His Illegitimate Heir (11 page)

Eleven

“H
ey, baby boy.”

At the sound of his mother's voice, something unclenched in Zeb's chest. He'd screwed up—but he knew it'd work out. “Hey, Mom. Sorry to interrupt you.”

“You've been quiet out there,” she scolded. “Those Beaumonts giving you any trouble?”

“No.” The silence had been deafening, almost. But he couldn't think about that other family right now. “It's just been busy. Taking over the company is a massive undertaking.” Which was the truth. Taking over the Beaumont Brewery was easily the hardest thing he'd ever done. No, right now he had to focus on his own family. “Mom...”

She was instantly on high alert. “What's wrong?”

There wasn't a good way to have this conversation. “I'm going to be a father.”

Emily Richards was hard to stun. She'd heard it all, done it all—but for a long moment, she was shocked into silence. “A baby? I'm going to be a
grandma
?”

“Yeah.” Zeb dropped his head into his hands. He hadn't wanted to tell her—but he'd needed to.

This was history repeating itself. “Just like my old man, huh?”

He expected her to go off on Hardwick Beaumont, that lying, cheating bastard who'd left her high and dry. But she didn't. “You gonna buy this girl off?”

“Of course not, Mom. Come on.” He didn't know what to do—but he knew what he didn't want to happen. And he didn't want to put Casey aside or buy her off.

“Are you going to take this baby away from her?”

“That's not funny.” But he knew she wasn't joking. Hardwick had either paid off his babies' mothers or married and divorced them, always keeping custody.

“Baby boy...” She sighed, a sound that was disappointment and hope all together. “I want to know my grandbaby—and her mother.” Zeb couldn't think of what to say. He couldn't think, period. His mother went on, “Be better than your father, Zeb. I think you know what you need to do.”

Which was how Zeb wound up at a jewelry store. He couldn't hope to make sense of what Casey had told him that morning but he knew enough to realize that he hadn't handled himself well.

Actually, no, that was letting himself off easy. In reality, he hadn't handled himself well since...the ball game. If he had realized that her getting pregnant was a legitimate outcome instead of a distant possibility...

He wanted to think that he wouldn't have slept with her. But at the very least, he wouldn't have walked out of her apartment with that disappointed sigh of hers lingering in his ears.

He'd hurt her then. He'd pissed her off today. He might not be an expert in women, but even he knew that the best solution here was diamonds.

The logic was sound. However, the fact that the diamonds he was looking at were set into engagement rings...

He was going to be a father. This thought kept coming back to him over and over again. What did he know about being a father? Nothing.

His own father had paid his mother to make sure that he never had to look at Zeb and acknowledge him as a son. Hardwick Beaumont might have been a brilliant businessman, but there was no way around the obvious fact that he'd been a terrible person. Or maybe he'd been a paragon of virtue in every area of his life except when it came to his mistresses—Emily Richards and Daniel's mother and CJ's and God only knew how many mothers of other illegitimate children.

“Let me see that one,” he said to the clerk behind the counter, pointing to a huge pear-cut diamond with smaller diamonds set in the band.

Because this was where he'd come to in his life. He was going to be a father. He'd made that choice when he'd slept with Casey. Now he had to take responsibility.

He did not want to be a father like Hardwick had been. Zeb didn't want to hide any kid of his away, denying him his birthright. If he had a child, he was going to claim that child. He was going to fight for that child, damn it all, just like his father should have fought for him. His mother wanted to know her grandbaby.

He didn't want to have to fight Casey, though. Because the simplest way to stay in his child's life was to marry the mother.

Because, really, what were the alternatives?

He could struggle through custody agreements and legal arrangements—all of which would be fodder for gossip rags. He could pretend he hadn't slept with his brewmaster and put his own child through the special kind of hell that was a childhood divorced from half his heritage. He could do what Hardwick had done and cut a check to ensure his kid was well cared for—and nothing more.

Or he could ask Casey to marry him. Tonight. It would be sudden and out of left field and she might very well say no.

Married. He'd never seen himself married. But then, he'd never seen himself as a father, either. One fifteen-minute conversation this afternoon and suddenly he was an entirely different person, one he wasn't sure he recognized. He stared at the engagement ring, but he was seeing a life where he and Casey were tied together both by a child and by law.

No, not just that. By more than that. There was more between them than just a baby. So much more.

He'd spend his days with her watching baseball and discussing beer and—hopefully—having great sex. And the kid—he knew Casey would be good with the kid. She'd be the kind of mom who went to practices and games. She'd be fun, hands-on.

As for Zeb...

Well, he had two different businesses to run. He had to work. He'd made a fortune—but fortunes could be lost as fast as they'd been made. He'd seen it happen. And he couldn't let it happen to him. More than that, he couldn't let it happen to Casey. To their family.

He had to take care of them. Hardwick Beaumont had cut Emily Richards a check and the money had been enough to take care of him when he'd been a baby—but it hadn't lasted forever. His mother had needed to work to make ends meet. She'd worked days, nights, weekends.

There had been times when Zeb wondered if she was avoiding him. Emily Richards had always been happy to foist child care off on the other stylists and the customers. No one minded, but there'd been times he'd just wanted his mom and she'd been too busy.

He couldn't fault her drive. She was a self-made woman. But she'd put her business ahead of him, her own son. Even now, Zeb had trouble talking to her without feeling like he was imposing upon her time.

He didn't want that for his child. He wanted more for his family. He didn't want his baby's mother to miss out on all the little things that made up a childhood. He didn't want to miss them, either—but not only was the brewery his legacy, it would be his child's, as well. He
couldn't
let the brewery slide.

He'd work hard, as he always had. But he would be there. Part of his child's life. Maybe every once in a while, he'd even make it for a game or a play or whatever kids did in school. And he'd have Casey by his side.

“I'll take it,” he said, even though he wasn't sure what he was looking at anymore. But he'd take that life, with Casey and their child.

“It's a beautiful piece.” A deep voice came from his side.

Zeb snapped out of his reverie and turned to find himself face-to-face with none other than Chadwick Beaumont. For a long moment, Zeb did nothing but stare. It wasn't like looking in a mirror. Chadwick was white, with sandy blond hair that he wore a little long and floppy. But despite that, there were things Zeb recognized—the jawline and the eyes.

Zeb's green eyes had marked him as different in the African American community. But here? Here, standing with this man he had never seen up close before, his eyes marked him as something else. They marked him as one of the Beaumonts.

Chadwick stuck out his hand. “I'm Chadwick.”

“Zeb,” he said, operating on autopilot as his hand went out to give Chadwick's a firm shake. “And who's this?” he asked, trying to smile at the little girl Chadwick was holding.

“This is my daughter, Catherine.”

Zeb studied the little girl. She couldn't be more than a year and a half old. “Hi there, Catherine,” he said softly. He looked at Chadwick. “I didn't realize I was an uncle.” The idea seemed so foreign to him that it was almost unrecognizable.

The little girl turned her face away and into Chadwick's neck—then, a second later, she turned back, peeking at Zeb through thick lashes.

“You are—Byron has two children. Technically, Catherine is my wife's daughter from a previous relationship. But I've adopted her.” Chadwick patted his daughter on her back. “I found that, when it comes to being a Beaumont, it's best to embrace a flexible definition of the word
family
.”

An awkward silence grew between them because Zeb didn't quite know what to say to that. He'd always thought that, at some point, he would confront the Beaumonts. In his mind's eye, the confrontation was not nearly this...polite. There wouldn't be any chitchat. He would revel in what he had done, taking the company away from them and punishing them for failing to acknowledge him and they would...cower or beg for forgiveness. Or something.

There was a part of him that still wanted that—but not in the middle of a high-end jewelry store and not in front of a toddler.

So instead, he didn't say anything. He had no idea what he was even supposed to say as he looked at this man who shared his eyes.

Suddenly, Zeb desperately wanted to know what kind of man this brother of his was. More specifically, he wanted to know what kind of man Casey thought Chadwick was. Because Zeb still didn't know if he was like his father or his brother and he needed to know.

“Who's the lucky woman?” Chadwick asked.

“Excuse me?”

Just then the clerk came back with the small bag that held an engagement ring. Chadwick smiled. “The ring. Anyone I know?”

It took a lot to make Zeb blush, but right then his face got hot. Instead of responding, he went on the offensive. “What about you?”

Chadwick smiled again, but this time it softened everything about his face. Zeb recognized that look—and it only got stronger when Chadwick leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of his daughter's head. It was the look of love. “My wife is expecting again and the pregnancy has been...tiring. I'm picking her up something because, really, there's nothing else I can do and diamonds tend to make everything better. Wouldn't you agree?”

“Congratulations,” Zeb said automatically. But he didn't tell this man that he'd had the exact same thought. He only hoped he wasn't wrong about the diamonds.

“Will there be anything else?” The clerk asked in a super-perky voice.

Zeb and Chadwick turned to see her looking at them with bright eyes and a wide smile. Crap. He needed to have a conversation with Chadwick—even if he wasn't exactly sure what the conversation should be about. But it couldn't happen here. How much longer before someone put two and two together and there were cameras or news crews and reporters or cell-phone-toting gossipmongers crowding them? Zeb didn't want to deal with it himself—he couldn't imagine that Chadwick wanted to put his daughter through it, either.

“No,” he said just as another clerk approached and handed a small bag to Chadwick.

“Your necklace, Mr. Beaumont,” the second clerk said. She and the first clerk stood elbow to elbow, grinning like loons.

They had to get out of here right now. “Would you like to...”
continue this conversation elsewhere?
But he didn't even get that far before Chadwick gave a quick nod of his head.

Both men picked up their small bags and headed out of the store. When they were safely away from the eager clerks, Zeb bit the bullet and asked first. “Would you like to go get a drink or something?”

“I wish I could,” Chadwick said in a regretful voice. “But I don't think any conversation we have should be in public. And besides,” he went on, switching his daughter to his other arm, “we probably only have another half an hour before we have a meltdown.”

“Sure,” Zeb said, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

Chadwick stopped, which made Zeb stop, too. “You want answers.” It was not a question.

Yes.
“I don't want to intrude on your family time.”

Chadwick stared at Zeb for a moment longer and his face cracked with the biggest smile that Zeb had ever seen. “You
are
family, Zeb.”

That simple statement made Zeb feel as if someone had just gut-shot him. It took everything he had not to double over. This man considered
him
family? There was such a sense of relief that appeared out of nowhere—

But at the same time, Zeb was angry. If he was family, why hadn't Chadwick seen fit to inform him of that before now? Why had he waited until a chance meeting in a jewelry store, for God's sake?

Chadwick's eyes cut behind Zeb's shoulder. “We need to keep moving.” He began walking again and Zeb had no choice but to follow. They headed out toward the parking lot.

Finally, Zeb asked, “How long have you known? About me, I mean.”

“About six years. After my...” He winced. “I mean
our
father—”

Zeb cut him off. “He wasn't my father. Not really.”

Chadwick nodded. “After Hardwick died,” he went on diplomatically, “it took me a while to stabilize the company and get my bearings. I'd always heard rumors about other children and when I finally got to the point where I had a handle on the situation, I hired an investigator.”

“Did you know about Daniel before the press conference?”

Chadwick nodded. “And Carlos.”

That brought Zeb up short. CJ was not as unfindable as he liked to think he was. “He prefers CJ.”

Chadwick smirked. “Duly noted. And of course, we already knew about Matthew. There was actually a bit of a break after that. I don't know if Hardwick got tired of paying off his mistresses or what.”