Sarah M. Anderson - The Beaumont Brothers

She leaned back, dropping her gaze again. Like she’d just realized she’d gone too far and was trying to backtrack. “I know. But I’m not your responsibility. I’m just an employee.”

“The hell you are.” The words were out a little faster than he wanted them to be, but what was the point of pretending anymore? He hadn’t lied earlier. Something about her had moved him beyond his normal restraint. She was so much more than an employee.

Her cheeks took on that pale pink blush that only made her more beautiful. Her mouth opened and she looked like she was about to argue with him when the waiter came up. When the man left with their orders—filet mignon for him, lobster for her—Chadwick looked at her. “Tell me about you.”

She eyed him with open suspicion.

He held up his hands in surrender. “I swear it won’t have any bearing on how I treat you. I’ll still want to buy you pretty things and take you to dinner and have you on my arm at a gala.” Because that’s where you belong, his mind finished for him.

On his arm, in his bed—in his life.

She didn’t answer at first, so he leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Do you trust me when I say I’ll never use it against you?”

She tucked her lower lip up under her teeth. It shouldn’t look so sexy, but on her it did. Everything did.

“Prove it.”

Oh, yeah, she was challenging him. But it didn’t feel like a battle of wills.

He didn’t hesitate. “My dad beat me. Once, with a belt.” He kept his voice low, so no one could hear, but it didn’t matter. The words ripped themselves out of a place deep inside of his chest.

Her eyes went wide with shock and she covered her open mouth with her hand. It hurt to look at her, so he closed his eyes.

But that was a mistake. He could see his father standing over him, that nice Italian leather belt in his hand, buckle out—screaming about how Chadwick had gotten a C on a math test. He heard the belt whistle through the air, felt the buckle cut into his back. Felt the blood start to run down his side as the belt swung again—all because Chadwick had messed up how to subtract fractions. Future CEOs knew how to do math, Hardwick had reminded him again and again.

That’s all Chadwick had ever been—future CEO of Beaumont Brewery. He’d been eleven. It was the only time Hardwick Beaumont had ever left a mark on him, but it was a hell of a mark. He still had the scar.

It was all such a long time ago. Like it had been part of a different life. He thought he’d buried that memory with his father, but it was still there, and it still had the capacity to cause him pain. He’d spent his entire life trying to do what his father wanted, trying to avoid another beating, but what had that gotten him? A failed marriage and a company that was about to be sold out from under him.

Hardwick couldn’t hurt him now.

He opened his eyes and looked at Serena. Her face was pale and there was a certain measure of horror in her eyes, but she wasn’t looking at him like he feared she would—like she’d forgotten about the man he was now and only saw a bleeding little boy.

Just like he saw a woman he trusted completely, and not a little girl who ate at food pantries.

He kept going. “When I didn’t measure up to expectations. As far as I know, he never hit any of his other kids. Just me. He broke my toys, sent my friends away and locked me in my room, all because I had to be the perfect Beaumont to run his company.”

“How...how could he do that?”

“I was never his son. Just his employee.” The words tasted bitter, but they were the unvarnished truth. “And, like you said, I don’t tell people about it. Not even Helen. Because I don’t want people to look at me with pity.”

But he’d told her. Because he knew she wouldn’t hold it against him. Helen would have. Every time they fought, she would have thrown that back in his face because she thought she could use his past to control him.

Serena wouldn’t manipulate him like that. And he wouldn’t do that to her.

“So,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “tell me about it.”

She nodded. Her face was still pale, but she understood what he was saying. She understood him. “Which part?”

“All of it.”

So she did.

Eight

Serena clung to Chadwick’s arm as they swept up the red-carpeted stairs, past the paparazzi and into the Denver Art Museum. Part of her clinginess was because of the heels. Chadwick took huge, masterful strides that she was struggling to keep up with.

But another part of it was how unsettled she was feeling. She’d told him about her childhood. About the one time she and her mom had lived in a women-only shelter for three days because her dad didn’t want them to have to sleep on the streets in the winter—but her mom had missed him so much that she’d bundled Serena up and they’d gone looking for him. She’d told him about Missy Gurgin in fourth grade making fun of Serena for wearing her old clothes, about the midnight moves to stay ahead of the due rent, about eating dinner that her mom had scavenged from leftovers at the diner.

Things she’d never told anyone. Not even Neil knew about all of that.

In turn, he’d told her about the way his father had controlled his entire life, about punishments that went way beyond cruel. He’d talked in a dispassionate tone, like they were discussing the weather and not the abuse of a child too young to defend himself, but she could hear the pain beneath the surface. He could act like it was all water under the bridge, but she knew better. All the money in the world hadn’t protected Chadwick.

She put her hand over her stomach. No one would ever treat her child like that. And she would do everything in her power to keep her baby from ever being cold and hungry—or wondering where her next meal was coming from.

They walked into the Art Museum. Serena tried to find the calm in her mind. God knew she needed it. She pushed aside the horror of what Chadwick had told her, the embarrassment of sharing her story with him.

This was more familiar territory. She’d come to the Art Museum for this gala for the previous seven years. She knew where the galleries were, where the food was. She’d helped arrange that. She knew how to hold her champagne glass—oh, wait. No champagne for her tonight.

Okay, no need to panic. She was still perfectly at ease. She was only wearing a wildly expensive dress, four-inch heels and a fortune in jewels. Not to mention she was pregnant, on a date with her boss and....

Yeah, champagne would be great right about now.

Chadwick leaned over and whispered, “Are you breathing?” in her ear.

She did as instructed, the grin on her face making it easier. “Yes.”

He squeezed her hand against his arm, which she found exceptionally reassuring. “Good. Keep it that way.”

It was almost ten o’clock. Once they’d started sharing stories at dinner, it had been hard to stop. Serena was both mortified that she’d told any of that to Chadwick and, somehow, relieved. She’d buried those secrets deep, but they hadn’t been dead. They’d lived on, terrorizing her like a monster under the bed.

At some point during dinner, she’d relaxed. The meal had been fabulous—the food was a little out there, but good. She’d been able to just enjoy being with Chadwick.

Now they were arriving at the gala slightly later than was fashionable. People were noticing as Chadwick swept her into the main hall. She could see heads tilting as people craned their necks for a better view, could hear the whispers starting.

Oh, this was not a good idea.

She’d loved her black dress because it looked good—but it had also blended, something Mario had forbidden. Now that she was here and standing out in the crowd in a bold blue, she wished she’d gone with basic black. People were staring.