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Still, Phillip was good at filling the silence. He had an endless supply of interesting stories about interesting celebrities he’d met at parties and clubs. If anyone could find something to talk about, it’d be his brother.
But that wasn’t Chadwick’s life. He didn’t jet around making headlines. He worked. He went to the office, ran, showered, worked, worked some more and then went home. Even on the weekends, he usually logged in. Running a corporation took most of his time—he probably worked a hundred hours a week.
But that’s what it took to run a major corporation. For so long, he’d done what was expected of him—what his father had expected of him. The only thing that mattered was the company.
Chadwick looked at Serena. She was sitting across from him, her hands in her lap, her eyes wide as she looked around the room. This level of luxury was normal for him—but it was fun seeing things through her eyes.
It was fun being with her. She made him want to think about something other than work—and given the situation, he was grateful for that alone. But what he felt went way beyond simple gratitude.
For the first time in his adult life—maybe longer—he was looking at someone who meant more to him than the brewery did.
That realization scared the hell out of him. Because, really—who was he if he wasn’t Chadwick Beaumont, the fourth-generation Beaumont to run the brewery? That was who he’d been raised to be. Just like his father had wanted, Chadwick had always put the brewery first.
But now...things were changing. He didn’t know how much longer he’d have the brewery. Even if they fended off this takeover, there might be another. The company’s position had been weakened.
Funny, though—he felt stronger after this week with Serena.
Still, he had to say something. He hadn’t asked her to dinner just to stare at her. “Are you doing all right?”
“Fine,” she answered, breathlessly. She did look fine. Her eyes were bright and she had a small, slightly stunned smile on her face. “This place is just so...fancy! I’m afraid I’m going to use the wrong fork.”
He felt himself relax a bit. Even though she looked like a million dollars, she was still the same Serena.
His.
No. He pushed that thought away as soon as it cropped up. She was not his—she was only his assistant. That was the extent of his claim to her. “Your parents never dressed you up and took you out to eat at a place like this just for fun?”
“Ah, no.” A furious blush raced up her cheeks.
“Really? Not even for a special event?”
That happened a lot. He’d be eating some place nice—some place like this—and a family with kids who had no business being in a five-star restaurant would come in, the boys yanking on the necks of their ties and tipping over the drinks, the girls being extra fussy over the food. He’d sort of assumed that all middle-class people did something like that once or twice.
She looked up at him, defiance flashing in her eyes. The same defiance that had her refusing dresses. He liked it on her—liked that she didn’t always bow and scrape to him just because he was Chadwick Beaumont.
“Did your parents ever put you in rags and take you to a food pantry just for fun?”
“What?”
“Because that’s where we went ‘out to eat.’ The food pantry.” As quickly as it had come, the defiance faded, leaving her looking embarrassed. She studied her silverware setting. “Sorry. I don’t usually tell people that. Forget I said anything.”
He stared at her, his mouth open. Had she really just said...the food pantry? She’d mentioned that her family had gone through a few financial troubles but—
“You picked the food bank for this year’s charity.”
“Yes.” She continued to inspect the flatware, everything about her closed off.
This wasn’t the smooth, flowing conversation he’d wanted. But this felt more important. “Tell me about it.”
“Not much to tell.” Her chin got even lower. “Poverty is not a bowl full of cherries.”
“What happened to your parents?” Not that his parents had particularly loved him—or even liked him—but he’d never wanted for anything. He couldn’t imagine how parents could let that happen to their child.
“Nothing. It’s just that...Joe and Shelia Chase did everything to a fault. They still do. They’re loyal to a fault, forgiving to a fault—generous to a fault. If you need twenty bucks, they’ll give you the last twenty they have in the bank and then not have enough to buy dinner or get the bus home. My dad’s a janitor.”
At this, a flush of embarrassment crept over her. But it didn’t stop her. “He’ll give you the shirt off his back—not that you’d want it, but he would. He’s the guy who always stops when he sees someone on the side of the road with a flat tire, and helps the person change it. But he gets taken by every stupid swindle, every scam. Mom’s not much better. She’s been a waitress for decades. Never tried to get a better job because she was so loyal to the diner owners. They hired her when she was fifteen. Whenever Dad got fired, we lived on her tips. Which turns out to not be enough for a family of three.”
There was so much hurt in her voice that suddenly he was furious with her parents, no matter how kind or loyal they were. “They had jobs—but you still had to go to the food pantry?”
“Don’t get me wrong. They love me. They love each other...but they acted as if money were this unknown force that they had no power over, like the rain. Sometimes, it would rain. And sometimes—most of the time—it wouldn’t. Money flows into and out of our lives independent of anything we do. That’s what they thought. Still think.”
He’d never questioned having money, just because there had always been so much of it. Who had to worry about their next meal? Not the Beaumonts, that was for damn sure. But he still worked hard for his fortune.
Serena went on, “They had love, Mom always said. So who needed cars that ran or health insurance or a place to live not crawling with bugs? Not them.” Then she looked up at him, her dark brown eyes blazing. “But I do. I want more than that.”
He sat there, fully aware his mouth had dropped open in shock, but completely unable to get it shut. Finally, he got out, “I had no idea.”
She held his gaze. He could see her wavering. “No one does. I don’t talk about it. I wanted you to look at me for what I am, not what I was. I don’t want anyone to look at me and see a welfare case.”
He couldn’t blame her for that. If she’d walked into the job interview acting as if he owed her the position because she’d been on food stamps, he wouldn’t have hired her. But she hadn’t. She’d never played the sympathy card, not once.
“Did Neil know?” Not that he wanted to bring Neil into this.
“Yes. I moved in with him partly because he offered to cover the rent until I could pay my share. I don’t think...I don’t think he ever really forgot what I’d been. But he was stable. So I stayed.” Suddenly, she seemed tired. “I appreciate the dresses and the dinner, Chadwick—I really do. But there were years where my folks didn’t clear half of what you paid. To just buy dresses for that much...”
Like a bolt out of the blue, he understood Serena in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever understood another person. She was kind and she was loyal—not to a fault, not at the sacrifice of her own well-being—but those were traits that he’d always admired in her. “Why did you pick the brewery?”
She didn’t look away from him this time. Instead, she leaned forward, a new zeal in her eyes. “I had internship offers at a couple of other places, but I looked at the employee turnover, the benefits—how happy the workers were. I couldn’t bear the thought of changing jobs every other year. What if I never got another one? What if I couldn’t take care of myself? The brewery had all these workers that had been there for thirty, forty years—entire careers. It’s been in your family for so long...it just seemed like a stable place. That’s all I wanted.”
And now that was in danger. He wasn’t happy about possibly failing to keep the company in family hands, but he had a personal fortune to fall back on. He’d been worried about the workers, of course—but Serena brought it home for him in a new way.
Then she looked up at him through her dark lashes. “At least, that’s all I thought I wanted.”
Desire hit him low and hard, a precision sledgehammer that drove a spike of need up into his gut. Because, unlike Helen and unlike his mother, he knew that Serena wasn’t talking about the gowns or the jewels or the fancy dinner.
She was talking about him.
He couldn’t picture the glamorous, refined woman sitting across from him wearing rags and standing in line at a food pantry. And he didn’t have to. That was one of the great things about being wealthy. “I promised you I wouldn’t fail you, Serena. I keep my promises.” Even if he lost the company—if he failed his father—he wouldn’t leave Serena in a position in which welfare was her only choice.
She leaned back, dropping her gaze again. Like she’d just realized she’d gone too far and was trying to backtrack. “I know. But I’m not your responsibility. I’m just an employee.”
“The hell you are.” The words were out a little faster than he wanted them to be, but what was the point of pretending anymore? He hadn’t lied earlier. Something about her had moved him beyond his normal restraint. She was so much more than an employee.
Her cheeks took on that pale pink blush that only made her more beautiful. Her mouth opened and she looked like she was about to argue with him when the waiter came up. When the man left with their orders—filet mignon for him, lobster for her—Chadwick looked at her. “Tell me about you.”
She eyed him with open suspicion.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I swear it won’t have any bearing on how I treat you. I’ll still want to buy you pretty things and take you to dinner and have you on my arm at a gala.” Because that’s where you belong, his mind finished for him.
On his arm, in his bed—in his life.
She didn’t answer at first, so he leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Do you trust me when I say I’ll never use it against you?”
She tucked her lower lip up under her teeth. It shouldn’t look so sexy, but on her it did. Everything did.
“Prove it.”
Oh, yeah, she was challenging him. But it didn’t feel like a battle of wills.
He didn’t hesitate. “My dad beat me. Once, with a belt.” He kept his voice low, so no one could hear, but it didn’t matter. The words ripped themselves out of a place deep inside of his chest.
Her eyes went wide with shock and she covered her open mouth with her hand. It hurt to look at her, so he closed his eyes.
But that was a mistake. He could see his father standing over him, that nice Italian leather belt in his hand, buckle out—screaming about how Chadwick had gotten a C on a math test. He heard the belt whistle through the air, felt the buckle cut into his back. Felt the blood start to run down his side as the belt swung again—all because Chadwick had messed up how to subtract fractions. Future CEOs knew how to do math, Hardwick had reminded him again and again.
That’s all Chadwick had ever been—future CEO of Beaumont Brewery. He’d been eleven. It was the only time Hardwick Beaumont had ever left a mark on him, but it was a hell of a mark. He still had the scar.
It was all such a long time ago. Like it had been part of a different life. He thought he’d buried that memory with his father, but it was still there, and it still had the capacity to cause him pain. He’d spent his entire life trying to do what his father wanted, trying to avoid another beating, but what had that gotten him? A failed marriage and a company that was about to be sold out from under him.
Hardwick couldn’t hurt him now.
He opened his eyes and looked at Serena. Her face was pale and there was a certain measure of horror in her eyes, but she wasn’t looking at him like he feared she would—like she’d forgotten about the man he was now and only saw a bleeding little boy.
Just like he saw a woman he trusted completely, and not a little girl who ate at food pantries.
He kept going. “When I didn’t measure up to expectations. As far as I know, he never hit any of his other kids. Just me. He broke my toys, sent my friends away and locked me in my room, all because I had to be the perfect Beaumont to run his company.”
“How...how could he do that?”
“I was never his son. Just his employee.” The words tasted bitter, but they were the unvarnished truth. “And, like you said, I don’t tell people about it. Not even Helen. Because I don’t want people to look at me with pity.”
But he’d told her. Because he knew she wouldn’t hold it against him. Helen would have. Every time they fought, she would have thrown that back in his face because she thought she could use his past to control him.
Serena wouldn’t manipulate him like that. And he wouldn’t do that to her.
“So,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “tell me about it.”
She nodded. Her face was still pale, but she understood what he was saying. She understood him. “Which part?”
“All of it.”
So she did.
Eight (#ulink_2d53c902-6d2a-599a-bf70-474f8c85054a)
Serena clung to Chadwick’s arm as they swept up the red-carpeted stairs, past the paparazzi and into the Denver Art Museum. Part of her clinginess was because of the heels. Chadwick took huge, masterful strides that she was struggling to keep up with.
But another part of it was how unsettled she was feeling. She’d told him about her childhood. About the one time she and her mom had lived in a women-only shelter for three days because her dad didn’t want them to have to sleep on the streets in the winter—but her mom had missed him so much that she’d bundled Serena up and they’d gone looking for him. She’d told him about Missy Gurgin in fourth grade making fun of Serena for wearing her old clothes, about the midnight moves to stay ahead of the due rent, about eating dinner that her mom had scavenged from leftovers at the diner.
Things she’d never told anyone. Not even Neil knew about all of that.
In turn, he’d told her about the way his father had controlled his entire life, about punishments that went way beyond cruel. He’d talked in a dispassionate tone, like they were discussing the weather and not the abuse of a child too young to defend himself, but she could hear the pain beneath the surface. He could act like it was all water under the bridge, but she knew better. All the money in the world hadn’t protected Chadwick.
She put her hand over her stomach. No one would ever treat her child like that. And she would do everything in her power to keep her baby from ever being cold and hungry—or wondering where her next meal was coming from.
They walked into the Art Museum. Serena tried to find the calm in her mind. God knew she needed it. She pushed aside the horror of what Chadwick had told her, the embarrassment of sharing her story with him.
This was more familiar territory. She’d come to the Art Museum for this gala for the previous seven years. She knew where the galleries were, where the food was. She’d helped arrange that. She knew how to hold her champagne glass—oh, wait. No champagne for her tonight.
Okay, no need to panic. She was still perfectly at ease. She was only wearing a wildly expensive dress, four-inch heels and a fortune in jewels. Not to mention she was pregnant, on a date with her boss and....
Yeah, champagne would be great right about now.
Chadwick leaned over and whispered, “Are you breathing?” in her ear.
She did as instructed, the grin on her face making it easier. “Yes.”
He squeezed her hand against his arm, which she found exceptionally reassuring. “Good. Keep it that way.”
It was almost ten o’clock. Once they’d started sharing stories at dinner, it had been hard to stop. Serena was both mortified that she’d told any of that to Chadwick and, somehow, relieved. She’d buried those secrets deep, but they hadn’t been dead. They’d lived on, terrorizing her like a monster under the bed.
At some point during dinner, she’d relaxed. The meal had been fabulous—the food was a little out there, but good. She’d been able to just enjoy being with Chadwick.
Now they were arriving at the gala slightly later than was fashionable. People were noticing as Chadwick swept her into the main hall. She could see heads tilting as people craned their necks for a better view, could hear the whispers starting.
Oh, this was not a good idea.
She’d loved her black dress because it looked good—but it had also blended, something Mario had forbidden. Now that she was here and standing out in the crowd in a bold blue, she wished she’d gone with basic black. People were staring.
A woman wearing a fire engine red gown that matched her fire engine red hair separated from the crowd just as Serena and Chadwick hit the middle of the room. She fought the urge to excuse herself and bolt for the ladies room. Queens amongst women did not hide in the bathroom, and that was that.
“There you are,” the woman said, leaning to kiss Chadwick on the cheek. “I thought maybe you weren’t coming, and Matthew and I would have to deal with Phillip all by ourselves.”
Serena exhaled in relief. She should have recognized Frances Beaumont, Chadwick’s half sister. She was well liked at the Beaumont Brewery, a fact that had a great deal to do with Donut Friday. Once a month, she personally delivered a donut to every single employee. Apparently, she’d been doing it since she was a little girl. As a result, Serena had heard more than a few of the workers refer to her as “our Frannie.”
Frances was the kind of woman people described as “droll” without really knowing what that meant. But her razor-sharp wit was balanced with a good nature and an easy laugh.
Unlike everyone else at the brewery, though, Chadwick didn’t seem to relax around his half sister. He stood ramrod straight, as if he were hoping to pass inspection. “We were held up. How’s Byron?”
Frances waved her hand dismissively as Serena wondered, Byron?
“Still licking his wounds in Europe. I believe he’s in Spain.” Frances sighed, as if this revelation pained her, but she said nothing else.
Chadwick nodded, apparently agreeing to drop the topic of Byron. “Frannie, you remember Serena Chase, my assistant?”
Frances looked her up and down. “Of course I remember Serena, Chadwick.” She leaned over and carefully pulled Serena into a light hug. “Fabulous dress. Where did you get it?”
“Neiman’s.” Breathing in, breathing out.
