He could turn her away. He could set her up with a monthly stipend and let her raise their child, just as Chadwick was doing with some of their half siblings.
But that was what his father would do. And Zeb knew now that he did not want to be like that man. And what was more, he didn’t have to be like his father. He wasn’t sure he could be as selfless as his brother was—but he didn’t have to be that way, either.
He could be something else. Someone else. Someone who was both a Beaumont and a Richards.
A sense of rightness filled him. It was right that he take Casey to bed—a real bed this time. It was right that he make love to her tonight, tomorrow—maybe even for the rest of their lives. It was right that he become a part of the Beaumont family by making himself a part of it—both by finally taking his place as the head of the brewery and by starting his own family.
It was right to be here with Casey. To marry her and take care of her and their baby.
He kicked open the door to a suite of rooms and carried her through. Why was this house so damned big? Because he had to pass through another room and a half before he even got anywhere near his bed and each step was agony. He was rock hard and she was warm and soft against him and all he wanted to do was bury himself in her again and again.
Finally, he made it to his bed. Carefully, he set her down on top of the covers. He was burning for her as he lowered himself down on top of her—gently, this time. He knew that just because she was a few weeks along, didn’t mean she was now some impossibly fragile, delicate flower who would snap if he looked at her wrong. But he wanted to treat her with care.
So, carefully, he slipped her T-shirt over her head. He smiled down at her plain beige bra. “No purple today?”
“I didn’t wear my lucky bra, because I didn’t think I was going to get lucky,” she said in a husky voice. This time, when she grabbed at the hem of his shirt, he didn’t stop her.
He wanted to take this slow, but when she ran her hands over his chest, her fingernails lightly grazing his nipples, she took what little self-control he had left and blew it away. Suddenly, he was undoing her jeans and yanking them off and she was grabbing his and trying to push them off his hips.
“Zeb...” she said, and he heard the need for him in her voice.
His blood was pounding in his veins—and other places—but he had to prove to her that he could be good for her. So instead of falling into her body, he knelt in front of the bed and, grabbing her by the hips, pulled her to the edge of it.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he promised. He had never meant the words more than he did right now.
Last time, he hadn’t even gotten her panties off her. Last time, he’d been more than a little selfish. This time, however, it was all about her.
He lowered his mouth to her sex and was rewarded as a ripple of tension moved through her body.
“Oh,” she gasped as he spread her wide and kissed her again and again.
With each touch, her body spasmed around him. She ran her hand over his hair, heightening his awareness. Everything was about her. All he could see and taste and touch and smell and hear was her. Her sweetness was on his tongue and her moans were in his ears and her soft skin was under his hands.
Last time, he hadn’t done this—taking the time to learn her. But this time? Every touch, every sigh, was a lesson—one he committed to memory.
This was right. The connection he felt with her—because that was what it was, a connection—it was something he’d never had before. He’d spent the last three weeks trying to ignore it, but he was done with that. He wasn’t going to lie to himself anymore.
He wanted her. And by God, he was going to have her.
He slipped a finger inside her and her hips came off the bed as she cried out. “Zeb!”
“Let me show you what I can do for you,” he murmured against her skin. “God, Casey—you’re so beautiful.”
“Yes, yes—don’t stop!”
So he didn’t. He stroked his tongue over her sex and his fingers into her body and told her again and again how beautiful she was, how good she felt around him. And the whole time, he got harder and harder until he wasn’t sure he could make it. He needed her to let go so that he could let go.
Finally, he put his teeth against her sex—just a small nip, not a true bite. But that was what it took. Something a little bit raw and a little bit hard in the middle of something slow and sensual. She needed both.
Luckily, he could give her that. He could give her anything she wanted.
Her body tensed around him and her back came off the bed as the orgasm moved through her. Even he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. The last of his control snapped and he let it carry him as he surged up onto the bed, between her legs. “You are so beautiful when you come,” he said as he joined his body to hers.
Everything else fell away. His messy family history and their jobs, baseball and status reports—none of that mattered. All that mattered was that Casey was here with him and there was something between them and they couldn’t fight it. Not anymore.
She cried out again as a second orgasm took her and he couldn’t hold back anything else. His own climax took him and he slammed his mouth down over hers. If this was the rest of his life, he could be a happy man.
Suddenly exhausted, he collapsed onto her. She wrapped her arms around his back and held him to her. “Wow, Zeb,” she murmured in his ear.
“I forgot to ask about birth control that time.” She laughed at that, which made him smile. He managed to prop himself up on his elbows to look down at her. “Casey—” he said, but then he stopped because he suddenly realized he was about to tell her that he thought he was in love with her.
She stroked her fingertips over his cheek. “That...” she said, and he could hear the happiness in her voice. “That was everything I have ever dreamed.” There was a pause. “And maybe a few things I hadn’t thought of yet.”
It was his turn to laugh. “Just think, after we’re married, we get to do that every night.” He withdrew from her body and rolled to the side, pulling her into his arms.
“What?” She didn’t curl up in his arms like he thought she would.
“I’m going to take care of you,” he told her again, pulling her into him. “I didn’t have the chance to tell you, but I ran into Chadwick this afternoon and talking with him cleared up a couple of things for me.”
“It...did?”
“It did. You’ve asked me if I’m like my father or my brother and I didn’t know either of them. I only knew what was public knowledge. I knew that my father was not a good man, because he paid my mother to disappear. And I knew that everyone at the brewery liked Chadwick. But that didn’t tell me what I needed to know.”
“What did you need to know?” Her voice sounded oddly distant. Maybe she was tired from the sex?
That he could understand. His own eyelids were drifting shut but he forced himself to think for a bit longer. “When you asked me which one I was like, you were really asking me if I could be a good man. And not just a good man—a good man for you. I understand what that means now. You need someone who’s loyal, who will take care of you and our child. You need someone who appreciates you the way you are.”
Then she did curl into him. She slung her arm around his waist and held him tight. “Yes,” she whispered against skin. “Yes, that’s what I need.”
“And that’s what I want to give you.” He disentangled himself long enough to reach over the side of the bed and retrieve his pants. He pulled out the small velvet-covered box with the ring inside. “I want to marry you and take care of you and our baby together. You won’t have to struggle with being a single mother or worrying about making ends meet—I’ll take care of all of that.”
She stared at the box. “How do you mean?”
Was it his imagination or did she sound cautious? They were past that. He was all in. This was the right thing to do. He was stepping up and taking care of his own—her and their child.
“Obviously, we can’t keep working together and you’re going to need to take it easy. And your apartment was cute, but it’s not big enough for the three of us.” He hugged her. “I know I haven’t talked about my childhood a lot—it was fine, but it was rough, too. My mom—she worked all the time and I basically lived at the salon, with a whole gaggle of employees watching over me. All I knew was that my dad didn’t want me and my mom was working. And I don’t want that kind of life for our baby. I don’t want us to pass the baby off to employees or strangers. I want us to do this right.”
“But...but I have to work, Zeb.”
“No, you don’t—don’t you see? We’ll get married and you can stay home—here. I’ll take care of everything. We can be a family. And I can get to know Chadwick and his family—my family, I mean. All of the Beaumonts. I don’t have to show them that I’m better than them. Because I think maybe...” He sighed. “Maybe they’re going to accept me just the way I am, too.”
He still couldn’t believe that was possible. His whole life, he’d never felt completely secure in his own skin. He was either too light or too black, stuck in a no-man’s-land in between.
But here in Denver? Chadwick wished him well and had invited him to be part of the family. And all Casey cared about was that he accepted her the exact same way he wanted to be accepted.
Finally, he had come home.
He opened the box and took the ring out. “Marry me, Casey. I know it’s quick but I think it’s the right thing.”
She sat up and stared at him. “Wait— I— Wait.”
He looked at her, confused. “What?”
A look of dawning horror crossed over her face—a look that was not what any man wanted to see after sex that good and a heartfelt offer of marriage. “You want to marry me so I can stay home and raise our kid?”
“Well...yes. I don’t want to be the kind of father my own father was. I want to be part of my kid’s life. I want to be part of your life. And I don’t want you to struggle like my mom did. You mean too much to me to let that happen.”
And then, suddenly, she was moving. She rolled out of the bed and away from him, gathering up her clothes.
“Are you serious?” she said, and he heard a decided note of panic in her voice. “That’s not what I want.”
“What do you mean, it’s not what you want? I thought we agreed—there was something between us and you’re pregnant and this makes sense.”
“This does not make sense,” she said as she angrily jabbed her legs into her jeans. “I am not about to quit my job so I can stay home and raise your baby.”
“Casey—wait!” But she was already through the first door. She didn’t even have a shirt on yet. She was running away as fast as she could.
Zeb threw himself out of bed, the engagement ring still in his hand. “Casey!” he called after her. “Talk to me, dammit. What is your problem here? I thought this would work. There’s something here and I don’t want to let that go.” Unless...
Something new occurred to him. She had given him every indication that she wanted the baby, even if it was unexpected. But what if...?
What if she didn’t? What if she didn’t want to read stories at night and teach their kid how to ride a bike or throw a baseball? What if she didn’t want to be the hands-on mom he’d imagined, coaching T-ball and playing in the park? The kind of mother he didn’t have.
What if she was going to be like his mother—distant and reserved and...bitter about an unplanned pregnancy?
She swung around on him, her eyes blazing. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she shot at him. The words sliced through the air like bullets out of a gun. “I don’t want to quit my job. I’ve never wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.”
“But you can’t keep working,” he told her, pushing against the rising panic in his chest. “You shouldn’t have to.”
That was the wrong thing to say. “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. After I have this baby, I’m going to need help. If you think I’m going to give up my job and my life and fit myself into your world just because I’m pregnant with your baby, you’ve got another think coming.”
She spun again and stalked away from him. “Casey!” He sprinted after her and managed to catch up to her—but only because she was trying to get her shirt on. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
He was horrified to see tears spill over her eyelids. “Is this how it’s going to be? Every time we’re together, you make me feel so good—and then you ruin it. You just ruin it, Zeb.” She scrubbed her hand across her face. “You’ll be all perfect and then you’ll be a total jerk.”
What the hell was she talking about? “I’m trying not to be a jerk. I thought a marriage proposal and a commitment was the right thing to do. Obviously, we can’t keep working together, because we can’t keep our hands off each other.” Her cheeks blushed a furious red. But then again, everything about her was furious right now. “So this is the obvious solution. I’m not going to raise a bastard. You are going to marry me. We will raise our child together and, damn it all, we will be a happy family. Unless...” He swallowed. “Unless you don’t want me?”
She looked at him like he was stupid. Happiness seemed a long way off. She hadn’t even put her bra on—it was hanging from her hand.
“You are trying so hard not to be like your father—but this? Telling me what I want? Telling me what I’m going to do without giving me an option? You’re essentially firing me. You’re going to put me in this house and make me completely dependent upon you. You’re going to hide me away here under the pretense of taking care of me because you somehow think that’s going to absolve you of any guilt you feel. And that?” She jabbed at his chest with a finger. “That is exactly what your father would’ve done.”
Her words hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest, so hard that he physically stumbled backward.
“I am not trying to hide anyone away. I’m not ashamed of you!” He realized too late he was shouting but he couldn’t stop. “I just want my kid to have something I didn’t—two loving parents who give a damn about whether he lives or dies!”
Her face softened—but only a little bit. She still looked fierce and when she spoke, it was in a low voice that somehow hurt all the more. “I am your brewmaster and I might be the mother of your child. I care about this baby and I could care very much for you—but not if you’re going to spend the rest of our lives ordering me about. I am not your underling, Zeb. You don’t get to decide that what you think you want is the same thing that I need. Because I’m only going to say this once. I’m sorry you had a miserable childhood. But it had nothing—not a damn thing—to do with the fact that you were raised by a single parent.” A tear trickled down the side of her face and she scrubbed it away. “Don’t you dare act like you’re the only one raised by a single parent who had to work and sacrifice to survive.”
“I never said that.” But too late, he remembered her telling him how her mother had died in a car accident when she was two.
“Didn’t you?” She moved in closer, and for a delusional second, he thought all was forgiven when she leaned in to kiss his cheek. But then she stepped back. “I give a damn, Zeb. Never think I don’t. But I won’t let your fears dictate my life.”
She stepped around him, and this time, he didn’t pull her back. He couldn’t. Because he had the awful feeling that she might be right.
The door shut behind her, but he just stood there. Numbly, he looked down at the diamond ring in his hand. His father wouldn’t have committed to the rest of his life with a woman he had gotten pregnant—he knew that.
But everything else?
&
nbsp; He knew so little and the thing was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know more. He didn’t know exactly what had happened between his parents. He couldn’t be sure what made his mother the most bitter—the fact that Hardwick Beaumont had cast her aside? Or had it been something else? Had he forced her out of the company? Made her leave town and go back to Atlanta?
Why was this even a question? Hardwick had been married to a wealthy and powerful woman in her own right. Zeb was only four months younger than Chadwick. Of course Hardwick would’ve done everything within his power to hide Emily and Zeb.
And Zeb’s mother...had she resented him? He was a living reminder of her great mistake—undeniable with his father’s green eyes. Maybe she hadn’t been able to love Zeb enough. And maybe—just maybe—that wasn’t his fault.
Fourteen
She couldn’t do this. Hell, at this point, she wasn’t even sure what “this” was.
Could she be with Zeb? Could they have a relationship? Or would it always devolve into awful awkwardness? Could she work with him or was that impossible? If she didn’t work at the brewery, what was she going to do?
It was hard enough to be a woman and a brewmaster. It wasn’t like there were tons of jobs ripe for the picking at breweries conveniently located near her apartment. Plus, she was kind of pregnant. How was she supposed to interview at companies that might or might not exist and then ask for maternity leave after only a month or two on the job?
The entire situation was ridiculous. And she couldn’t even think the whole thing over while drinking a bottle of beer. Somehow, that was the straw that was going to break her back. How was she going to brew beer without testing it?
There was a possible solution—she could go to Chadwick. He’d find a place for her at Percheron Drafts, she was pretty sure. And at least in the past, he had demonstrated a willingness to work around maternity leave. He knew what she was capable of, and frankly, his was the only brewery within the area that wouldn’t force her to relocate. Plus...her child would be a Beaumont. Sort of. Chadwick would be her baby’s uncle and the man was nothing if not loyal to the family name.
His Illegitimate Heir Page 14
