His Illegitimate Heir by Sarah M. Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

her.
    Aside from those two conversations, Zeb Richards didn’t know her at all.
    Maybe what he’d said was a load of crap. After all, a guy as good-looking as he was didn’t get to be where he was in life without learning how to say the right thing at the right time to a woman. And he’d already hit on her once, on that first day when she’d burst into his office. So it was entirely possible that he’d figured out the one thing she needed to hear and then said it to soften her up.
    Even though she wasn’t paying attention, she still knew the moment he dropped his big bomb. She felt the tension ripple among her coworkers—but that wasn’t it. No, the entire corps of reporters recoiled in shock. Seconds later, they were all shouting questions.
    â€œCan you prove that Hardwick Beaumont was your father?”
    â€œHow many more bastards are there?”
    â€œDid you plan the takeover with Chadwick Beaumont?”
    â€œWhat are your plans for the brewery now that the Beaumonts are back in charge?”
    Casey studied Richards. The reporters had jumped out of their chairs and were now crowding the stage, as if being first in line meant their questions would be answered first. Even though they weren’t shouting at her, she still had the urge to flee in horror.
    But not Richards. He stood behind his podium and stared down at the reporters as if they were nothing more than gnats bothering him on a summer day. After a moment, the reporters quieted down. Richards waited until they returned to their seats before ignoring the questions completely and moving on with his prepared remarks.
    Well, that was impressive. She glanced at the one person who had thrown her for a loop this morning—Daniel Lee. The two men stood nearly shoulder to shoulder, with Daniel just a step behind and to the right of Richards. Richards had two inches on his half brother and maybe forty pounds of what appeared to be pure muscle. The two men shouldn’t have looked anything alike. Lee was clearly Asian American and Richards wasn’t definitively one ethnicity or another. But despite those differences—and despite the fact that they had apparently not been raised together, like the other Beaumonts had been—there was something similar about them. The way they held their heads, their chins—not that Casey had met all of the Beaumont siblings, but apparently, they all shared the same jaw.
    As Richards continued to talk about his plans for restoring the Beaumont family honor, Casey wondered where she fit in all of this.
    In her time, when she’d been a young intern fresh out of college and desperate to get her foot in the door, Hardwick Beaumont had been...well, not an old man, but an older man. He’d had a sharp eye and wandering hands. Wally Winking, the old brewmaster, whose voice still held a faint hint of a German accent even though he’d been at the brewery for over fifty years, had told her she reminded him of his granddaughter. Then he’d told her never to be alone with Hardwick. She hadn’t had to ask why.
    Three days ago, Richards had made a pass at her. That was something his father would have done. But today?
    Today, when they’d been alone together, he’d had faith in her abilities. He made it sound like he respected her—both as a person and as a brewmaster.
    And that was what made him sound like his brother Chadwick.
    Oh, her father was going to have a field day with this. And then he was going to be mad at her that she hadn’t warned him in advance. To say that Carl Johnson was heavily invested in her career would be like saying that NASA sometimes thought about Mars. He constantly worried that she was on the verge of losing her job—a sentiment that had only gotten stronger over the last year. Her dad was protective of his little girl, which was both sweet and irritating.
    What was she going to tell her father? She hadn’t told him about