casey said, turning her attention back to her tank. This was the second new CEO in less than a year and, given recent history, he probably wouldn’t make it past a couple of months. All Casey had to do was outlast him.

That, of course, was the challenge. Beer did not brew itself—although, given the attitude of the last CEO, some people thought it did.

Tank fifteen was her priority right now. Being a brewmaster was about brewing beer—but it was also about making sure the equipment was clean and functional. And right now tank fifteen wasn’t either of those things.

“You don’t understand,” Larry sputtered before she’d rolled back under the tank. “He’s been on the property for less than an hour and he’s already sent this memo...”

“Larry,” she said, her voice echoing against the body of the tank, “are you going to get to the point today?”

“We have to reapply for our jobs,” Larry said in a rush. “By the end of the day tomorrow. I don’t—Casey, you know me. I don’t even have a résumé. I’ve worked here for the last thirty years.”

Oh, for the love of everything holy... Casey pushed herself out from under the tank again and sat up. “Okay,” she said in a much softer voice as she got to her feet. “Start from the beginning. What does the memo say?” Because Larry was like a canary in a coal mine. If he kept calm, the staff she was left with would also keep calm. But if Larry panicked...

Larry looked down at the paper in his hands again. He swallowed hard and Casey got the strangest sensation he was trying not to crack.

Crap. They were screwed. “It just says that by end of business tomorrow, every Beaumont Brewery employee needs to have an updated résumé on the new CEO’s desk so he can decide if they get to keep their job or not.”

Son of a... “Let me see.”

Larry handed over the paper as if he’d suddenly discovered it was contagious, and he stepped back. “What am I going to do, boss?”

Casey scanned the memo and saw that Larry had pretty much read verbatim. Every employee, no exceptions.

She did not have time for this. She was responsible for brewing about seven thousand gallons of beer every single day of the year on a skeleton staff of seventeen people. Two years ago, forty people had been responsible for that level of production. But two years ago, the company hadn’t been in the middle of the never-ending string of upstart CEOs.

And now the latest CEO was rolling up into her brewery and scaring the hell out of her employees? This new guy thought he would tell her she had to apply for her job—the job she’d earned?

She didn’t know much about this Zebadiah Richards—but he was going to get one thing straight if he thought he was going to run this company.

The Beaumont Brewery brewed beer. No beer, no brewery. And no brewmaster, no beer.

She turned to Larry, who was pale and possibly shaking. She understood why he was scared—Larry was not the brightest bulb and he knew it. That was the reason he hadn’t left when Chadwick lost the company or when Ethan Logan tried to right the sinking ship.

That was why Casey had been promoted over him to brewmaster, even though Larry had almost twenty years of experience on her. He liked his job, he liked beer and as long as he got regular cost-of-living increases in his salary and a year-end bonus, he was perfectly content to spend the rest of his life right where he was. He hadn’t wanted the responsibility of management.

Frankly, Casey was starting to wonder why she had. “I’ll take care of this,” she told him.

Surprisingly, this announcement made Larry look even more nervous. Apparently, he didn’t put a lot of faith in her ability to keep her temper. “What are you going to do?”

His reaction made it clear that he was afraid she’d get fired—and then he’d be in charge. “This Richards guy and I are going to have words.”

Larry fretted. “Are you sure that’s the smart thing to do?”

“Probably not,” she agreed. “But what’s he going to do—fire the brewmaster? I don’t think so, Larry.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, okay?”

Larry gave her a weak smile, but he nodded resolutely.

Casey hurried to her office and stripped off her hairnet. She knew she was no great beauty, but nobody wanted to confront a new boss in a hairnet. She grabbed her Beaumont Brewery hat and slid her ponytail through the back. And she was off, yelling over her shoulder to Larry, “See if you can get that drainage tube off—and if you can, see if you can get it flushed again. I’ll be back in a bit.”

She did not have time for this. She was already working ten-to twelve-hour days—six or seven days a week—just to keep the equipment clean and the beer flowing. If she lost more of her staff...

It wouldn’t come to that. She wouldn’t let it. And if it did...

Okay, so she’d promised Larry she wouldn’t get fired. But what if she did? Her options weren’t great, but at least she had some. Unlike Larry, she did have an updated résumé that she kept on file just in case. She didn’t want to use it. She wanted to stay right here at the Beaumont Brewery and brew her favorite beer for the rest of her life.

Or at least, she had. No, if she was being honest, what she really wanted was to be the brewmaster at the old Beaumont Brewery, the one she’d worked at for the previous twelve years—the one that the Beaumont family had run. Back then the brewery had been a family business and the owners had been personally invested in their employees.

They’d even given a wide-eyed college girl the chance to do something no one else had—brew beer.

But the memo in her hand reminded her that this wasn’t the same brewery. The Beaumonts no longer ran things and the company was suffering.

She was suffering. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d strung together more than twenty-four hours of free time. She was doing the job of three people and, thanks to the hiring freeze the last CEO implemented, there was no relief in sight. And now this. She could not afford to lose another single person.

She was a thirty-two-year-old brewmaster—and a woman, at that. She’d come so far so fast. But not one of her predecessors in the illustrious history of the Beaumont Brewery had put up with quite this much crap. They’d been left to brew beer in relative peace.

She stormed to the CEO suite. Delores was behind the desk. When she saw Casey coming, the older woman jumped to her feet with surprising agility. “Casey—wait. You don’t—”

“Oh, yes, I do,” she said, blowing past Delores and shoving open the door to the CEO’s office. “Just who the hell do you think you...are?”

Two

Casey came to a stumbling stop. Where was he? The desk was vacant and no one was sitting on the leather couches.

But then a movement off to her left caught her eye and she turned and gasped in surprise.

A man stood by the windows, looking out over the brewery campus. He had his hands in his pockets and his back turned to her—but despite that, everything about him screamed power and money. The cut of his suit fit him like a second skin and he stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, as if he were master of all he saw.

A shiver went through her. She was not the kind of girl who went for power suits or the men who wore them but something about this man—this man who was threatening her job—took her breath away. Was it the broad shoulders? Or the raw power wafting off him like the finest cologne?

And then he turned to face her and all she could see were his eyes—green eyes. Good Lord, those eyes—they held her gaze like a magnet and she knew her breath was gone for good.

He was, hands down, the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Everything—the power suit, the broad shoulders, the close-cropped hair and most especially the eyes—it was a potent blend that she felt powerless to resist. And this was her new boss? The man who’d sent out the memo?

He notched an eyebrow at her and let his gaze travel over her body. And any admiration she had for a good suit and nice eyes died on the vine because she knew exactly what he saw. Underneath her lab coat, she had on a men’s small polo shirt with Beaumont Brewery embroidered over the chest—and she’d sweat through it because the brew room was always hot. Her face was probably red from the heat and also from the anger, and she no doubt smelled like mash and wort.

She must look like a madwoman.

A conclusion he no doubt reached on his own, because by the time he looked her in the eyes, one corner of his mouth had curved up into the kind of smile that said exactly one thing.

He thought she was a joke.

Well, he’d soon learn this was no laughing matter.

“Congratulations,” he said in a voice that bordered on cold. “You’re first.” He lifted his wrist and looked down at a watch that, even at this distance, Casey could tell was expensive. “Thirty-five minutes. I’m impressed.”

His imperious attitude poured cold water on the heat that had almost swamped her. She wasn’t here to gawk at a gorgeous man. She was here to protect her workers. “Are you Richards?”

“Zebadiah Richards, yes. Your new boss,” he added in a menacing tone, as if he thought he could intimidate her. Didn’t he know she had so very little left to lose? “And you are?”

She’d worked in a male-dominated industry for twelve years. She couldn’t be intimidated. “I’m Casey Johnson—your brewmaster.” What kind of name was Zebadiah? Was that biblical? “What’s the meaning of this?” She held up the memo.

Richards’s eyes widened in surprise—but only for a second before he once again looked ice-cold. “Forgive me,” he said in a smooth voice when Casey glared at him. “I must say that you are not what I was expecting.”

Casey rolled her eyes and made no attempt to hide it. Few people expected women to like beer. Even fewer people expected women to brew beer. And with a name like Casey, everyone just assumed she was a man—and usually, they assumed she was a man like Larry. Middle-aged, beer gut—the whole nine yards. “It’s not my problem if you made a set of erroneous assumptions.”

The moment she said it, she realized she’d also made some erroneous assumptions herself. Because she had not anticipated that the new CEO would look quite like him. Oh, sure—the power suit was par for the course. But his hair was close-cropped to his head and his eyes... Damn, she just couldn’t get past them.

He grinned—oh, Lord, that was not good. Well, it was—but in a bad way because that grin took everything hard and cold about him and warmed him up. She was certainly about to break out in another sweat.

“Indeed. Well, since you’re the first person to barge into my office, I’ll tell you the meaning of that memo, Ms. Johnson—although I’d hope the employees here at the brewery would be able to figure it out on their own. Everyone has to reapply for their jobs.”

She welcomed his condescending tone because it pushed her from falling into the heat of his eyes and kept her focused on her task. “Is that a fact? Where’d you learn that management technique? Management ‘R’ Us?”

Something that almost looked like amusement flickered over his gaze and she was tempted to smile. A lot of people found her abrasive and yeah, she could rub people the wrong way. She didn’t pull her punches and she wasn’t about to sit down and shut up just because she was a girl and men didn’t like to have their authority challenged.

What was rarer was for someone to get her sense of humor. Could this Richards actually be a real man who smiled? God, she wanted to work for a man she wouldn’t have to fight every step of the way. Maybe they could get along. Maybe...

But as quickly as it had appeared, the humor was gone. His eyes narrowed and Casey thought, You’re not the only one who can be condescending.

“The purpose is twofold, Ms. Johnson. One, I’d like to see what skill sets my employees possess. And two, I want to see if they can follow basic instructions.”

So much for a sense of humor. Men as hot as he was probably weren’t allowed to laugh at a joke. Pity. On the other hand, if he smiled, it might kill her with handsomeness and the only thing worse than a CEO she couldn’t work with would be a CEO she lusted after.

No lusting allowed. And he was making that easier with every single thing he said.

“Let me assure you, Mr. Richards, that this company did not spring fully formed from your forehead yesterday. We’ve been brewing beer here for—”

“For over one hundred and thirty years—I know.” He tilted his head to the side and gave her a long look. “And you’ve only been doing it for less than a year—is that correct?”

If she weren’t so pissed at him, she’d have been terrified, because that was most definitely a threat to her job. But she didn’t have time for unproductive emotions and anger was vastly more useful than fear.

“I have—and I earned that job. But before you question how a woman my age can have possibly surpassed all the good ol’ boys who normally brew beer, let me tell you that it’s also because all the more experienced brewers have already left the company. If you want to maintain a quality product line, you’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.” She waved the memo in front of her. “And I don’t have time to deal with this crap.”

But instead of doing anything any normal boss would do when basically yelled at by an employee—like firing her on the spot—Richards tilted his head to one side and looked at her again and she absolutely did not shiver when he did it. “Why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Why don’t you have time to respond to a simple administrative task?”

Casey didn’t want to betray any sign of weakness but a trickle of sweat rolled out from under her hat and into her eye. Dammit. He better not think she was crying. She wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. “Because I’m operating with a bare-bones staff—I have been for the last nine months. I’m doing the work of three people—we all are. We’re understaffed, overworked and—”

“And you don’t have time for this ‘crap,’ as you so eloquently put it,” he murmured.

Was that a note of sympathy? Or was he mocking her? She couldn’t read him that well.

Not yet, a teasing voice in the back of her mind whispered. But she pushed that voice away. She wasn’t interested in reading him better. “Not if you want to fulfill production orders.”

“So just hire more people.”

Now she gaped at him. “What?”

He shrugged, which was an impossibly smooth gesture on him. Men should not be that smooth. It wasn’t good for them, she decided. And it definitely wasn’t good for her. This would be so much easier if he were at least 70 percent less attractive. “Hire more people. But I want to see their résumés, too. Why let the new people off easy, right?”

This guy didn’t know anything, did he? They were screwed, then. This was the beginning of the end. Now she would have to help Larry write a résumé.

“But...there’s been a hiring freeze,” she told him. “For the last eight months. Until we can show a profit.”

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?”

He grinned. Casey took another step back from the desk—away from Zeb Richards smiling at her. She tried to take comfort in the fact that he probably knew exactly how lethal his grin could be. Men as gorgeous as he was didn’t get through life without knowing exactly what kind of effect they had on women—and it usually made them jerks. Which was fine. Gorgeous jerks never went for women like her and she didn’t bother with them, either.

But there was something in the way he was looking at her that felt like a warning.

“I’ll compromise with you, Ms. Johnson. You and your staff will be excused from submitting résumés.”

That didn’t sound like a compromise. That sounded like she was getting everything she asked for. Which meant the other shoe was about to drop. “And?”

“Instead...” He paused and shot her another grin. This one wasn’t warm and fuzzy—this one was the sharp smile of a man who’d somehow bought a company out from under the Beaumonts. Out from under his own family. “...you and your team will produce a selection of new beers for me to choose from.”

That was one hell of a shoe—and it had landed right on her. “I’m sorry?”

“Your point that the skills of some of your employees won’t readily translate into bullet points on a résumé is well taken. So I’d like to see their skills demonstrated in action.”

She knew her mouth was open, but she didn’t think she could get it closed. She gave it a shot—nope, it was still open. “I can’t just...”

“You do know how to brew beer, don’t you?”

He was needling her—and it was working, dammit. “Of course I know how to brew beer. I’ve been brewing Beaumont beer for twelve years.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

It was probably bad form to strangle your boss on his first day on the job. Tempting, though. “I can’t just produce beer by snapping my fingers. I have to test new recipes—and some of them are not going to work—and then there’s the brewing time, and I won’t be able to do any of that until I get more staff hired.”

“How long will it take?”

She grasped at the first number that popped into her mind. “Two months. At least. Maybe three.”

“Fine. Three months to hire the workers and test some new recipes.” He sat forward in his chair and dropped his gaze to the desk, as if they were done.

“It isn’t that simple,” she told him. “We need to get Marketing to provide us with guidance on what’s currently popular and two—”

“I don’t care what Marketing says.” He cut her off. “This is my company and I want it to brew beers that I like.”

“But I don’t even know what you like.” The moment the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back. But it was too late. He fixed those eyes on her. Heat flushed down her back, warming her from the inside out. “I mean, when it comes to beer,” she quickly corrected. “We’ve got everything on tap...” she added, trying not to blush as she motioned to the bar that ran along one side of the wall.

Richards leaned forward on his elbows as his gaze raked up and down her body again. Damn it all, he was a jerk. He only confirmed it when he opened his mouth and said, “I’d be more than happy to take some time after work and show you exactly what I like.”

Well. If that was how it was going to be, he was making it a lot easier not to develop a crush on him. Because she had not gotten this job by sleeping her way to the top. He might be the most beautiful man she’d ever seen and those green eyes were the stuff of fantasy—but none of it mattered if he used his power as CEO to take advantage of his employees. She was good at what she did and she wouldn’t let anyone take that away from her.

“Mr. Richards, you’re going to have to decide what kind of Beaumont you are going to be—if you really are one.” His eyes hardened, but she didn’t back down. “Because if you’re going to be a predator like your father instead of a businessman like your brother, you’re going to need a new brewmaster.”

Head held high, she walked out of his office and back to her own.

Then she updated her résumé.

Three

Zeb did not have time to think about his new brewmaster’s parting shot. It was, however, difficult not to think about her.

He’d known full well there would be pushback against the memo. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he wanted to see who could follow directions—but he also wanted to see who wouldn’t and why. Because the fact was, having the entire company divert work hours to producing résumés was not an efficient use of time. And the workers who already had up-to-date résumés ready to go—well, that was because they were a flight risk.

He couldn’t say he was surprised when the brewmaster was the first person to call him on it.

But he still couldn’t believe the brewmaster was a young woman with fire in her eyes and a fierce instinct to protect her employees. A woman who didn’t look at him like he was ripe for the picking. A woman who took one look at him—okay, maybe more than one—and saw the truth.

A young woman with a hell of a mouth on her.

Zeb pushed Casey Johnson from his mind and picked up his phone. He started scrolling through his contacts until he came to one name in particular—Daniel Lee. He dialed and waited.

“Hello?”

“Daniel—it’s Zeb. Are you still in?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Daniel Lee was a former political operative who’d worked behind the scenes to get several incumbents defeated. He could manipulate public perception and he could drill down into data. But that wasn’t why Zeb called him.

Daniel—much like Zeb—was one of them. Beaumont’s bastards.

“Where are you?” Daniel asked, and Zeb didn’t miss the way he neatly avoided the question.

“Sitting in the CEO’s office of the Beaumont Brewery. I scheduled a press conference for Friday—I’d like you to be there. I want to show the whole world that they can’t ignore us anymore.”

There was another pause. On one level, Zeb appreciated that Daniel was methodical. Everything he did was well thought-out and carefully researched, with the data to back it up.

But on the other hand, Zeb didn’t want his relationship with his brother to be one based solely on how the numbers played out. He didn’t know Daniel very well—they’d met only two months ago, after Zeb had spent almost a year and thousands upon thousands of dollars tracking down two of his half brothers. But he and Daniel were family all the same and when Zeb announced to the world that he was a Beaumont and this was his brewery, he wanted his brothers by his side.

“What about CJ?” Daniel asked.

Zeb exhaled. “He’s out.” Zeb had tracked down two illegitimate brothers; all three of them had been born within five years of each other. Daniel was three years younger than Zeb and half-Korean.

The other brother he’d found was Carlos Julián Santino—although he now went by CJ Wesley. Unlike Zeb and Daniel, CJ was a rancher. He didn’t seem to have inherited the Beaumont drive for business.

Two months ago, when the men had all met for the first time over dinner and Zeb had laid out his plan for taking control of the brewery and finally taking what was rightfully theirs, Daniel politely agreed to look at the numbers and weigh the outcomes. But CJ had said he wasn’t interested. Unlike Zeb’s mother, CJ’s mother had married and he’d been adopted by her husband. CJ did not consider Hardwick Beaumont to be his father. He’d made his position clear—he wanted nothing to do with the Beaumonts or the brewery.

He wanted nothing to do with his brothers.

“That’s unfortunate,” Daniel said. “I had hoped...”

Yeah, Zeb had hoped, too. But he wasn’t going to dwell on his failures. Not when success was within his grasp. “I need you by my side, Daniel. This is our time. I won’t be swept under the rug any longer. We are both Beaumonts. It’s not enough that I’ve taken their company away from them—I need it to do better than it did under them. And that means I need you. This is the dawn of a new era.”

Daniel chuckled. “You can stop with the hard sell—I’m in. But I get to be the chief marketing officer, right?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

There was another long pause. “This had better work,” Daniel said in a menacing voice.

Which made Zeb grin. “It already has.”

* * *

It was late afternoon before Zeb was able to get a tour of the facilities. Delores, tablet in hand, alternated between leading the way and falling behind him. Zeb couldn’t tell if she was humoring him or if she really was that intimidated.

The tour moved slowly because in every department, Zeb stopped and talked with the staff. He was pleased when several managers asked to speak to him privately and then questioned the need to have a résumé for every single person on staff—wouldn’t it be better if they just turned in a report on head count? It was heartening, really. Those managers were willing to risk their necks to protect their people—while they still looked for a way to do what Zeb told them.

However, Zeb didn’t want to be seen as a weak leader who changed his mind. He allowed the managers to submit a report by the deadline, but he still wanted to see résumés. He informed everyone that the hiring freeze was over but he needed to know what he had before he began to fill the empty cubicles.

As he’d anticipated after his conversation with Casey, the news that the hiring freeze was over—coupled with the announcement that he would prefer not to see his staff working ten-to twelve-hour days—bought him a considerable amount of goodwill. That was not to say people weren’t still wary—they were—but the overwhelming emotion was relief. It was obvious Casey wasn’t the only one doing the job of two or three people.

The brewhouse was the last stop on their tour. Zeb wasn’t sure if that was because it was the logical conclusion or because Delores was trying to delay another confrontation with Casey.

Unsurprisingly, the brewhouse was warm, and emptier than he expected. He saw now what Casey had meant when she said most of the process was automated. The few men he did see wore white lab coats and hairnets, along with safety goggles. They held tablets and when Zeb and Delores passed them, they paused and looked up.

“The staffing levels two years ago?” Zeb asked again.

He’d asked that question at least five times already. Two years ago, the company had been in the capable hands of Chadwick Beaumont. They’d been turning a consistent profit and their market share was stable. That hadn’t been enough for some of their board members, though. Leon Harper had agitated for the company’s sale, which made him hundreds of millions of dollars. From everything Zeb had read about Harper, the man was a foul piece of humanity. But there was no way Zeb ever could’ve gotten control of the company without him.

Delores tapped her tablet as they walked along. The room was oddly silent—there was the low hum of machinery, but it wasn’t enough to dampen the echoes from their footfalls. The noise bounced off the huge tanks that reached at least twenty feet high. The only other noise was a regular hammering that got louder the farther they went into the room.

“Forty-two,” she said after several minutes. “That was when we were at peak capacity. Ah, here we are.”

Delores pointed at the floor and he looked down and saw two pairs of jeans-clad legs jutting out from underneath the tank.

Delores gave him a cautious smile and turned her attention back to the legs. “Casey?”

Zeb had to wonder what Delores had thought of Casey bursting into his office earlier—and whether or not Casey had said anything on her way out. He still hadn’t decided what he thought of the young woman. Because she did seem impossibly young to be in charge. But what she might have lacked in maturity she made up for with sheer grit.

She probably didn’t realize it, but there were very few people in this world who would dare burst into his office and dress him down. And those who would try would rarely be able to withstand the force of his disdain.

But she had. Easily. But more than that, she’d rebuffed his exploratory offer. No, that wasn’t a strong enough word for how she’d destroyed him with her parting shot.

So many women looked at him as their golden ticket. He was rich and attractive and single—he knew that. But he didn’t want to be anyone’s ticket anywhere.

Casey Johnson hadn’t treated him like that. She’d matched him verbal barb for barb and then bested him, all while looking like a hot mess.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued.

“...try it again,” came a muffled voice from underneath the tank. This was immediately followed by more hammering, which, at this close range, was deafening.

Zeb fought the urge to cover his ears and Delores winced. When there was a break in the hammering, she gently tapped one of the two pairs of shoes with her toe. “Casey—Mr. Richards is here.”

The person whose shoe she’d nudged started—which was followed by a dull thunk and someone going, “Ow, dammit. What?”

And then she slid out from under the tank. She was in a white lab coat, a hairnet and safety goggles, just like everyone else. “Hello again, Ms. Johnson.”

Her eyes widened. She was not what one might call a conventional beauty—especially not in the hairnet. She had a small spiderweb scar on one cheek that was more noticeable when she was red in the face—and Zeb hadn’t yet seen her not red in the face. It was an imperfection, but it drew his eyes to her. She was maybe four inches shorter than he was and he thought her eyes were light brown. He wasn’t even sure what color her hair was—it had been under the hat in his office.

But she was passionate about beer and Zeb appreciated that.

“You again,” she said in a tone that sounded intentionally bored. “Back for more?”

He almost laughed—but he didn’t. He was Zeb Richards, CEO of the Beaumont Brewery. And he was not going to snicker when his brewmaster copped an attitude. Still, her manner was refreshing after a day of people bowing and scraping.

Once again, he found himself running through her parting shot. Was he like his father or like his brother? He didn’t know much about either of them. He knew his father had a lot of children—and ignored some of them—and he knew his half brother had successfully run the company for about ten years. But that was common knowledge anyone with an internet connection could find out.

Almost everyone else here—including one prone brewmaster with an attitude problem—would have known what she meant by that. But he didn’t.

Not yet, anyway.

Delores looked shocked. “Casey,” she hissed in warning. “I’m giving Mr. Richards a tour of the facilities. Would you like to show him around the tanks?”

For a moment, Casey looked contrite in the face of Delores’s scolding and Zeb got the feeling Delores had held the company together longer than anyone else.

But the moment was short. “Can’t. The damned tank won’t cooperate. I’m busy. Come back tomorrow.” And with that, she slid right back under the tank. Before either he or Delores could say anything else, that infernal hammering picked up again. This time, he was sure it was even louder.

Delores turned to him, looking stricken. “I apologize, Mr. Richards. I—”

Zeb held up a hand to cut her off. Then he nudged the shoes again. This time, both people slid out. The other person was a man in his midfifties. He looked panic-stricken. Casey glared up at Zeb. “What.”

“You and I need to schedule a time to go over the product line and discuss ideas for new launches.”

She rolled her eyes, which made Delores gasp in horror. “Can’t you get someone from Sales to go over the beer with you?”

“No, I can’t,” he said coldly. It was one thing to let her get the better of him in the privacy of his office but another thing entirely to let her run unchallenged in front of staff. “It has to be you, Ms. Johnson. If you want to brew a new beer that matches my tastes, you should actually know what my tastes are. When can this tank be back up and running?”

She gave him a dull look. “It’s hard to tell, what with all the constant interruptions.” But then she notched an eyebrow at him, the corner of her mouth curving into a delicate grin, as if they shared a private joke.

He did some quick mental calculating. They didn’t have to meet before Friday—getting the press conference organized had to be his first priority. But by next week he needed to be working toward a new product line.

However, he was also aware that the press conference was going to create waves. It would be best to leave Monday open. “Lunch, Tuesday. Plan accordingly.”

For just one second, he thought she would argue with him. Her mouth opened and she looked like she was spoiling for a fight. But then she changed her mind. “Fine. Tuesday. Now if you’ll excuse me,” she added, sliding back out of view.

“I’m so sorry,” Delores repeated as they hurried away from the hammering. “Casey is...”

Zeb didn’t rush into the gap. He was curious what the rest of the company thought of her.

He was surprised to realize he admired her. It couldn’t be easy keeping the beer flowing—especially not as a young woman. She had to be at least twenty years younger than nearly every other man he’d seen in the brewhouse. But she hadn’t let that stop her.

Because she was, most likely, unstoppable.

He hoped the employees thought highly of her. He needed people like her who cared for the company and the beer. People who weren’t constrained by what they were or were not supposed to be.

Just like he wasn’t.

“She’s young,” Delores finished.

Zeb snorted. Compared to his assistant, almost everyone would be.

“But she’s very good,” Delores said with finality.

“Good.” He had no doubt that Casey Johnson would fight him at every step. “Make sure HR fast-tracks her hires. I want her to have all the help she needs.”

He was looking forward to this.

Four

“Thank you all for joining me today,” Zeb said, looking out at the worried faces of his chief officers, vice presidents and departmental heads. They were all crammed around the conference table in his office. They had twenty minutes until the press conference was scheduled to start and Zeb thought it was best to give his employees a little warning.

Everyone looked anxious. He couldn’t blame them. He’d made everyone surrender their cell phones when they’d come into the office and a few people looked as if they were going through withdrawal. But he wasn’t about to run the risk of someone preempting his announcement.

Only one person in the room looked like she knew what was coming next—Casey Johnson. Today she also looked like a member of the managerial team, Zeb noted with an inward smile. Her hair was slicked back into a neat bun and she wore a pale purple blouse and a pair of slacks. The change from the woman who’d stormed into his office was so big that if it hadn’t been for the faint spiderweb scar on her cheek, Zeb wouldn’t have recognized her.

“I’m going to tell you the same thing that I’m going to tell the press in twenty minutes,” Zeb said. “I wanted to give you advance warning. When I make my announcement, I expect each and every one of you to look supportive. We’re going to present a unified force. Not only is the Beaumont Brewery back, but it’s going to be better than ever.” He glanced at Casey. She notched an eyebrow at him and made a little motion with her hands that Zeb took to mean Get on with it.

So he did. “Hardwick Beaumont was my father.”

As expected, the entire room shuddered with a gasp, followed by a rumbling murmur of disbelief. With amusement, Zeb noted that Casey stared around the room as if everyone else should have already realized the truth.

She didn’t understand how unusual she was. No one had ever looked at him and seen the Beaumont in him. All they could see was a black man from Atlanta. Very few people ever bothered to look past that, even when he’d started making serious money.

But she had.

Some of the senior employees looked grim but not surprised. Everyone else seemed nothing but shocked. And the day wasn’t over yet. When the murmur had subsided, Zeb pressed on.

“Some of you have met Daniel Lee,” Zeb said, motioning to Daniel, who stood near the door. “In addition to being our new chief marketing officer, Daniel is also one of Hardwick’s sons. So when I tell the reporters,” he went on, ignoring the second round of shocked murmurs, “that the Beaumont Brewery is back in Beaumont hands, I want to know that I have your full support. I’ve spent the last week getting to know you and your teams. I know that Chadwick Beaumont, my half brother,” he added, proud of the way he kept his voice level, “ran this company with a sense of pride and family honor and I’m making this promise to you, here, in this room—we will restore the Beaumont pride and we will restore the honor to this company. My last name may not be Beaumont, but I am one nonetheless. Do I have your support?”

Again, his eyes found Casey’s. She was looking at him and then Daniel—no doubt looking for the family resemblance that lurked beneath their unique racial heritages.

Murmurs continued to rumble around the room, like thunder before a storm. Zeb waited. He wasn’t going to ask a second time, because that would denote weakness and he was never weak.

“Does Chadwick know what you’re doing?”

Zeb didn’t see who asked the question, but from the voice, he guessed it was one of the older people in the room. Maybe even someone who had once worked not only for Chadwick but for Hardwick, as well. “He will shortly. At this time, Chadwick is a competitor. I wish him well, as I’m sure we all do, but he’s not coming back. This is my company now. Not only do I want to get us back to where we were when he was in charge of things, but I want to get us ahead of where we were. I’ll be laying out the details at the press conference, but I promise you this. We will have new beers,” he said, nodding to Casey, “and new marketing strategies, thanks to Daniel and his extensive experience.”

He could tell he didn’t have them. The ones standing were shuffling their feet and the ones sitting were looking anywhere but at him. If this had been a normal business negotiation, he’d have let the silence stretch. But it wasn’t. “This was once a great place to work and I want to make it that place again. As I discussed with some of you, I’ve lifted the hiring freeze. The bottom line is and will continue to be important, but so is the beer.”

An older man in the back stepped forward. “The last guy tried to run us into the ground.”

“The last guy wasn’t a Beaumont,” Zeb shot back. He could see the doubt in their eyes. He didn’t look the part that he was trying to sell them on.

Then Casey stood, acting far more respectable—and respectful—than the last time he had seen her. “I don’t know about everyone else, but I just want to make beer. And if you say we’re going to keep making beer, then I’m in.”

Zeb acknowledged her with a nod of his head and looked around this room. He’d wager that there’d be one or two resignations on his desk by Monday morning. Maybe more. But Casey fixed them with a stern look and most of his employees stood up.

“All right,” the older man who had spoken earlier repeated. Zeb was going to have to learn his name soon, because he clearly commanded a great deal of respect. “What do we have to do?”

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