“I had this crazy idea,” he said, taking the tablet back from her and swiping some more. “After someone told me to do what I wanted—for me and no one else—I remembered how much I liked to actually make beer. I thought I might keep Percheron Drafts and go into business for myself, not for the Beaumont name. Here.” He handed her back the tablet again.
She looked down at a different lawyer’s letter—this one from a divorce attorney. Pursuant to the case of Beaumont v. Beaumont, Mrs. Helen Beaumont (hereby known as Plaintiff) has agreed to the offer of Mr. Chadwick Beaumont (hereby known as Defendant) for alimony payments in the form of $100 million dollars. Defendant will produce such funds no later than six months after the date of this letter....
Serena blinked at the tablet. The whole thing was shaking—because she was shaking. “I...I don’t understand.”
“Well, I sold the brewery and I’m using the money I got for it to make my ex-wife an offer she can’t refuse. I’m keeping Percheron Drafts and going into business myself.” He took the tablet from her and set it down on a nearby box. “Simple, really.”
“Simple?”
He had the nerve to nod as if this were all no big deal—just the multi-billion dollar sale of an international company. Just paying his ex-wife $100 million.
“Serena, breathe,” he said, stepping up and wrapping his arms around her. “Breathe, babe.”
“What did you do?” she asked, unable to stop herself from leaning her head against his warm, broad chest. It was everything she wanted. He was everything she wanted.
“I did something I should have done years ago—I stopped working for Hardwick Beaumont.” He leaned her back and pressed his lips against her forehead. She felt herself breathe in response to his tender touch. “I’m free of him, Serena. Well and truly free. I don’t have to live my life according to what he wanted, or make choices solely because they’re the opposite of what he would have done. I can do whatever I want. And what I want is to make beer during the day and come home to a woman who speaks her mind and pushes me to be a better man and is going to be a great mother. A woman who loves me not because I’m a Beaumont, but in spite of it.”
She looked up at him, aware that tears were trickling down her cheeks but completely unable to do anything about it. “This is what you’ve been doing for the last ten days?”
He grinned and wiped a tear off her face. “If I could have finalized the sale, I would have. It’ll still take a few months for all the dust to settle, but Harper should be happy he got his money and got even with Hardwick, so I don’t think he’ll hold up the process much.”
“And Helen? The divorce?”
“My lawyers are working to get a court date next week. Week after at the latest.” He gave her a look of pure wickedness. “I made it clear that I couldn’t wait.”
“But...but you said a job? For me?”
His arms tightened around her waist, pulling her into his chest like he wasn’t ever going to let her go. “Well, I’m starting this new business, you see. I’m going to need someone working with me who can run the offices, hire the people—a partner, if you will, to keep things going while I make the beer. Someone who understands how I operate. Someone who’s not afraid of hard work. Someone who can pick a good health care plan and organize a party and understand spreadsheets.” He rubbed her back as he started rocking from side to side. “I happen to know the perfect woman. She comes very highly recommended. Great letter of reference.”
“But I can’t be with you while I work for you. It’s against company policy!”
At that, he laughed. “First off—new company, new policies. Second off, I’m not hiring you to be my underling. I’m asking you to be my partner in the business.” He paused then and cleared his throat. “I’m asking you to marry me.”
“You are?”
“I am.” He dropped to his knees so suddenly that she almost toppled forward. “Serena Chase, would you marry me?”
Her hand fluttered over her stomach. “The baby...”
He leaned forward and kissed the spot right over her belly button. “I want to adopt this baby, just as soon as your old boyfriend severs his parental rights.”
“What if he won’t?” She was aware the odds of that were small—Neil had shown no interest in being a father. But she wasn’t going to just throw herself into Chadwick’s arms and believe that love would solve all the problems in the world.
Even if it felt like that were true right now.
Chadwick looked up at her, his scary businessman face on. “Don’t worry. I can be very persuasive. Be my wife, Serena. Be my family.”
Could they do that? Could she work with him, not for him? Could they be partners and a family?
Could she trust that he’d love her more than he loved his company?
He must have sensed her worry. “You told me to do what makes me happy,” he told her as he stood again, folding her back into his arms. “You make me happy, Serena.”
“But...where will we live? I don’t want to live in that big mansion.” The Beaumont Estate was crawling with too many ghosts—both dead and living.
He smiled down at her. “Anywhere you want.”
“I...I already signed a lease for an apartment in Aurora.”
He notched an eyebrow at her. “We can live there if you really want. Or you can break the lease. I’ll have enough left from my golden parachute that we won’t have to worry about money for a long, long time. And I promise not to drop thousands on gowns or jewels for you anymore. Except for this one.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small dark blue box. It was just the right size for a ring.
As he opened it, he said, “Would you marry me, Serena? Would you make me a happy man for the rest of my life and give me the chance to do the same for you? I won’t fail you, I promise. You are the most important person in my life and you will always come first.”
Serena stared at the ring. The solitaire diamond was large without being ostentatious. It was perfect, really.
“Well,” she replied, taking the box from him. “Maybe a gown every now and then....”
Chadwick laughed and swept her into his arms. “Is that a yes?”
He was everything she wanted—passion and love and stability. He wouldn’t fail her.
“Yes.”
He kissed her then—a long, hard kiss that called to mind a certain evening in front of a mirror. “Good,” he said.
It was.
* * * * *
THE BEAUMONT HEIRS trilogy continues with
TEMPTED BY A COWBOY
Available October 2014
A BEAUMONT CHRISTMAS WEDDING
Available November 2014
Coming soon from Sarah M. Anderson and Harlequin Desire!
Keep reading for an excerpt from A TEXAN IN HER BED by Sara Orwig.
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Ten years ago one devastating night changed everything for Austin, Hunter and Alex. Now they must each play their part in the revenge against the one man who ruined it all.
Austin Treffen has the plan… Hunter has the money… Alex has the power!
Read each of their stories in the captivating Fifth Avenue trilogy,
only from Harlequin Presents:
Avenge Me by Maisey Yates (June 2014)
Scandalize Me by Caitlin C
rews (July 2014)
Expose Me by Kate Hewitt (August 2014)
And don’t miss the Fifth Avenue prequel that started it all, Take Me, by Maisey Yates!
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One
What Sheriff Wyatt Milan liked most about his job was that he knew what to expect in his quiet town of Verity, Texas. But on this October afternoon when he turned his car around the corner onto Main Street he knew change was in the air.
A red limousine took up his parking space, plus some, right in front of city hall.
“What the hell?” he said quietly.
“Gosh almighty, there goes a quiet afternoon,” Deputy Lambert whispered. “Will you look at that,” he said louder.
Wyatt was looking. Directly in front of the small city hall building stood a prominent sign with large letters: No Parking—Reserved for the Sheriff of Verity, Texas.
He had expected the usual big empty space where he could park Verity’s official black-and-red sheriff’s car. Instead, the red stretch limousine took every inch of the allotted area.
He and his family had money, as did many families in the town, but no one owned anything as flashy as an all-red limo. “That limo doesn’t belong to anyone living in these parts,” Wyatt said, more to himself than to his deputy, thinking something was about to shatter some of the peacefulness of his hometown.
“In my whole life, I’ve never seen a limo that big and that red,” Val said with awe in his voice. “I’ll go look for the driver.”
“He may be inside.”
“No one was scheduled to see you today, were they?”
“No,” Wyatt said, halting beside the limo. “You write a ticket and stick it on the windshield. Come in when you’re through. If the owner or the driver isn’t here, we’ll go look around town for him. The people who live here want a quiet, peaceful town. I want one, too. Thanks to my sister marrying a Calhoun, the old Milan-Calhoun feud has finally died down. I don’t want something happening to bring trouble elsewhere in town.”
“Amen to that. Why would anyone park a big limo in the sheriff’s space?”
“Either he’s lazy, starting trouble, unobservant or he’s someone who thinks he can do whatever he wants. Who knows?”
Deputy Lambert stepped out and Wyatt drove around the corner and parked in the alley behind the building, in the small space allotted for two cars and a nearby Dumpster. His life had had enough upheavals—an emotional breakup years earlier with his fiancée and then coming home to his brother fighting with a Calhoun neighbor, keeping the century-old family feud explosive. When people wanted him to run for sheriff of Verity County, based in the town of Verity, he’d had to quiet fights between his brother Tony and Tony’s neighbor Lindsay Calhoun. Everything was finally coming under control. He didn’t want someone to come to town and destroy the peace he had worked hard to establish. He shook his head as he entered city hall. He hoped this was settled quickly and quietly and the red limo drove out of Verity the same way it’d come in.
Entering the Verity County sheriff’s office through the back door, Wyatt walked down the long hall. His boot heels scraped the scuffed boards as he passed the large file room, a small break room and a meeting room with a small table and chairs. The hallway continued, dissecting the stone building. To the right were the mayor’s office, the town records office and the utilities office. To the left were the sheriff’s office and a two-cell jail. The center reception area was lined with vinyl-covered benches and in the middle was a desk where a clerk sat. Wyatt looked at Corporal Dwight Quinby whose wide eyes sent a silent message that something was up here at the office. Dwight’s tangled light brown hair became more snarled as he ran his fingers through it.
“Sheriff, there’s a woman in your office. When she said she wanted to see you, I told her to have a seat out here, that you’d be back soon, but she talked me into telling where your office is and letting her go back there. I don’t even know how she did it. First thing I knew she smiled and was gone,” he said, sounding dazed.
“Dwight, slow down,” Wyatt drawled quietly. “Who is she? What’s her name?”
“I didn’t get her name. I don’t know—one moment she was here and the next she was in your office. I don’t know what happened.”
“Tell Val when he comes in that I’ve found the limo passenger. Tell him to look around town for a uniformed driver and get that thing moved out of my parking place. Or call Argus and tell him to come tow that limo away from here.”
“You might change your mind after you meet her,” Dwight said.
Startled, Wyatt shook his head. “I don’t think so. You call and get it towed,” he said, curious now who was waiting in his office and why Dwight would say such a thing or look so dazed.
“Yes, sir,” Dwight replied, glancing through the oval glass in the front door that offered a good view of the red limousine.
“Sheriff, you haven’t ever met anyone like her,” Dwight said, surprising Wyatt even more with such an uncustomary reaction.
With a long sigh, Wyatt headed for his office. Whatever the woman wanted, she’d have to move the limo before they did anything else. He hoped she wasn’t moving to Verity. The town was filled with enough affluent people who thought they had special rights and privileges. It took tact and diplomacy to deal with them, including his own family sometimes.
In this case, he felt the owner of the limo lost all rights to tact and diplomacy when she had the limo parked in the sheriff’s space.
Wyatt opened the door of his office and walked in. Instantly he forgot all about the limo.
His gaze focused on a long-legged redhead seated in a leather wingback chair that was turned slightly toward the door. Big green eyes immobilized him, a sensation that Wyatt was unaccustomed to. With an effort his gaze left hers, trailing over her while his breath left his body. Dimly, he wondered if another movie was going to be filmed in or near Verity and this was the star. A riot of curly auburn hair spilled over her shoulders, giving her a sensual, earthy look that heated his insides. Flawless, smooth skin heightened her allure. Her green dress emphasized the color of her eyes and clung to a figure that threatened to melt his thought processes. Lush curves turned the room temperature to the heat of a West Texas summer. He noted her tiny waist, but then his gaze traveled down where the dress ended at her crossed knees, down long shapely legs.
“Well, good morning to the illustrious sheriff of Verity County,” she said, drawing out her words in a throaty voice that sounded like a suggestive invitation to sin instead of a greeting.
Without conscious thought of what he was doing, Wyatt walked toward her. He stopped in front of her. A faint hint of a smile gave a slight curve to her full, red lips and he couldn’t keep from wondering what it would be like to kiss her.
“Good morning. It’s Wyatt Milan,” he said, waiting for her to respond and give him her name.
She smiled and his knees almost buckled. Her smile was dazzling and lit up her face as if she were the friendliest person in the state of Texas, and in that moment he understood why his clerk had been so dazzled.
When she held out her hand, he took it, his fingers closing around a dainty, warm hand that sent electricity streaking through him. A beautiful pearl-and-diamond band was on one of her fingers. He glanced at her other hand to see it was bare of rings.
“I’m Destiny Jones, Sheriff Milan. I’m from Chicago.”
As if she had plunged a knife into his heart, Wyatt came out of his daze. He had never met the woman, but he knew the name and he knew about her. His wits began to work again and his breathing steadied, and he could almost view her without an intense physical r
eaction. As if his emotions were on a pendulum, his feelings about her swung in the opposite direction and he viewed her as pure trouble.
“Destiny Jones, as in Desirée Jones’s sister,” he said, recalling the headline-making, temperamental, stunningly beautiful movie star he had once had an affair with while she was on location in Verity. An affair that had ended badly. He remembered Desirée talking about her older sister who hosted a television show about unsolved mysteries and had written a bestselling book, Unsolved Mysteries of the South.
“Ah, you remember,” she replied.
“I always remember a beautiful woman,” he said, his gaze traveling leisurely over Destiny’s features even as his guard came up. Both sisters were breathtaking, but they were both probably casual about their relationships. He had known that with Desirée and he guessed that now about Destiny.
“I’ve been waiting three years to meet the illustrious sheriff of Verity, Texas, and now I finally get to do so,” she said with a smile that threatened to melt the polar ice caps. “You’re a Milan, the family involved in a feud with the Calhouns.”
“So you know about the feud,” he said, suspecting trouble was coming his way within hours.
He turned a leather chair to face her and sat only a couple of feet away. “So you’re in town for what purpose?” he asked bluntly, mildly amused that she had taken his parking place, made herself comfortable in his office and now with him. He saw no reason to waste time in polite chitchat. He was still idly curious, however, and he couldn’t deny the thought of asking her to dinner crossed his mind.
“For one thing, I hope I can have an interview with you about the Lavita Wrenville house. I think it will be a wonderful subject for my Unsolved Mysteries television show.”
Her words made him focus more rationally on her. He smiled only to be polite. The Wrenville house was where a Milan and a Calhoun had once fought over the same woman and both men, along with her father, had been shot to death. Century-old murders that could stir up the feud again.
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