His Illegitimate Heir (7 page)

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.

Seven

Z
eb followed Casey to the seats. He tried his best to keep his gaze locked on the swinging ponytail that hung out the back of her Rockies hat—and not on her backside.

That was proving to be quite a challenge, though, because her backside was a sight to behold. Her jeans clung to her curves in all the right ways. Why hadn't he noticed that before?

Oh, yeah—the lab coat.

Which hadn't shown him the real woman. But this? A bright young woman with hips and curves who was friends with everyone and completely at home in the male bastion of a baseball stadium?

Who'd said—out loud—that it didn't matter if Zeb was black or not?

She turned suddenly and he snapped his gaze back up to her face. “Here,” she said, notching an eyebrow at him and gesturing toward a nearly empty row. “Seats nine and ten.”

They were eight rows off the first baseline, right behind the dugout. “Great seats,” he told her. “I didn't bring my glove.”

She snorted as she worked her way down the row. “Definitely keep your eyes on the ball here. You never know.”

He made his way to seat nine. There weren't many people around, but he had a feeling that if there had been, they'd all have known Casey.

“What did you get?” she asked once they were seated.

“The Percheron lager.”

“Oh, that's such a nice beer,” she said with a wistful sigh.

“Yeah?” He held out his plastic collector's cup to her. “Have a drink.”

She looked at him for a long moment and then leaned over and pressed her lips against the rim of his cup. Fascinated, he watched as her mouth opened and she took a sip.

Heat shot through his body, driving his pulse to a sudden pounding in his veins. It only got worse when she leaned back just enough that she could sweep her tongue over her lips, getting every last drop of beer.

Damn.
Watching Casey Johnson drink beer was almost a holy experience.

Greedy
was not a word he embraced.
Greedy
implied a lack of control—stupid mistakes and rash consequences. He was not a greedy person. He was methodical and detailed and careful. Always.

But right now he wanted. He wanted her lips to drink him in like she'd drunk the beer. He wanted her tongue to sweep over his lips with that slow intensity. God help him, he wanted her to savor him. And if that made him greedy, then so be it.

So, carefully, he turned the cup around and put his lips where hers had been. Her eyes darkened as he drank. “You're right,” he said, the taste of the beer and of Casey mixing on his tongue. “It's a beautiful beer.”

Her breath caught and her cheeks colored, throwing the spiderweb scar on her cheek into high relief. And then, heaven help him, she leaned toward him. She could have leaned away, turned away—done something to put distance between them. She could have made it clear that she didn't want him at all.

But she didn't. She felt it, too, this connection between them. Her lips parted ever so slightly and she leaned forward, close enough for him to touch. Close enough for him to take a sip.

The crack of a bat and the crowd cheering snapped his attention away. His head was buzzing as if he'd chugged a six-pack.

“Did they score?” Casey asked, shaking off her confusion. Then she did lean away, settling back into her chair.

Zeb immediately tamped down that rush of lust. They were in public, for God's sake. This wasn't like him. He didn't go for women like Casey—she was the walking embodiment of a tomboy. Women he favored were cultured and refined, elegant and beautiful. They were everything he'd spent his life trying to become.

Accepted. Welcomed. They belonged in the finest social circles.

Women he liked would never sit on the first-base side and hope to catch a fly ball. They wouldn't appreciate the finer points of an IPA or a lager. They wouldn't be proud of a father who was an electrician and they wouldn't be caught dead in a baseball hat—but Casey?

She was rough-and-tumble and there was a decent chance she could best him in an arm-wrestling contest. There shouldn't have been a single thing about her that he found attractive.

So why couldn't he stop staring at her?

Because he couldn't. “Did you want to try mine? I helped develop it.”

He leaned close to her and waited until she held the cup up to his lips. He couldn't tear his gaze away from hers, though. He saw when she sucked in a gasp when he ran his tongue over the rim before he reached up and placed his palm on the bottom of the cup, slowly tilting it back. The bitterness of the brew washed over him.

It wasn't like he'd never had an IPA before. But this was different. He could taste the beer, sure. But there was something about the brightness of the hops, the way it danced on his tongue—it tasted like...

Like her.

“It's really good,” he told her. “You developed it?”

“I did. Percheron was, um...”

“It's all right,” he said, leaning back. “I don't think if you say Chadwick's name three times, he magically appears. I understand the company's history.”

“Oh. Okay.” Damn, that blush only made her look prettier. “Well, Percheron was Chadwick's pet project and I'd been there for almost ten years by that point and he let me help. I was the assistant brewmaster for Percheron when he...” Her voice trailed off and she turned to face the field. “When he left.”

Zeb mulled that over a bit. “Why didn't you go with him?”

“Because the brewmaster did and Chadwick wanted to actually make the beer himself. Percheron is a much smaller company.”

He heard the sorrow in her voice. She'd wanted to go with her old boss—that much was clear.

Then she turned a wide smile in his direction. “Plus, if I'd left the brewery, I'd still be an assistant brewmaster. I'm the brewmaster for the third-largest brewery in the country because I outlasted everyone else. Attrition isn't the best way to get a promotion but it was effective nonetheless.”

“That's what you wanted?”

She looked smug, the cat that had all the cream to herself. His pulse picked up another notch. “That's what I wanted.”

Underneath that beer-drinking, sports-loving exterior, Zeb had to admire the sheer ambition of this woman. Not just anyone would set out to be the first—or youngest—female brewmaster in the country.

But Casey would. And she'd accomplished her goal.

Zeb took a long drink of his lager. It was good, too. “So, Percheron Drafts was your baby?”

“It was Chadwick's, but I was Igor to his Frankenstein.”

He laughed—a deep, long sound that shocked him. That kind of laugh wasn't dignified or intimidating. Zeb didn't allow himself to laugh like that, because he was a CEO and he had to instill fear in the hearts of his enemies.

Except...except he was at a ball game, kicking back with a pretty girl and a beer, and his team was at the plate and the weather was warm and it was...

...perfect.

“So I want you to make Percheron—or something like it—your baby again.”

Even though he wasn't looking at Casey, he felt the current of tension pass through her. “What?”

“I understand Chadwick started Percheron Drafts to compete with the explosion of craft breweries. And we lost that. I don't want to throw in that particular towel just yet. So, you want to try experimental beers? That's what I want you to do, too.”

She turned to face him again, and dammit, she practically glowed. Maybe it was just the setting sun, but he didn't think so. She looked so happy—and he'd put that look on her face.

“Thank you,” she said in a voice so quiet that he had to lean forward to hear it. “When you started, I thought...”

He smirked. She'd thought many things, he'd be willing to bet—and precious few of them had been good.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

Her lips twisted in what he hoped was an amused grin. “How many times are you going to ask me that?”

“I'm not such a bad guy,” he went on, ignoring her sass. “But don't tell anyone.”

She mimed locking her lips and throwing the key over her shoulder.

Somewhere in the background, a ball game was happening. And he loved sports, he really did. But he had questions. He'd learned a little more about what kind of man his half brother was but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

But the spell of the moment had been broken. They settled in and watched the game. Sure enough, by the third inning, a grizzled older man came around with a stout for Casey. Zeb didn't warrant that level of personal service—certainly not in the opposing team's colors. As he sipped the flagship beer of his second-largest competitor, he decided it was...serviceable. Just as Casey had described their own beer.

A fact that was only highlighted when Casey let him sip her stout. “It's going to be tough to beat,” he said with a sigh as she took a long drink.

For the first time, he had a doubt about what he was doing. He'd spent years—
years
—plotting and scheming to get his birthright back. He was a Beaumont and he was going to make sure everyone knew it.

But now, sitting here and drinking his half brother's beer...

He was reminded once again what he didn't have. Chadwick had literally decades to learn about the business of the brewery and the craft of beer. And Zeb—well, he knew a hell of a lot about business. But he hadn't learned it at his father's knee. Beer was his birthright—but he couldn't whip up his own batch if his life depended on it.

Casey patted his arm. “We don't have to beat it.” She paused and he heard her clear her throat. “Unless...”

“Unless what?”

She looked into her cup. It was half-empty. “Unless you're out to destroy Percheron Drafts.”

That was what she said. What she was really asking was,
Are you out to destroy the other Beaumonts?
It was a fair question.

“Because that's kind of a big thing,” she went on in a quiet voice, looking anywhere but at him. “I don't know how many people would be supportive of that. At work, I mean.” She grimaced. “There might be a lot of resignations.”

She wouldn't be supportive of that. She would quit. She'd quit and go elsewhere because even though her first loyalty was to herself and then the beer, the Beaumont family was pretty high on her list.

Again, he wondered how she'd come to this point in her life. The youngest female brewmaster at the third-largest brewery in the country. He might not know the details of her story, but he recognized this one simple truth: she was who she was in large part because the Beaumonts had given her a chance. Because she'd been Igor to Chadwick Beaumont's Frankenstein.

She'd give up her dream job if it came down to a choice between the Beaumont Brewery and Percheron Drafts.

This thought made him more than a little uncomfortable because he could try to explain how it was all business, how this was a battle for market share between two corporations and corporations were not people, but none of that was entirely true.

If he forced her to choose between the Beaumonts and himself, she'd choose them over him.

“There was a time,” he said in a quiet voice, “when I wanted to destroy them.”

Her head snapped up. “What?”

“I used to hate them. They had everything and I had nothing.” Nothing but a bitter mother and a head for business.

“But...” She stared at him, her mouth open wide. “But
look
at you. You're rich and powerful and hot and you did that all on your own.” He blinked at her, but she didn't seem to be aware of what she'd just said, because she went on without missing a beat, “Some of those Beaumonts— I mean, don't get me wrong—I like them. But they're more than a little messed up. Trust me. I was around them long enough to see how the public image wasn't reality. Phillip was a hot mess and Chadwick was miserable and Frances... I mean, they had everything handed to them and it didn't make them any happier.” She shook her head and slouched back in her seat.

And suddenly, he felt he had to make her understand that this wasn't about his siblings, because he was an adult and he realized now what he hadn't known as a child—that his siblings were younger than he was and probably knew only what the rest of the world did about Hardwick Beaumont.

“Casey,” he said. She looked at him and he could see how nervous she was. “I was going to say that I used to hate them—but I don't. How could I? I don't know them and I doubt any of them knew a thing about me before that press conference. I'm not out to destroy them and I'm not out to destroy Percheron Drafts. It's enough that I have the brewery.”

She looked at him then—really looked at him. Zeb started to squirm in his seat, because, honestly? He didn't know what she saw. Did she see a man who made sure his mom had a booming business and his best friend had a good-paying job he loved? Did she see a son who'd never know his father?

Or—worse—would she see a boy rejected by his family, a man who wasn't black and wasn't white but who occupied a no-man's-land in the middle? Would she see an impostor who'd decided he was a Beaumont, regardless of how true it might actually be?

He didn't want to know what she saw. Because quite unexpectedly, Casey Johnson's opinion had become important to him and he didn't want to know if she didn't approve of him.

So he quickly changed the subject. “Tell me...” he said, keeping his voice casual as he turned his attention back to the field. He didn't even know what inning it was anymore. There—the scoreboard said fourth. The home team was at the plate and they already had two outs. Almost halfway done with this corporate outing. “Does that happen often?”

“What? Your boss admitting that he's not a total bastard?”

Zeb choked on his beer. “Actually, I meant that guy proposing to you.”