Читать книгу The Beaumont Children: His Son, Her Secret - Sarah M. Anderson - Страница 13

Seven

“We’re what? You’re what?” May stared at Leona.

“I’m going to marry Byron.” I think, she mentally added.

May’s mouth opened, closed and opened again. “When? Oh, to heck with when. Why?”

“He’s Percy’s father. And no one wants Father to get involved in a custody battle. If I’m married to Byron, Father can’t take Percy from us.” These were all perfectly rational reasons for this sudden change of course. But rational had nothing to do with the way Leona’s stomach was in a knot that might never get untied.

“And what about me?” May demanded, her eyes flashing.

It was, hands down, the angriest Leona had ever heard her little sister. Any other day, Leona might celebrate this development—May was speaking out instead of meekly taking whatever life dished out.

But it wasn’t helping Leona’s unmovable knot. “You can come with us. We’ll get a bigger place—more than enough room for you to have your own space.” May looked at Leona as if she’d grown a third head. Leona decided to change tactics. “Or you can stay here. I know this is closer to your college...”

“What about Percy? I don’t want to live with a Beaumont, but I’m the one who takes care of him.”

Leona winced at the dismissive way May said Beaumont. “I know. We’ll find a way to make it work.”

May looked doubtful, but she didn’t say anything else. Instead, she turned and headed back to bed.

Leona went to her room and lay down on the double bed, but she didn’t sleep. Her mind raced through all the options. Marrying Byron. Moving in with him. Being a family, at least during the day. Sleeping in separate bedrooms.

What other options did she have? Every time she asked herself that question, she came back to the same answer. None. But she kept asking it, just to be sure.

The separate bedrooms thing was nonnegotiable. It had to be. Even now, she could feel his lips on hers, feel a year’s worth of sexual frustration begging to be released by his hands.

Sex with Byron had been fun and magical and wonderful. In his arms, she’d been special.

Was it wrong to want that back in her life? No, that wasn’t the right question. Was it wrong to want that with Byron—again?

But separate bedrooms it was. Because she could not confuse sex with love. Fool me once, shame on you. But fool me twice...

She was no fool. Not any longer.

Finally, exhausted, she turned her attention back to the only thing that could possibly distract her from Byron—the restaurant. She needed some ideas for tomorrow.

She drifted off to sleep thinking about Percherons.

* * *

Byron shook the tablecloth out over the small metal bistro table he’d snagged off one of the mansion’s patios. Then he set up the matching chairs around it. He’d brought a candle because...well, because. Once upon a time, he’d planned a romantic candlelit dinner where he would ask for her hand in marriage. The ring he’d picked out this morning felt as if it was burning a hole in his pocket.

But he’d finally decided that the dungeon was too musty to eat in and it was far too windy outside to have a flame burning, so he let it rest. Candles were not required.

He had a picnic basket filled with three kinds of sandwiches, potato salad and gazpacho. He’d packed the almond cake from last night and had two bottles of iced tea. This wasn’t his ideal meal, but as he was quickly learning, he had to go with the flow.

Just another tasting, he tried to tell himself as he set out the silverware. No big deal.

Except it was huge. He’d called Matthew—this situation seemed too important to discuss over a text—but Matthew hadn’t picked up, which wasn’t like him. So Byron had been forced to leave a vague, “Something’s come up and I need to talk to you,” message.

Byron had also called a Realtor and laid out his specifications. And he’d even called the county clerk to find out what he needed to get married.

Now he had to wait. He and Leona could get married next week, but he needed the prenup first.

Finally, after what felt like a long wait but was actually only a few minutes past noon, Leona’s car rolled up. She sat behind the wheel for a few moments. Byron got the feeling she was psyching herself up.

Then she got out of the car. She was wearing another suit—the consummate businesswoman. But there was something more about her, something that had attracted him to her from the very first time he’d laid eyes on her. After all this time, he still couldn’t say what that something was.

Whatever it was, he wanted to pull her into his arms and not let go. He’d hired her for a very specific reason—to make sure she knew she couldn’t hurt him. But instead? He’d found out just how much he couldn’t trust her.

He would not give in to the physical temptation that Leona represented. This marriage proposal wasn’t about sex. It was about doing whatever it took to make sure his son was safe.

“Hi,” she said. She looked at the outdoor table.

Was she nervous? Fine. Good. He didn’t want her to think she held all the cards. The sooner she realized he was calling the shots, the better.

He stood and put his hands on her shoulders. She tensed and he swore he felt a current of electricity pass between them. But he wouldn’t give in and pull her into his arms. He couldn’t let her affect him. Not anymore. “Have you given any more thought to my question?”

Leona notched an eyebrow at him. That was better, he thought. He loved it when she was snarky and sarcastic—not shell-shocked. “I don’t remember your asking me anything. I seem to remember more of a direct order.”

Byron pulled the small, robin’s-egg-blue box out of his pocket. Leona gasped. “Ah. Yes. That was a mistake.” He opened the box. The sunlight caught the emerald-cut diamond and threw sparkles across the tablecloth. “Leona, will you marry me?”

If only he’d asked her a year ago...but even as he thought that, he remembered how she’d hidden her name, her family from him. Would she have said yes, if he’d asked her then? Or would she have laughed in his face? Would it have changed everything—or would it all still have happened exactly the same way?

Anything snarky about her fell away as she gaped at the ring, then him, then back at the ring. She reached out to touch the box but pulled her hand back. “We need to discuss work,” she finally said in a firm voice. “Mr. Lutefisk is very particular about his employees having personal conversations while they’re on the clock. He’ll be calling to check in about an hour from now. He’s letting me handle this project on my own, but he keeps close tabs on all of his employees’ projects.”

What a load of crap. She was stalling and he didn’t like it. “Leona. This isn’t just a ‘personal conversation.’ This is our life—together.”

She gave him a baleful look that, despite all of his best intentions to not let her get to him, made him feel guilty. Then fire flashed through her eyes. “I work. This is my job. You can’t think that hiring me and proposing means you get to control every minute of my life, Byron. Because if so, I have an answer to your question. I don’t think you’ll like it.”

In spite of himself, he grinned. “When did you get this feisty?”

“When you left me,” she snapped. “Now are we going to discuss the job for which you hired me or not?”

The accusation stung. “That’s not how I remember it going down,” he said, frustration bubbling up.

She shrugged out of his grasp and sat down at the table as if she was mad at the chair. “I’m not talking about it now. I. Am. Working.”

“Fine. When can we discuss nonwork stuff?”

“After five.”

“When can I see Percy again?”

She looked up at him, her jaw set. “Ah, now that was a question. Lovely. You can see him tonight, after five. I assumed you’d come visit him.” Byron gave her a look and she rolled her eyes. “As you can see, I’m not trying to hide him from you. Can we please get to work?”

“Fine.” He’d let it go for now. But he left the ring on the table, where it glittered prettily.

Leona pulled out her tablet and handed it over. “We have three basic choices for the interior—we can try to lighten it up, keep it dim, or go for broke and make it very dark.”

Byron looked at the preliminary colors she’d chosen. One was a bright yellow with warm red accents. The next was gray with a cooler red and the last choice was a deep red that would look almost black in the shadows. “I like the yellow. I don’t want the restaurant so dim that people have to use their cell phones to read the menu.”

“Agreed,” she said. She flicked the screen to the next page. “I thought we’d want to play off the Percheron Drafts in the name—Percheron Pub?”

“No.”

“White Horse Saloon?”

He gave her a dirty look.

“No, I didn’t think so.” She grinned back. This was better—this was them as equals. This was what he’d missed. He had the sudden urge to lean over and kiss her like he’d kissed her last night, right before his world had changed forever. “I also considered bringing in the European influences. What do you think about Caballo de Tiro?”

“That’s—what?” He thought for a second. “Workhorse?”

“Draft horse, literally. Which fits the brand and also highlights the Spanish influences you’re bringing.”

He glanced at her and saw she wore a satisfied smile. “You like that one, don’t you?”

“It is my favorite, it’s true. I wasn’t sure if you’d get the translation.”

“I picked up enough French and Spanish to get by.” He gave her a look. “At least, enough to cook and fend off advances.”

She glanced back at the ring. “Oh?”

He could hear that she was trying to sound disinterested, but she wasn’t quite succeeding. “It was...well, I guess the good news was that no one cared that I was a Beaumont. That was great, actually. But a lot of people were intrigued by the American with red hair.”

Which was a huge understatement. In Paris and then Madrid, not a week went by when he didn’t leave work to find a beautiful woman—or occasionally a beautiful man—waiting for him.

“I guess that was probably fun.” Leona was now staring at her plate, pushing the potato salad around with her fork.

“Actually, it wasn’t.”

She opened her mouth to say something but then changed her mind. “Right. We’re working. What do you think of the name?”

He sighed. “Right. Working.” Besides, he didn’t exactly want to tell her that, at several points during his self-imposed exile, he’d decided to take a particularly lovely woman up on her offer, just to get Leona out of his system—only to back out before they got anywhere near a bed.

He forced himself to focus. This restaurant was his dream, after all. Caballo de Tiro—it had a good ring to it, and wasn’t too complicated to pronounce.

“I thought we could bring in touches that suggest a draft horse—wagon wheels that are repurposed as chandeliers, maybe a wagon set up outside—it’s reasonable to think parents might bring their children,” she added. “A wagon could be both decoration and something to distract kids.”

He flipped back to the colors. “So you’d paint the walls this color yellow, have red accents—”

“The tablecloths, napkins, that sort of thing, yes.”

“And accent with weathered wood?”

“And leather,” she added, leaning over to flick to another screen, which had several chairs pictured. “Rich brown leather for the seating. And maybe a few harnesses that will serve as picture frames on the walls. The whole experience would be warm and comfortable—formal without being stuffy.”

“I like it. Let’s go with that. Caballo de Tiro.”

Leona looked pleased. “That was easy. I have some other ideas...”

Byron tried not to sigh. The restaurant was important, but he felt as though he was spinning his wheels. He wanted to get back to everything else—how Percy was, if she’d marry him or if she’d fight him every step of the way—and what, exactly, she’d meant by saying he’d left her.

She shot him a look. “You hired me, after all.”

“I know,” he groaned. “But five o’clock seems like a long time off.”

“Byron, focus. I need the specs of the kitchen and then I need to call contractors and get a timeline set up, and my boss wants that as soon as possible. I’ll formalize the sketches of the interior and exterior a bit more and...”

Byron’s phone rang. “The Realtor,” he said with relief. At least one thing was happening quickly. “You eat and then we’ll talk ovens.”

“Deal,” she said.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. The Realtor had a list of single-family homes ready, and she wanted Byron to come in on Saturday. Leona wanted to discuss kitchen appliances and table placements.

It was enough to give a man whiplash. It’d only been a few months ago that he’d settled into his cramped Madrid apartment, working late nights cooking for a world-famous chef and wandering the city alone, trying to lose himself in another culture.

Trying to forget about Leona Harper.

Now he would be running his own restaurant and living with Leona while they raised their son.

For a brief moment, as Leona talked about bathroom sink options, Byron wanted to go back to Madrid. Right now. This was insane, that’s what it was. Proposing to Leona so he could ensure he’d never lose custody of his son? Going to look at houses tomorrow? Debating what “message” bathroom faucets “communicated” to customers?

Living with Leona—the woman who’d nearly destroyed him? Whose father had done everything to ruin his family?

But a Beaumont would not cut and run or admit defeat. His father had not been much of a father, but Byron remembered the last conversation he’d had with Hardwick Beaumont. His father had been sitting behind his massive desk, a look of disgust on his face as he took in Byron’s flour-dusted pants. “Son,” he’d intoned as if he were passing a death sentence, “this cooking thing—it’s not right. It’s not what a Beaumont does. It’s servant work.”

It hadn’t been the first time Byron had considered running away. He’d just wanted to cook in peace and quiet, without being constantly harassed about how he wasn’t good enough. He’d been all of sixteen and thought he’d known how the world worked.

But, being sixteen, he hadn’t. Instead, he’d mouthed off. “You want me to go? Then I’ll go. I don’t have to stay here and take your insults.”

He’d expected to be disowned, frankly. No one talked back to Hardwick Beaumont, especially not his disappointment of a son. Hardwick’s lips had twisted into a sneer and Byron had braced himself.

Then, to his everlasting shock, Hardwick had said, “A Beaumont does not cut and run, boy. We know what we want and we fight for it, to hell with what anyone else says.” He’d leaned forward, his hard gaze locked on Byron. “If I ever hear you talk about giving up again, I’ll make sure you have nothing to give up. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Byron had been pissed at the threat, but underneath, he’d also been confused. Had his father—what? Given him permission to keep rebelling?

He had turned and started to walk out of Hardwick’s office when his father had called out, “The rack of lamb last night—was that you or George?”

It’d been a huge success, as far as Byron had been concerned. Even his half siblings had enjoyed the meal. “I cooked it. George supervised.”

There’d been a long pause and Byron hadn’t been sure if he’d been dismissed or not. Then Hardwick had said, “I expect you to present yourself as a Beaumont in the rest of the house. I don’t want to see flour anywhere on your clothes ever again. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

And he hadn’t left home. He’d stayed and put up with his father’s crap about how he did servant’s work and gotten better and better at cooking. Every so often, his father would look at him over the dinner dishes and say “that meal was especially good.” Which was as close to a compliment as Byron had ever gotten out of him.

He hadn’t thought about that chat, such as it was, in a long time. Not too long after that, Hardwick had keeled over dead of a heart attack. Frances scolded Byron about the flour in his hair, but no one had accused him of embarrassing the Beaumont name by insisting on doing servant’s work. He hadn’t had to fight for what he wanted anymore.

He’d stopped fighting for what he’d wanted.

Including Leona. Instead of fighting for her, he’d run away to Europe.

Well. Things had changed. He was in charge now and he knew what he wanted. He wanted Leona to marry him and he wanted to be a part of his son’s life.

It was high time to start acting like a Beaumont.

* * *

Finally, it was five o’clock. Leona had made him look at color samples and shaped plates and steak knives and he didn’t even know what all. Whatever was her favorite was what he went with—she was the designer, after all. What he cared about was the food.

He rinsed the lunch dishes in the sink and packed everything back into his car—except for the ring. That he put in his pocket. She’d left it on the table, and it made him nervous to have a twenty-thousand-dollar piece of jewelry sitting around.

She would wear it. She would accept his proposal.

This thought was followed by a quieter one, which barely whispered across his consciousness.

She would be his.

And why not? They were going to live together. They were going to get married. Why shouldn’t he reclaim what he’d once had? As long as he could have her without letting her get under his skin like she had the first time. He’d always loved being with her. They were good together. He wanted to think they still could have that same magic in bed.

He could enjoy Leona but this time, he would not let his feelings for her blind him to the truth. She was still a liar. He had to keep his guard up, that was all.

She walked to her car door. “You want to follow me out? Assuming you’re coming home with me...”

The ring was going to burn him clean through. “Yes, I’m coming home with you.”

She looked at him then, her lips curved into a small smile and again he had to fight the urge to kiss her.

Oh, to hell with fighting that urge.

He closed the distance between them in three strides and pulled her into him. She made a small squeaking noise when he kissed her, but he didn’t care.

He kissed her like he’d dreamed of kissing her for a long, cold year—like he’d kissed her last night. She might not be good for him—not now, not ever—but he couldn’t stay away from her.

After a moment, she kissed him back. Her arms went around his neck and her mouth opened for him and he swept his tongue inside, tasting her sweetness.

He broke the kiss but he didn’t let go of her. “Since we’re off the clock,” he whispered against her ear.

Her chest heaved against his for a moment as she clung to him. Then, apparently with great effort, she pulled away. “Byron,” she said in a warning tone. “You can’t keep kissing me like that.”

“Is there another way you’d like me to kiss you?”

“No—I mean—it’s just—you made it pretty clear that you only wanted to marry me for the baby’s sake. And we are going to have separate rooms and...” She took a deep breath. “And you cared for me once. But not anymore.”

He pulled the ring out of his pocket. “Would it be bad? Between us, I mean.”

“I just need to know what to expect, that’s all. One minute you’re mad at me and the next you’re cooking for me and saying I’ll have my own room and then you’re kissing me and offering me a ring—is it a family ring?”

He slipped the diamond out of the case and held it in the palm of his hand. “No. I bought it this morning.” Something that wasn’t tainted by her family name or his. Something that was theirs and theirs alone.

“Oh, okay. I guess it doesn’t matter.”

That made him smile. “It matters. I don’t even know what Percy’s full name is—is it Harper or Beaumont?”

“Percy Harper Beaumont. You’re listed on the birth certificate as his father. But I gave him my name as a middle name.”

She’d given the boy Byron’s name. For some reason, that made him happy. He stepped back into her and lifted her head up so he could look her in the eye. “Thank you for that.”

Her eyelids fluttered. “You’re doing it again,” she murmured.

“Leona.” He cupped her face in his hands and waited until she looked him in the eyes. “You know what I want. The question is, what do you want?” As he recalled, she was the one who’d asked for a separate bed yet had also kissed him back twice now.

“We need to get going,” she replied, completely ignoring his question. “May will worry.” And with that, she turned and walked back to her car.

Byron stared after her for a moment and then shoved the ring in his pocket.

Beaumonts fought for what they wanted...to hell with what anyone else said.

Leona was about to learn how far he’d go to get what he wanted.