Sarah Anderson - A Beaumont Christmas Wedding

This was what Whitney wanted—to feel normal.

To be normal. To be able to walk into a room and not be concerned with what people thought they knew about her. Instead, Phillip had taken her at face value and made her feel welcome.

And he had a brother who was coming to dinner?

What did Matthew Beaumont look like? More to the point, what did he act like? Brothers could like a lot of the same things, right?

What if Matthew Beaumont looked at her like his brother did, without caring about her past?

What if he talked to her about horses instead of headlines?

What if—What if he wasn’t involved with anyone?

Whitney didn’t hook up. That part of her life was dead and buried. But … a little Christmas romance between the maid of honor and the best man wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?

It could even be fun.

* * *

A Beaumont Christmas Weddingis part of The Beaumont Heirs trilogy: One Colorado family, limitless scandal!

A Beaumont Christmas Wedding

Sarah M. Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Award-winning author SARAH M. ANDERSONmay live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out West on the Great Plains. With a lifelong love of horses and two history teachers for parents, she had plenty of encouragement to learn everything she could about the tribes of the Great Plains.

When she started writing, it wasn’t long before her characters found themselves out in South Dakota among the Lakota Sioux. She loves to put people from two different worlds into new situations and to see how their backgrounds and cultures take them someplace they never thought they’d go.

Sarah’s book A Man of Privilege won the 2012 RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Mills & Boon Desire.

When not helping out at her son’s school or walking her rescue dogs, Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and American Indians, all of which is surprisingly well tolerated by her wonderful husband. Readers can find out more about Sarah’s love of cowboys and Indians at www.sarahmanderson.com.

To Fiona Marsden, Kelli Bruns and Jenn Hoopes—three of the nicest Twitter friends around.

Thanks, ladies! You guys rock!

Contents

Cover

Introduction This was what Whitney wanted—to feel normal. To be normal. To be able to walk into a room and not be concerned with what people thought they knew about her. Instead, Phillip had taken her at face value and made her feel welcome. And he had a brother who was coming to dinner? What did Matthew Beaumont look like? More to the point, what did he act like? Brothers could like a lot of the same things, right? What if Matthew Beaumont looked at her like his brother did, without caring about her past? What if he talked to her about horses instead of headlines? What if—What if he wasn’t involved with anyone? Whitney didn’t hook up. That part of her life was dead and buried. But … a little Christmas romance between the maid of honor and the best man wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it? It could even be fun. * * * A Beaumont Christmas Wedding is part of The Beaumont Heirs trilogy: One Colorado family, limitless scandal!

Title Page A Beaumont Christmas Wedding Sarah M. Anderson www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author Award-winning author SARAH M. ANDERSON may live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out West on the Great Plains. With a lifelong love of horses and two history teachers for parents, she had plenty of encouragement to learn everything she could about the tribes of the Great Plains. When she started writing, it wasn’t long before her characters found themselves out in South Dakota among the Lakota Sioux. She loves to put people from two different worlds into new situations and to see how their backgrounds and cultures take them someplace they never thought they’d go. Sarah’s book A Man of Privilege won the 2012 RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Mills & Boon Desire. When not helping out at her son’s school or walking her rescue dogs, Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and American Indians, all of which is surprisingly well tolerated by her wonderful husband. Readers can find out more about Sarah’s love of cowboys and Indians at www.sarahmanderson.com .

Dedication To Fiona Marsden, Kelli Bruns and Jenn Hoopes—three of the nicest Twitter friends around. Thanks, ladies! You guys rock!

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Extract

Copyright

One

Matthew Beaumont looked at his email in amazement. The sharks were circling. He’d known they would be, but still, the sheer volume of messages clamoring for more information was impressive. There were emails from TMZ, Perez Hilton and PageSix.com, all sent in the past twenty minutes.

They all wanted the same thing. Who on earth was Jo Spears, the lucky woman who was marrying into the Beaumont family and fortune? And why had playboy Phillip Beaumont, Matthew’s brother, chosen her—a woman no one had ever heard of before—when he could have had his pick of supermodels and Hollywood starlets?

Matthew rubbed his temples. The truth was actually quite boring—Jo Spears was a horse trainer who’d spent the past ten years training some of the most expensive horses in the world. There wasn’t much there that would satisfy the gossip sites.

But if the press dug deeper and made the connection between Jo Spears, horse trainer, and Joanna Spears, they might dig up the news reports about a drunk-driving accident a decade ago in which Joanna was the passenger—and the driver died. They might turn up a lot of people who’d partied with Joanna.

They might turn this wedding into a circus.

His email pinged. Vanity Fair had gotten back to him. He scanned the email. Excellent. They would send a photographer if he invited their reporter as a guest.

Matthew knew the only way to keep this Beaumont wedding—planned for Christmas Eve—from becoming a circus was to control the message. He had to fight fire with fire and if that meant embedding the press into the wedding itself, then so be it.

Yes, it was great that Phillip was getting married. For the first time in his life, Matthew was hopeful his brother was going to be all right. But for Matthew, this wedding meant so much more than just the bonds of holy matrimony for his closest brother.

This wedding was the PR opportunity of a lifetime. Matthew had to show the world that the Beaumont family wasn’t falling apart or flaming out.

God knew there’d been enough rumors to that effect after Chadwick Beaumont had sold the Beaumont Brewery and married his secretary, which had been about the same time that Phillip had very publically fallen off the wagon and wound up in rehab. And that didn’t even include what his stepmothers and half siblings were doing.

It had been common knowledge that the Beaumonts, once the preeminent family of Denver, had fallen so far down that they’d never get back up.

To hell with common knowledge.

This was Matthew’s chance to prove himself—not just in the eyes of the press but in his family’s eyes, too. He’d show them once and for all that he wasn’t the illegitimate child who was too little, too late a Beaumont. He was one of them, and this was his chance to erase the unfortunate circumstances of his birth from everyone’s mind.

A perfectly orchestrated wedding and reception would show the world that instead of crumbling, the Beaumonts were stronger than ever. And it was up to Matthew, the former vice president of Public Relations for the Beaumont Brewery and the current chief marketing officer of Percheron Drafts Beer, to make that happen.