His Son, Her Secret
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Sarah M. Anderson
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17
One
“This place is a dump,” Byron Beaumont announced. His words echoed off the stone walls, making the submerged space sound haunted.
“Don’t see it as it is,” his older brother Matthew said through the speaker in Byron’s phone. It was much easier for Matthew to call this one in, rather than make the long journey to Denver from California, where he was happily living in sin. “See it as what it will be.”
Byron did another slow turn, inspecting the extent of the neglect as he tried not to think about Matthew—or any of his older brothers—being happily engaged or married. The Beaumonts hadn’t been, until recently, the marrying kind.
Yet it hadn’t been so long ago that he’d thought he was the marrying kind. And then it had all blown up in his face. And while he’d been licking his wounds, his brothers—normally workaholics and playboys—had been pairing off with women who were, by all accounts, great for them.
Once again, Byron was the one who didn’t conform to Beaumont expectations.
Forcibly, he turned his attention back to the space before him. The vaulted ceiling was arched, but the parts that weren’t arched were quite low. Cobwebs dangled from everything, including the single bare lightbulb in the middle of the room, which cast deep shadows into the corners. The giant pillars supporting the arches were evenly spaced, taking up a huge amount of the floor. Inches of dust coated the low half-moon windows at eye level. What Byron could see of the outside looked to be weeds. And the whole space smelled of mold.
“And what will it be? Razed, I hope.”
“No,” Byron’s oldest half brother, Chadwick Beaumont, said. The word was crisp and authoritative, which was normal for Chadwick. However, the part where he lifted his daughter out of his wife’s arms and onto his shoulders so she could see better was not. “This is underneath the brewery. It was originally a warehouse but we think you can do something better with it.”
Byron snorted. Yeah, right.
Serena Beaumont, Chadwick’s wife, stepped next to Byron so that Matthew could see her on the phone. “Percheron Drafts has had a great launch, thanks to Matthew’s hard work. But we want this brewery to be more than just a craft beer.”
“We want to hit the old company where it counts,” Matthew said. “A large number of our former customers continue to be unhappy about how the Beaumont Brewery was sold away from our family. The bigger we can make Percheron Drafts, the better we can siphon off our old customers.”
“And to do that,” Serena went on in a sweet voice at direct odds with a discussion about corporate politics, “we need to offer our customers something they cannot get from Beaumont Brewery.”
“Phillip is working with our graphic designer on incorporating his team of Percherons into all of the Percheron Draft marketing, but we have to be sensitive to trademark issues,” Chadwick added.
“Exactly,” Matthew agreed. “So our distinctive element can’t be the horses, not yet.”
Byron rolled his eyes. He should have brought his twin sister, Frances, so he would have someone to back him up. He was being steamrollered into something that seemed doomed from the start.
“You three have got to be kidding me. You want me to open a restaurant in this dungeon?” He looked around at the dust and the mildew. “No. It’s not going to happen. This place is a dump. I can’t cook in this environment and there’s no way in hell I would expect anyone to eat here, either.” He eyed the baby gurgling on Chadwick’s shoulder. “In fact, I’m not sure any of us should be breathing this air without HazMat masks. When was the last time the doors were even opened?”
Matthew looked at Serena. “Did you show him the workroom?”
“No. I’ll do that now.” She walked toward a set of doors in the far back of the room. They were heavy wooden things on rusting hinges, wide enough a pair of Percheron horses could pull a wagon through them.
“I’ve got it, babe,” Chadwick said as Serena struggled to get the huge latch lifted. “Here, hold Catherine,” he said to Byron.
Suddenly, Byron had a baby in his arms. He almost dropped the phone as Catherine leaned back to look up at her uncle.
“Um, hey,” Byron said nervously. He didn’t know much of anything about babies in general or this baby in particular. All he knew was that she was Serena’s daughter from a previous relationship and Chadwick had formally adopted her.
Catherine’s face wrinkled in doubt at this new development. Byron didn’t even know how old the little girl was. Six months? A year? He had no idea. He couldn’t be sure he was even holding her right. However, he was becoming reasonably confident that this small human was about to start crying. Her face screwed up and she started to turn red.
“Um, Chadwick? Serena?”
Luckily, Chadwick got the doors open with a hideous squealing noise, which distracted the baby. Then Serena lifted Catherine out of Byron’s arms. “Thanks,” she said, as if Byron had done anything other than not drop the infant.
“You’re welcome.”
Matthew was laughing, Byron realized. “What?” he whispered at his brother.
“The look on your face...” Matthew appeared to be slapping his knee. “Man, have you ever even held a baby before?”
“I’m a chef—not a babysitter,” Byron hissed back. “Have you ever foamed truffle oil?”
Matthew held up his hands in surrender. “I give, I give. Besides, no one said that starting a restaurant would involve child care. You’re off the hook, baby-wise.”
“Byron?” Serena said. She waved him toward the doors. “Come see this.”
Unwillingly, Byron crossed the length of the dank room and walked up the sloping ramp to the workroom. What he saw almost took his breath away.
Instead of the dirt and decay that characterized the old warehouse, the workroom had been upgraded at some point in the past twenty years. Stainless-steel cabinets and countertops fit against the stone walls—but these walls had been painted white. The overhanging industrial lighting was harsh, but it kept the room from looking like a pit in hell. Some cobwebs hung here and there, but the contrast between this room and the other was stunning.
This, Byron thought, had potential.
“Now,” Matthew was saying as Byron looked at the copper pipes that led down into a sink that was almost three feet long, “as we understand it, the last people who used this brewery to brew beer upgraded the workroom. That’s where they experimented with ingredients in small batches.”
Byron walked over to the six-burner stove. It was a professional model. “It’s better,” he agreed. “But this isn’t equipped for restaurant service. I can’t cook on only six burners. It’s still a complete teardown. I’d still be starting from scratch.”
There was a pause, then Matthew said, “Isn’t that what you want?”
“What?”
“Yes, well,” Chadwick cleared his throat. “We thought that, with your being in Europe for over a year...”
“That you’d be more interested in a fresh start,” Serena finished diplomatically. “A place you could call your own. Where you call the shots.”
Byron stared at his family. “What are you talking about?” But the question was a dodge. He knew exactly what they were thinking.
That he’d had a job working for Rory McMaken in his flagship restaurant, Sauce, in Denver and that not only had Byron been thrown out of the place over what everyone thought were “creative differences” but that Byron had left the country and gone to France and then Spain because he couldn’t handle the flack McMaken had given him and the entire Beaumont family on his show on the Foodie TV network.
Too bad they didn’t know what had really happened.
Byron’s contact with his family had been intentionally limited over the past twelve months—his twin sister Frances notwithstanding. Nearly all of the family news had filtered down through Frances. That’s how Byron had learned that Chadwick had not only gotten divorced but had then also married his secretary and adopted her daughter. And that’s how Byron had learned Phillip was marrying his horse trainer. No doubt, Frances was the only reason anyone knew where Byron had been.
Still, Byron was touched by his family’s concern. He’d more or less gone off the grid to protect them from the fallout of his one great mistake—Leona Harper. Yet here they were, trying to convince him to return to Denver by giving him the blank slate he’d been trying to find.
Chadwick started to say something but paused and looked at his wife. Something unspoken passed between them. Just the sight of it stung Byron like lemon juice in a paper cut.
“You wouldn’t have to get independent financing,” Serena told Byron. “The up-front costs would be covered between the settlement you received from the sale of the Beaumont Brewery and the capital that Percheron Drafts can provide.”
“We bought the entire building outright,” Chadwick added. “Rent would be next to nothing compared to what it would be in downtown Denver. The restaurant would have to cover its own utilities and payroll, but that’s about it. You’d have near total financial freedom.”
“And,” Matthew chimed in, “you could do whatever you wanted. Whatever theme you wanted to build upon, whatever decorating scheme you wanted to use, whatever cuisine you wanted to serve—burgers and fries or foamed truffle oil or whatever. The only caveat would be that Percheron Drafts beer would be the primary focus of the beverage menu since the restaurant is in the basement of the brewery. Otherwise, you’d have carte blanche.”
Byron looked from Chadwick to Serena to Matthew’s face on the screen. “You guys really think this will sell beer?”
“I can give you a copy of the cost-benefit analysis I prepared,” Serena said. Chadwick beamed at her, which was odd. The brother Byron remembered didn’t beam a whole hell of a lot.
Byron could not believe he was considering this. He liked living in Madrid. His Spanish was improving and he liked working at El Gallio, the restaurant helmed by a chef who cared more about food and ingredients and people than his own brand name.
It’d been a year. A year of working his way up the food chain, from no-star restaurants to one-star Michelin establishments to El Gallio, a three-star restaurant—one of the highest-ranked places in the world. He had made a name for himself that had absolutely nothing to do with his father and the Beaumonts, and he was damned proud of that. Would he really give all that up to come home for good?
More than anything, he liked the near total anonymity of life in Europe. There, no one cared that he was a Beaumont or that he’d left the States under a swirling cloud of gossip. No one gave a damn what happened with the Beaumont Brewery or Percheron Drafts or what any of his siblings had done to make headlines that day.
No one thought about the long-running feud between the Beaumonts and the Harpers that had led to the forced sale of the Beaumont Brewery.
No one thought about Byron and Leona Harper.
And that was how he liked it.
Leona...
If he were going to move back home, he knew he’d have to confront her. They had unfinished business and not even a year in Europe could change that. He wanted to look her in the face and have her tell him why. That’s all he wanted. Why had she lied to him for almost a year about who she really was? Why had she picked her family over him? Why had she thrown away everything they’d planned—everything he’d wanted to give her?
In the course of the past year, Byron had worked and worked and worked to forget her. He had to accept the fact that he might not ever forget her or her betrayal of him—of them. Fine. That was part of life. Everyone got their heart ripped out of their chest and handed to them at least once.
He didn’t want her back. Why would he? So she and her father could try to destroy him all over again?
No, what he wanted was a little payback.
The question was how to go about it.
Then he remembered something. Before it’d all fallen so spectacularly apart, Leona had been in school for industrial design. They’d talked about the restaurant they’d open together, how she’d design it and he’d run it. A blank slate that was theirs and theirs alone.
It’d been a year. She might have a job or her own firm or whatever. If he hired her, she would work for him. She would have to do as he said. He could prove that she didn’t have any power over him—that she couldn’t hurt him. He was not the same naive boy who’d let love blind him while he worked for an egomaniac. He was a chef. He would have his own restaurant. He was his own boss. He was in charge.
He was a Beaumont, damn it. It was time to start acting like one.
“I can use whomever I want to do the interior design?”
“Of course,” Chadwick and Matthew said at the same time.
Byron looked at the workroom and then through the doors to the dungeon of the old warehouse. “I cannot believe I’m even considering this,” he muttered. He could go back to Spain, back to the new life he’d made for himself, free of his past.
Except...
He would never be free of his past, not really. And he was done hiding.
He looked at his brothers and Serena, each hopeful that he would come back into the family fold.
This was a mistake. But then, when it came to Leona, Byron would probably always make the worst choice.
“I’ll do it.”
* * *
“Leona?” May’s voice came through the speaker on her phone.
Leona hurriedly picked up before her boss, Marvin Lutefisk, head of Lutefisk Design, could hear the personal call. “I’m here. What’s up? Is everything okay?”
“Percy’s a little fussy. I think he might have another ear infection.”
Leona sighed. “Do we still have some drops from the last round?” She could hardly afford another hundred-dollar trip to the doctor, who would look at Percy’s ears for three seconds and write a prescription.
But the other option wasn’t much better. If Percy got three—now two—more ear infections, they would have to talk about putting tubes in his ears, and even that minor outpatient surgery was far beyond Leona’s budget.
“A little bit...” May sounded unconvincing.
“I’ll...get some more,” Leona announced. Maybe she could sweet-talk the nurses into a free sample?
Just like she’d done nearly every single day since Percy’s birth, Leona thought about how different things would be if Byron Beaumont were still in her life. It wouldn’t necessarily solve her health care issues, but her little sister May treated Leona as if she had the means to fix any problem, anytime.
Just once Leona wanted to lean on someone, instead of being the one who took all the weight.
But daydreaming about what might have been didn’t pay the bills, so she told May, “Listen, I’m still at work. If he gets too bad, call the pediatrician. I can take him in tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay. You’ll be home for dinner, right? I have class tonight, don’t forget.”
“I won’t.” Just then, her boss walked past her cubicle. “Gotta go,” she whispered and hung up.
“Leona,” Marvin said in his nasal tone. Unconsciously, he reached up and patted his comb-over back into position. “Busy?”
Leona put on her best smile. “Just finishing up a client phone call, Mr. Lutefisk. What’s up?”
Marvin smiled encouragingly, his eyes beaming at her through thick lenses. He really wasn’t a bad boss—that she knew. Marvin was giving her a chance to be someone other than Leon Harper’s daughter, and that was all she could ask. That and the chance to get her foot in the door of industrial design. Leona had always dreamed of designing restaurants and bars—public spaces where form and function blended with a practical application of art and design. She hadn’t really planned on doing storefronts for malls and the like, but everyone had to start somewhere.
“We’ve had an inquiry,” Marvin said. “For a new brewpub on the south side of the city.” Marvin tilted his head to the side and gave her a look. “We don’t normally do this sort of thing here at Lutefisk Design but the caller asked for you specifically.”
A trill of excitement coursed through her. A restaurant? And they’d asked for her by name? This was good. Great, even. But Leona remembered who she was talking to. “Are you comfortable with me being the primary on this one? If you’d rather handle it yourself, I’d be happy to assist.”
It hurt to make the offer. If she was the primary designer instead of the assistant, she’d get a much bigger percentage of the commission and that could be more than enough to cover Percy’s medical costs. She could pay off some of May’s student loans and...
She couldn’t get ahead of herself. Marvin was very particular about the level of involvement his assistants engaged in.
“Well...” Marvin pushed his glasses up. “The caller was very specific. He requested you.”
“Really? I mean, that’s great,” Leona said, trying to keep her cool. How had this happened? Maybe that last job for an upscale boutique on the Sixteenth Street Mall? The owner had been thrilled with the changes Leona had made to Marvin’s plan. Maybe that’s where the reference came from?
“But he wants you to survey the site today. This afternoon. Do you have time?”
She almost said hell, yes! But she managed to slam the brakes on her mouth. Years of trying to keep her father happy when he was in one of his moods had trained her to say exactly what a man in a position of authority needed to hear. “I need to finish up the paperwork for that stationery store...”
Marvin waved this away. “That will keep. Go on—see if this is a job worth taking. Charlene has the address.”
“Thank you.” Leona gathered up her tablet computer—one of her true luxuries—and grabbed her purse. She got the address from Charlene, the receptionist, and hurried to the car.
A brewpub. One that was on the far south side of the city, she noted as she programmed the address into her Global Positioning System. There wasn’t any other information to go with the address—like which brewery this was for—but that was probably a good sign. Instead of doing an upgrading project, maybe this would be a brand-new venture. That would not only mean more billable hours but the chance to make this project the showcase she’d need when she started her own firm.
The GPS estimated the pub’s location was about forty minutes away. Leona called May and updated her on her whereabouts and then she hit the road.
Thirty-seven minutes later, Leona drove past a small sign that read Percheron Drafts as she turned into a driveway that led to a series of old brick buildings. She looked up at the tall smokestack in awe. White smoke puffed out lazily, but that was practically the only sign of life.
Percheron Drafts...why did that name sound familiar? She’d heard it somewhere, but she didn’t actually drink beer. She was going to have to fake it for this meeting. She’d have time to do the research tonight.
The GPS guided her underneath a walkway, around the back of the building and told her to park on a gravel lot that had weeds growing everywhere. Ahead she saw a ramp that led down to an open door.
Okay, she thought as she turned the car off and grabbed her things. So maybe the building was old, but this certainly wasn’t an already established restaurant. Heck, she didn’t even see another car parked here. Was this the right place?
She got out and put on her professional smile. Then—like something out of a dream—a man walked through the doors and up the ramp. The sunlight caught the red in his hair and he smiled at her.
She knew that walk, that hair. She knew that smile—lopsided and warm and happy to see her.
Oh, God.
Byron.
Percheron Drafts... It suddenly clicked. That was the name of the brewery the Beaumont family had started after their family business had been sold—and she only knew about that because it was her father who’d forced the sale.
Panic kicked in. He was coming toward her, his lean legs closing the distance rapidly. If he got too close, he’d see the baby seat in the back of her car.
Her head began to swim. She wasn’t ready for this. He’d walked out on her. He’d believed her father over her and simply disappeared—just like her father had said all Beaumont men did. Beaumonts took whatever woman they wanted and when they were done, they simply abandoned them—and kept the children.
She’d known she’d have to confront him eventually. But now? Right freaking now?
She wasn’t ready. She hadn’t lost all the baby weight and, as a result, she was wearing the only kind of business-casual attire she could afford—the kind from discount stores. She couldn’t even be sure that Percy hadn’t spit up on her blouse this morning.
When she’d imagined facing the man who’d broken her heart and abandoned her, she’d wanted to look her very best to make him physically hurt. She hadn’t wanted to look like a rumpled single mother struggling to get by.
Even if he was the reason she was exactly that.
But she couldn’t let him see into the back of the car. If he didn’t know about Percy, she wasn’t going to tell him until she’d had time to come up with a plan. Because what if he did the Beaumont thing and demanded her child? She could not lose her son. She couldn’t let Byron raise the boy to be yet another Beaumont in the line of Beaumont men. She had to protect her baby.
So, against her better judgment, she walked toward him.
Oh, this wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t. Byron’s hair had gotten a little longer and he wore it pulled back into a low ponytail, which took all of the natural curl out of it—except for one piece that had come free. His lanky frame had filled out a little, giving him a more muscular look that was positively sinful in the white button-up shirt he wore cuffed at the sleeves.
He looked good. Heck, he looked better than good. And she looked...dumpy. Damn it all.
They met in the middle of the parking lot, stopping less than two feet from each other. “Leona,” he said in his deep baritone voice as he looked at her. His eyes were a deeper blue now—or maybe that was just the bright sun. God, he was so handsome.
She would not be swayed by his good looks. Those looks lied, just like he did.
“Byron,” she replied. Because what else could she say here? Where have you been? I had your son after you left me? I don’t know if I want to kiss you or strangle you?
This was no big deal, she tried to tell herself. It was just the former love of her life, the father of her son—suddenly back after a year’s absence. And apparently hiring her for a job. A flash of anger gave her strength. If he was back, why hadn’t he just called her? Why did he have to hire her?
Unless...he hadn’t come back for her.
He’d left without her, after all, jetting off to Europe. That’d been as much information as Leona had been able to get out of Byron’s twin sister, Frances. Europe—as far away from Leona as he could get without leaving the planet. Or so it had felt.
And now he was back and hiring her. For a job she desperately needed. This was not him sweeping back into her life and making everything right. This was not him needing her.
So she did not flinch as he looked her up and down as if he expected her to fall into his arms and tell him how damned much she’d missed him. She would not give him the satisfaction. Yes, the past year had been the hardest year of her life. But she wasn’t the same silly little girl who believed love would somehow conquer all. The past year had shown her how tough she could be. It was time for Byron to realize the same thing.
But it was difficult to keep her head up as his gaze traveled over her. He’d always done that—looked at her as though she was the most beautiful woman on the planet. Even when they’d worked together at that restaurant and the cream of the high-society crop had come into the restaurant every single night—even when other women had thrown themselves at his Beaumont name—Byron had always had eyes only for her.
She shivered at the memory of the way he used to look at her—at the way he was looking at her right now.
“You cut your hair,” he noted.
Her mouth opened, the truth on the tip of her tongue—she’d cut it because Percy liked to yank it while he was nursing. She clamped down on that impulse. The words sat in the back of her throat, a lead weight that held her tongue still. She would give him absolutely nothing to use against her. She would not let him hurt her again.
“I like it,” he hurried to add when she couldn’t think of a single reasonable thing to say in response.
She blushed at the compliment. Her fingers itched to tuck the short bob behind her ears, but she held fast to the straps of her bag. She was not here for Byron, just like he hadn’t been there for her. She was here to do a job and that was final. “Do you really need an interior designer or did you call me away from my job just to note I’ve changed my style?” Since you left.
She didn’t say those last words out loud, but they seemed to hang in between them anyway.
Byron took another step toward her. He reached up. Leona held her breath as he trailed the very tips of his fingers over her cheek. It was almost as if he couldn’t believe she was really here, either.
Then he reached down and picked up her left hand. His thumb rubbed over her ring finger—her bare ring finger. “Leona...” he murmured, his voice husky with what she recognized as need. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
Everything about her body tightened at the sound of her name from his mouth, his lips on her hand—tightened so much that she had to close her eyes because if she looked into the depths of Byron’s beautiful blue eyes for one second longer, she’d be lost all over again.
It’d always been this way. There’d been something about Byron Beaumont that had pulled her in from the very beginning—something that should have sent her running the other way.
After all, her father had been drumming his hatred of all things Beaumont into her head for as long as she could remember. She knew all about Hardwick Beaumont, her father’s nemesis, and his heirs. How the Beaumonts were dangerous, how they seduced young and innocent women and then cast them aside as if they were nothing.
Just as Leona had been seduced and cast aside.
So she did not give. She ignored her body’s reaction to Byron, ignored the old memories that the mere touch of his lips brought rushing back to her. She kept her eyes closed and her focus on the job.
The job she needed because she was raising Byron’s son on her own. A son he did not know about.
She needed to tell him.
But she couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she figured out what he was doing here. Not until she knew where she stood with him. She was no longer young and innocent and she was not someone who would forget a year’s worth of heartache and loneliness with the whisper of her name, thank you very much.
God, what a mess.
A tense second passed between them and then Byron dropped her hand. She felt him step away from her and only then did she open her eyes.
He now stood several feet away, looking at her differently—harder, meaner almost.
Another flash of panic hit her—did he already know about Percy? Or was he just mad that she wasn’t falling at her feet in gratitude for being acknowledged?
“I need a designer,” he said quietly. He didn’t sound angry, which was at direct odds with the way he was looking at her. “I’m going to be opening up my own restaurant.”
“Here?”
“Here,” he agreed, sounding resigned to it. “It’s a massive job and I—” she saw him swallow “—I wanted to see if it was the kind of thing you were still interested it.”
“You’re going to stay in Denver?” The question came out with more of an edge than she meant it to, but that was the thing she needed to know. If he were going to stay in Denver, then...
Then he’d have to know about Percy. They’d have to figure something out, something involving child support and visitation and...
Well, not their relationship. There was no relationship. That part of her life was over now.
And if he were opening up his own restaurant—her mind spun around the facts. Her father, Leon Harper, would find out that Byron had come home.
Oh, God. Her father would get out his old axes and grind them all over again. Her father would shove his way back into her life, ignoring all the ways she had tried to extricate herself from her parents. Her father would do everything he could to destroy Byron—again.
Her father would do everything to punish her again.
“Yes,” Byron said, turning away from her and looking up at the old buildings. “I’ve come home.”
