His Illegitimate Heir Page 4

  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?”

  “Daniel has arranged this press conference. Think of it as a political rally.” Which was what Daniel knew best. The similarities were not coincidences. “I’d like everyone to look supportive and encouraging of the new plan.”

  “Try to smile,” Daniel said, and Zeb saw nearly everyone jump in surprise. It was the first time Daniel had spoken. “I’m going to line you up and then we’re going to walk out onto the front steps of the building. I’m going to group you accordingly. You are all the face of the Beaumont Brewery, each and every one of you. Try to remember that when the cameras are rolling.”

  Spoken like a true political consultant.

  “Mr. Richards,” Delores said, poking her head in the room, “it’s almost time.”

  Daniel began arranging everyone in line as he wanted them and people went along with it. Zeb went back to his private bathroom to splash water on his face. Did he have enough support to put on a good show?

  Probably.

  He stared at the mirror. He was a Beaumont. For almost his entire life, that fact had been a secret that only three people knew—him and his parents. If his mother had so much as breathed a word about his true parentage, Hardwick would’ve come after her with pitchforks and torches. He would’ve burned her to the ground.

  But Hardwick was dead and Zeb no longer had to keep his father’s secrets. Now the whole world was going to know who he really was.

  He walked out to find one person still in the conference room. He couldn’t even be surprised when he saw it was Casey Johnson. For some reason, something in his chest unclenched.

  “How did I do?” The moment the words left his mouth, he started. He didn’t need her approval. He didn’t even want it. But he’d asked for it anyway.

  She tilted her head to one side and studied him. “Not bad,” she finally allowed. “You may lose the entire marketing department.”

  Zeb’s eyebrows jumped up. Was it because of him or because he brought in Daniel, another outsider? “You think so?”

  She nodded and then sighed. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Can you keep a s
ecret?”

  “If I say yes, is that your cue to say, ‘So can I’?”

  Zeb would never admit to being nervous. But if he had been, a little verbal sparring with Ms. Johnson would have been just the thing to distract him. He gave her a measured look. “I’ll take that as a no, you can’t keep a secret. Nevertheless,” he went on before she could protest, “I am putting the fate of this company in the hands of a young woman with an attitude problem, when any other sane owner would turn toward an older, more experienced brewmaster. I have faith in you, Ms. Johnson. Try to have a little in me.”

  She clearly did not win a lot of poker games. One second, she looked like she wanted to tear him a new one for daring to suggest she might have an attitude problem. But then the compliment registered and the oddest thing happened.

  She blushed. Not the overheated red that he’d seen on her several times now. This was a delicate coloring of her cheeks, a kiss of light pink along her skin. “You have faith in me?”

  “I had a beer last night. Since you’ve been in charge of brewing for the last year, I feel it’s a reasonable assumption that you brewed it. So yes, I have faith in your abilities.” Her lips parted. She sucked in a little gasp and Zeb was nearly overcome with the urge to lean forward and kiss her. Because she looked utterly kissable right now.

  But the moment the thought occurred to him, he pushed it away. What the hell was wrong with him today? He was about to go out and face a bloodthirsty pack of reporters. Kissing anyone—least of all his brewmaster—should have been the farthest thing from his mind. Especially considering the setdown she’d given him a few days ago.

  Was he like his father or his brother?

  Still, he couldn’t fight the urge to lean forward. Her eyes widened and her pupils darkened.

  “Don’t let me down,” he said in a low voice.

  He wasn’t sure what she would say. But then the door swung open again and Daniel poked his head in.