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.
&n
bsp; 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 rest
aurant.”
“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.”
Two
Byron walked into the darkened room that, somehow, would become a restaurant. Somehow. “Here we are. The dungeon.”
Behind him, he heard Leona cough lightly. “Is that the theme you’re working with?”
“No.”
What the hell was he doing? Touching her face? Kissing her hand? That was not part of his plan. His plan was to hire her, get his restaurant going and kick her right back out of his life—this time, on his terms. She hadn’t needed him. He didn’t need her. Except for design purposes.
But that’s not what had happened because something as simple as seeing Leona Harper again—and seeing that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring—had blown all to hell his simple plan to get simple answers.
His Son, Her Secret Page 2