His Illegitimate Heir (6 page)

Unexpectedly, he found himself wondering what else she'd grip like that. But the moment the thought found its way to his consciousness, he pushed it aside. This wasn't about attraction. This was about beer.

Then she glanced up at him and a soft smile ghosted across her lips, like she was actually glad to see him, and Zeb forgot about beer. Instead, he openly stared at her. Was she glad he was here? Was she able to look at him and see not just a hidden bastard or a ruthless businessman but...

...him? Did she see
him
?

Zeb cleared his throat and shifted in his seat as Casey gathered up the pint glasses. After a moment's consideration, she set down one pair of glasses in front of the tenderloin and another in front of the pasta. Zeb reached for the closest glass, but she said, “Wait! If we're going to do this right, I have to walk you through the beers.”

“Is there a wrong way to drink beer?” he asked, pulling his hand back.

“Mr. Richards,” she said, exasperated. “This is a tasting. We're not ‘drinking beer.' I don't drink on the job—none of us do. I sample. That's all this is.”

She was scolding him, he realized. He was confident that he'd never been scolded by an employee before. The thought made him laugh—which got him some serious side-eye.

“Fine,” he said, trying to restrain himself. When had that become difficult to do? He was always restrained.
Always.
“We'll do this your way.”

He'd told Jamal the truth. He should never underestimate Casey Johnson.

She went back behind his bar and filled more half-pint glasses, twenty in all. Each pair was placed in front of a different dish. And the whole time, she was quiet.

Silence was a negotiating tactic and, as such, one that never worked on Zeb. Except...he felt himself getting twitchy as he watched her focus on her work. The next thing he knew, he was volunteering information. “Four people in the marketing department have resigned,” he announced into the silence. “You were right about that.”

She shrugged, as if it were no big deal. “You gave a nice talk about family honor and a bunch of other stuff, but you didn't warn anyone that you were bringing in a new CMO. People were upset.”

Was she upset? No, it didn't matter, he told himself. He wasn't in this business for the touchy-feely. He was in it to make money. Well, that and to get revenge against the Beaumonts.

So, with that firmly in mind, he said, “The position was vacant. And Daniel's brilliant when it comes to campaigns. I have no doubt the skills he learned in politics will apply to beer, as well.” But even as he said it, he wondered why he felt the need to explain his managerial decisions to her.

Evidently, she wondered the same thing, as she held up her hands in surrender. “Hey, you don't have to justify it to me. Although it might have been a good idea to justify it to the marketing department.”

She was probably right—but he didn't want to admit that, so he changed tactics. “How about your department? Anyone there decide I was the final straw?” As he asked it, he realized what he really wanted to know was if
she'd
decided he was the final straw.

What the hell was this? He didn't care what his employees thought about him. He never had. All he cared about was that people knew their jobs and did them well. Results—that was what he cared about. This was business, not a popularity contest.

Or it had been, he thought as Casey smirked at him when she took her seat.

“My people are nervous, but that's to be expected. The ones who've hung in this long don't like change. They keep hoping that things will go back to the way they were,” she said, catching his eye. No, that was a hedge. She already
had
his eye because he couldn't stop staring at her. “Or some reasonable facsimile thereof. A new normal, maybe. But no, I haven't had anyone quit on me.”

A new normal. He liked that. “Good. I don't want you to be understaffed again.”

She paused and then cleared her throat. When she looked up at him again, he felt the ground shift under his feet. She was gazing at him with something he so desperately wanted to think was appreciation. Why did he need her approval so damned bad?

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I mean, I get that owning the company is part of your birthright, I guess, but this place...” She looked around as her voice trailed off with something that Zeb recognized—longing.

It was as if he were seeing another woman—one younger, more idealistic. A version of Casey that must have somehow found her way to the Beaumont Brewery years ago. Had she gotten the job through her father or an uncle? An old family friend?

Or had she walked into this company and, in her normal assertive way, simply demanded a job and refused to take no for an answer?

He had a feeling that was it.

He wanted to know what she was doing here—what this place meant to her and why she'd risked so much to defend it. Because they both knew that he could have fired her already. Being without a brewmaster for a day or a week would have been a problem, but problems were what he fixed.

But he hadn't fired her. She'd pushed him and challenged him and...and he liked that. He liked that she wasn't afraid of him. Which didn't make any sense—fear and intimidation were weapons he deployed easily and often to get what he wanted, the way he wanted it. Almost every other employee in this company had backed down in the face of his memos and decrees. But not
this
employee.

Not Casey.

“Okay,” she announced in a tone that made it clear she wasn't going to finish her earlier statement. She produced a tablet from her lab-coat pocket and sat to his right. “Let's get started.”

They went through each of the ten Beaumont beers, one at a time. “As you taste each one,” she said without looking at him, “think about the flavors as they hit your tongue.”

He coughed. “The...flavors?”

She handed him a pint glass and picked up the other for herself. “Drinking beer isn't just chugging to get drunk,” she said in a voice that made it sound like she was praying, almost. She held her glass up and gazed at the way the light filtered through the beer. Zeb knew he should do the same—but he couldn't. He was watching her.

“Drinking beer fulfills each of the senses. Every detail contributes to the full experience,” she said in that voice that was serious yet also...wistful. “How does the color make you feel?” She brought the glass back to her lips—but she didn't drink. Instead, her eyes drifted shut as she inhaled deeply. “What does it smell like—and how do the aromas affect the taste? How does it feel in your mouth?”

Her lips parted and, fascinated, Zeb watched as she tipped the glass back and took a drink. Her eyelashes fluttered in what looked to him like complete and total satisfaction. Once she'd swallowed, she sighed. “So we'll rate each beer on a scale of one to five.”

Did she have any idea how sensual she looked right now? Did she look like that when she'd been satisfied in bed? Or was it just the beer that did that to her? If he leaned over and touched his fingertips to her cheek to angle her chin up so he could press his lips against hers, would she let him?

“Mr. Richards?”

“What?” Zeb shook back to himself to find that Casey was staring at him with amusement.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” he said because, once again, that was the truth. He'd thought he'd been ready to take over this company—but until right then, he hadn't been sure he was ready for someone like Casey Johnson.

They got to work, sipping each beer and rating it accordingly. Amazingly, Zeb was able to focus on the beer—which was good. He could not keep staring at his brewmaster like some love-struck puppy. He was Zeb Richards, for God's sake.

“I've always preferred the Rocky Top,” Zeb told her, pointedly sampling—not drinking—the stalwart of the Beaumont product line. “But the Rocky Top Light tastes like dishwater.”

Casey frowned at this and made a note on her tablet. “I'd argue with you, but you're right. However, it remains one of our bestsellers among women aged twenty-one to thirty-five and is one of our top overall sellers.”

That was interesting. “It's the beer we target toward women and you don't like it?”

She looked up at him sharply and he could almost hear her snapping,
Women are not interchangeable.
But she didn't. Instead, in as polite a voice as he'd ever heard from her, she said, “People drink beer for different reasons,” while she made notes. “I don't want to sacrifice taste for something as arbitrary as calorie count.”

“Can you make it better?”

That got her attention. “We've used the same formula for... Well, since the '80s, I think. You'd want to mess with that?”

He didn't lean forward, no matter how much he wanted to. Instead, he kept plenty of space between them. “There's always room for improvement, don't you think? I'm not trapped by the past.” But the moment he said it, he wondered how true that was. “Perhaps one of your experiments can be an improved light-beer recipe.”

She held his gaze, her lips curved into a slight smile. It was disturbing how much he liked her meeting his challenges straight on like that. “I'll do that.”

They went through the rest of the beers and, true to her word, Zeb couldn't have said that he'd drunk enough to even get a slight buzz. Finally, as they'd eaten the last of their cupcakes, he leaned back and said, “So what are we missing?”

She surprised him then. She picked up what was left of her Rocky Top and took a long drink. “Look—here's the thing about our current product line. It's fine. It's...serviceable.”

He notched an eyebrow at her. “It gets the job done?”

“Exactly. But when we lost Percheron Drafts, we lost the IPA, the stout—the bigger beers with bolder tastes. We lost seasonal beers—the summer shandy and the fall Oktoberfest beers. What we've got now is basic. I'd love to get us back to having one or two spotlight beers that we could rotate in and out.” She got a wistful look on her face. “It's hard to see that here, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, look at this.” She swept her hand out, encompassing the remains of their lunch. “
This.
Most people who drink our beer don't do so in the luxury of a private office with a catered four-course meal. They drink a beer at a game or on their couch, with a burger or a brat.”

Suddenly, a feeling he'd gotten earlier—that she hadn't approved of the setup—got stronger. “What about you? Where do you drink your beer?”

“Me? Oh. I have season tickets to the Rockies. My dad and I go to every home game we can. Have you done that?” He shook his head. “You should. I've learned a lot about what people like just standing in line to get a beer at the game. I talk with the beer guys—that sort of thing.”

“A ball game?” He must have sounded doubtful, because she nodded encouragingly. “I can get a box.”

“Really?” She rolled her eyes. “That's not how people drink beer. Here. I'll tell you what—there's a game tomorrow night at seven, against the Braves. My dad can't go. You can use his ticket. Come with me and see what I mean.”

He stared at her. It didn't sound like a come-on—but then, he'd never gotten quite so turned on watching another woman drink beer before. Nothing was typical when it came to this woman. “You're serious, aren't you?”

“Of course.”

He had a feeling she was right. He'd spent years learning about the corporate workings of the brewery from a distance. If he was going to run this place as his own—and he was—then he needed to understand not just the employees but their customers.

Besides, the Braves were his team. And beyond that, this was a chance to see Casey outside work. Suddenly, that seemed important—vital, even. What was she like when she wasn't wearing a lab coat? He shouldn't have wanted to know. But he did anyway. “It's a da—” Casey's eyes got huge and her cheeks flushed and Zeb remembered that he wasn't having a drink with a pretty girl at a bar. He was at the brewery and he was the CEO. He had to act like it. “Company outing,” he finished, as if that was what he'd meant to say all along.

She cleared her throat. “Covert market research, if you will.” Her gaze flickered over his Hugo Boss suit. “And try to blend, maybe?”

He gave her a level stare, but she was unaffected. “Tomorrow at seven.”

“Gate C.” She gathered up her tablet. “We'll talk then.”

He nodded and watched her walk out. Once the door was firmly closed behind her, he allowed himself to grin.

Whether she liked it or not, they had a date.

Six

C
asey really didn't know what to expect as she stood near the C gate at Coors Field. She'd told Richards to blend but she was having trouble picturing him in anything other than a perfectly tailored suit.

Not that she was spending a lot of time thinking about him in a perfectly tailored suit. She wasn't. Just because he was the epitome of masculine grace and style, that was no reason at all to think about her boss.

Besides, she didn't even go for guys in suits. She usually went for blue-collar guys, the kind who kicked back on the weekend with a bunch of beer to watch sports. That was what she was comfortable with, anyway. And comfort was good, right?

And anyway, even if she did go for guys in suits—which she did not—she was positive she didn't go for guys like Richards. It wasn't that he was African American. She had looked him up, and one of the few pictures of him on the internet was him standing with a woman named Emily Richards in Atlanta, Georgia, outside a Doo-Wop and Pop! Salon. It was easy to see the resemblance between them—she was clearly his mother.

No, her not going for guys like Richards had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the fact that he was way too intense for her. The way he'd stared at her over the lip of his pint glass during their tasting lunch? Intensity personified, and as thrilling as it had been, it wasn't what she needed on her time off. Really. She had enough intensity at work. That was why she always went for low-key guys—guys who were fun for a weekend but never wanted anything more than that.

Right. So it was settled. She absolutely did not go for someone like Richards in a suit. Good.

“Casey?”

Casey whipped around and found herself staring not at a businessman in a suit—and also not at someone who was blending. Zeb Richards stood before her in a white T-shirt with bright red raglan sleeves. She was vaguely aware that he had on a hat and reasonably certain that he was wearing blue jeans, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from his chest. The T-shirt molded to his body in a way that his power suit hadn't. Her mouth went dry.

Good God.

That was as far as her brain got, because she tried to drag her eyes away from his chest—and made it exactly as far as his biceps.

Sweet mother of pearl
was the last coherent thought she had as she tried to take in the magnitude of those biceps.

And when thinking stopped, she was left with nothing but her physical response. Her nipples tightened and her skin flushed—
flushed
, dammit, like she was an innocent schoolgirl confronted with a man's body for the first time. All that flushing left her shaken and sweaty and completely unable to look away. It took all of her self-control not to lean over and put a hand to that chest and feel what she was looking at. Because she'd be willing to bet a lot of money that he
felt
even better than he looked.

“...Casey?” he said with what she hoped like hell was humor in his voice. “Hello?”

“What?” Crap, she'd been caught gaping at him. “Right. Hi.” Dumbly, she held up the tickets.

“Is there something wrong with my shirt?” He asked, looking down. Then he grasped the hem of the shirt and pulled it out so he could see the front, which had a graphic of the Braves' tomahawk on it. But when he did that, the neck of the shirt came down and Casey caught a glimpse of his collarbones.

She had no idea collarbones could be sexy. This was turning out to be quite an educational evening and it had only just begun. How on earth was she going to get through the rest of it without doing something humiliating, like
drooling
on the man?

Because drooling was off-limits. Everything about him was off-limits.

This was not a date. Nope. He was her boss, for crying out loud.

“Um, no. I mean, I didn't actually figure you would show up in the opposing team's shirt.” Finally—and way too late for decency's sake—she managed to look up into his face. He was smiling at her, as if he knew exactly what kind of effect he had on her. Dammit. This was the other reason she didn't go for men like him. They were too cocky for their own good.

“That's all,” she went on. “You don't exactly blend.” She was pretty sure she was babbling.

“I'm from Atlanta, you know.” He smirked at her and suddenly there it was—a luscious Southern accent that threatened to melt her. “Who did you think I was going to root for?” His gaze swept over her and Casey felt each and every hair on her body stand at attention. “I don't have anything purple,” he went on when his gaze made it back to her face with something that looked a heck of a lot like approval.

She fought the urge to stand up straighter. She would not pose for him. This was not a date. She didn't care what he thought of her appearance. “We could fix that,” she told him, waving at the T-shirt sellers hawking all sorts of Rockies gear. He scrunched his nose at her. “Or not,” she said with a melodramatic sigh, trying to get her wits about her. “It's still better than a suit. Come on. We need to get in if we want to grab a beer before the game starts.”

He looked around. People in purple hats and T-shirts were making their way inside and he was already getting a few funny looks. “This is literally your home turf. Lead on.”

She headed toward the turnstiles. Zeb made a move toward one with a shorter line, but Casey put her hand on his arm. “This one,” she told him, guiding him toward Joel's line.

“Why?”

“You'll see.” At this cryptic statement, Zeb gave her a hard look. Oddly enough, it didn't carry as much weight as it might have if he'd been in a tie, surrounded by all the brewery history in his office. Instead, he looked almost...adorable.

Crap, this was bad. She absolutely couldn't be thinking of Zebadiah Richards as adorable. Or hot. Or...anything.

There might have been some grumbling following that statement, but Casey decided that she probably shouldn't get into a shouting match with him before they'd even gotten inside the stadium.

The line moved quickly and then Joel said, “Casey! There's my girl.”

“Hey, Joel,” she said, leaning over to give the old man a quick hug.

“Where's Carl?” Joel asked, eyeing Zeb behind her.

“Union meeting. Who do you think's going to win today?” She and Joel had the same conversation at nearly every game.

“You have to ask? The Braves are weak this season.” Then he noticed Richards's shirt behind her and his easy smile twisted into a grimace of disapproval. He leaned over and grabbed two of the special promotion items—bobblehead dolls of the team. “Take one to your dad. I know he collects them.”

“Aw, thanks, Joel. And give my best to Martha, okay?”

Joel gave a bobblehead to Richards, as well. “Good luck, fella,” he muttered.

When they were several feet away, Richards said, “I see what you mean about blending. Do you want this?” He held out the bobblehead.

“I'm good. Two is my personal limit on these things. Give it to Jamal or something.” She led him over to her favorite beer vendor. “Speaking of, where is Jamal? I thought you might bring him.”

Honestly, she couldn't decide if she'd wanted Jamal to be here or not. If he had been, then maybe she'd have been able to focus on
not
focusing on Zeb a little better. Three was a crowd, after all.

But still...she was glad Zeb had come alone.

This time, he held back and waited until she picked the beer line. “He's still unpacking.”

“Oh?” There were about six people in front of them. This game was going to be nowhere near a sellout. “So you really did move out here?”

“Of course.” He slid her a side glance. “I said that at the press conference, you know.”

They moved up a step in line. Casey decided that it was probably best not to admit that she hadn't been paying attention during the press conference. “So where are you guys at?”

“I bought a house over on Cedar Avenue. Jamal picked it out because he liked the kitchen.”

Her eyes bugged out of her head. “You bought the mansion by the country club?”

“You know it?” He said it in such a casual way, as if buying the most expensive house in the Denver area were no biggie.

Well, maybe for him, it wasn't. Why was she surprised? She shouldn't have been. She wasn't. Someone like Zeb Richards would definitely plunk down nearly $10 million for a house and not think anything of it. “Yeah. My dad was hired to do some work there a couple years ago. He said it was an amazing house.”

“I suppose it is.” He didn't sound very convinced about this. But before Casey could ask him what he didn't like about the house, he went on, “What does your dad do? And I'm going to pay you back for his ticket. I'm sorry that I'm using it in his place.”

She waved this away. “Don't worry about it. He really did have a union meeting tonight. He's an electrician. He does a lot of work in older homes—renovations and upgrading antique wiring. There's still a lot of knob-and-tube wiring in Denver, you know.”

One corner of his mouth—not that she was staring at his mouth—curved up into a smile that was positively dangerous.

“What?” she said defensively—because if she didn't defend herself from that sly smile... Well, she didn't know what would happen. But it wouldn't be good.

In fact, it would be bad. The very best kind of bad.

“Nothing. I've just got to stop being surprised by you, that's all.” They advanced another place in line. “What are we ordering?”

“Well, seeing as this is Coors Field, we really don't have too many options when it comes to beer. It's—shockingly—Coors.”

“No!” he said in surprise. “Do they make beer?”

She stared at him. “Wait—was that a joke? Were you trying to be funny?”

That grin—oh,
hell
. “Depends. Did it work?”

No—well, yes, but
no
. No, she couldn't allow him to be a regular guy. If this “company outing” was going to stay strictly aboveboard, he could not suddenly develop a set of pecs
and
a sense of humor at the same time. She couldn't take it. “Mr. Richards—”

“Really, Casey,” he said, cutting her off, “we're about to drink a competitor's beer outside of normal business hours at a game. Call me Zeb.”

She was a strong woman. She was. She'd worked at the Beaumont Brewery for twelve years and during that time, she'd never once gotten involved with a coworker. She'd had to negotiate the fine line between “innocent flirting” and “sexual harassment” on too many occasions, but once she'd earned her place at the table, that had fallen away.

But this? Calling Richards by his first name? Buying beer with him at a ball game? Pointedly not staring at the way he filled out an officially licensed T-shirt? Listening to him crack jokes?

She simply wasn't that strong. This wasn't a company outing. It was starting to feel like a date.

They reached the cashier. “Casey!” Marco gave her a high five over the counter.

She could feel Zeb behind her. He wasn't touching her, but he was close enough that her skin was prickling. “Marco—what's the latest?”

“It happened, girl.” Marco pointed to a neon sign over his head—one that proudly proclaimed they served Percheron Drafts.

Casey whistled. “You were right.”

“I told you,” he went on. “They cut a deal. You wanna try something? Their pale ale is good. Or is that not allowed? I heard you had a new boss there—another crazy Beaumont. Two of them, even!” He chuckled and shook his head in disbelief. “You think the Beaumonts knew their brother or half brother or whatever he is took over? I heard it might have been planned...”

It took everything Casey had not to look back over her shoulder at Zeb. Maybe she was reading too much into the situation, but she would put money on the fact that he wasn't grinning anymore. “I bet it was a hell of a surprise,” she said, desperate to change the subject. “Give me the pale ale and—”

“Nachos, extra jalapeños?” He winked at her. “I'm on it.”

“A
hell
of a surprise,” Zeb whispered in her ear. The closeness of his voice was so unexpected that she jumped. But just then Marco came back with her order.

“Gotta say,” Marco went on, ringing up her total, “it was good to see a brother up there, though. I mean...he was black, right?”

Behind her, Zeb made a noise that sounded like it was somewhere between a laugh and a choke. “It doesn't really matter,” she said honestly as she handed over the cash, “as long as we get the beer right.”

“Ah, that's what I like about you, Casey—a woman who knows her beer.” He gave her a moony look, as if he were dazzled by beauty they both knew she didn't have. “It's not too late to marry me, you know that?”

Hand to God, Casey thought she heard Zeb growl behind her.

Okay, that was not the kind of noise a boss made when an employee engaged in chitchat with a— Well, Marco sold beer. So with a colleague of sorts. However, it was the sort of noise a man on a date made.

Not a date.
Not
a date.

For the first time, Marco seemed to notice the looming Braves fan behind her. “Come back and see me at the fifth?” Marco pleaded, keeping a cautious eye on Zeb.

“You know I will. And have Kenny bring me a stout in the third, okay?” She and Dad didn't have the super-expensive seats where people took her order and delivered it to her. But Kenny the beer vendor would bring them another beer in the third and again in the seventh—and not the beer he hawked to everyone else.

She got her nachos and her beer and moved off to the side. It was then she noticed that Zeb's eyes hadn't left her.

A shiver of heat went through her because Zeb's gaze was intense. He looked at her like...like she didn't even know what. She wasn't sure she wanted to find out, because what if he could see right through her?