Not the Boss's Baby

For example, she needed to leave for the doctor’s office by ten-thirty. She was dressed by eight. Which left her several hours to fret.

She was staring into her coffee cup, trying to figure out the mess in her head, when someone knocked on the door.

Neil? Surely he wouldn’t have come back. She’d done a pretty thorough job of kicking him out the last time.

Maybe it was her mom, stopping in early to continue celebrating the good news. But, after another round of knocks, she was pretty sure it wasn’t her mom.

Serena hurried to the door and peeked through the peephole. There, on her stoop, stood Chadwick Beaumont.

“Serena? I need to talk to you,” he called, staring at the peephole.

Damn. He’d seen her shadow. She couldn’t pretend she wasn’t home without being totally rude.

She was debating whether or not she wanted to be totally rude when he added, “I didn’t miss your appointment, did I?”

He hadn’t forgotten. Sagging with relief, she opened the door a crack.

Chadwick was wearing a button-up shirt and trousers, with no tie or jacket. The informality looked good on him, but that might have had something to do with the grin on his face. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he looked...giddy?

“I didn’t think you were going to come.”

He stared at her in confusion. “I told you I would.” Then he looked at what she was wearing. “You already have an interview?”

“Well, yes. I quit my job. I need another one.” She cleared her throat, suddenly nervous about this conversation. “I was counting on a letter of recommendation from you.”

The grin on Chadwick’s face broadened. It was as if all his worry from the last few years had melted away. “I should have guessed that you wouldn’t be able to take time off. But you can cancel your interview. I found a job for you.”

“You what?”

“Can I come in?”

She studied him. He’d found her a job? He’d come for her appointment? What was going on? Other than him being everything she’d hoped he’d be for the last week and a half. “It’s been ten days, you know. Ten days without so much as a text from you. I thought...”

He stepped into the doorway—not pushing her aside, but cupping her face with his hand and stroking her chin with his fingertips. She shuddered into his touch, stunned by how much it affected her. “I was busy.”

“Of course. You have a business to run. I know that.”

That’s why Serena walked out. She needed to see if he would still have feelings for her if she wasn’t sitting outside his office door every day.

“Serena,” he said, his voice deep with amusement. “Please let me come in. I can explain.”

“I understand, Chadwick. I really do.” She took a deep breath, willing herself not to cry. “Thank you for remembering the appointment, but maybe it’s best if I go by myself.”

He notched up an eyebrow as if she’d thrown down the gauntlet. “Ten minutes. That’s all I’m asking. If you still think we need some time apart after that, I’ll go. But I’m not walking away from you—from what we have.”

Then, just because he apparently could, he stroked his fingers against her chin again.

The need to kiss him, to fall back into his arms, was almost overpowering. But that emotion was in a full-out war with her sense of self-preservation.

“What did we have?”

The grin he aimed at her made her knees suddenly shake. He leaned in, his cheek rubbing against hers, and whispered in her ear, “Everything.”

Then he slipped a hand around her waist and pulled her into his chest. His lips touched the space underneath her ear, sending heat rushing from her neck down her back and farther south.

God, how she wanted this. Why had she thought she could walk away from him? From the way he made her feel? “Ten minutes,” she heard herself murmur as she managed to push him far enough back that she could step to the side and let him in.

So she could stop touching him.

Chadwick walked into her apartment and looked around. “You’re already moving?”

“Yes. This was where I lived with Neil. I need a fresh start. All the way around,” she added, trying to remember why. Oh, yes. Because she couldn’t fall for Chadwick while she worked for him. And work was all he did.

She expected him to say something else, but instead he gave her a look she couldn’t quite read. Was he...amused? She didn’t remember making a joke.

As he stood in the middle of the living room, she saw for the first time that he was holding a tablet. “I had this plan.” He began tapping the screen. “But Helen forced my hand. So instead of doing this over a couple of months, I had to work around the clock for the last ten days.”

If this was him convincing her that he’d find a way to see her outside of work, he was doing a surprisingly poor job of it. “Is that so?”

He apparently found what he was looking for because he grinned up at her and handed her the tablet. “It won’t be final until the board votes to accept it and the lawyers get done with it, but I sold the company.”

“You what?” She snatched the tablet out of his hands and looked at the document.

Letter of intent, the header announced underneath the insignia of the brewery’s law firm. AllBev hereby agrees to pay $62 a share for The Beaumont Brewery and all related Beaumont Brewery brands, excluding Percheron Drafts. Chadwick Beaumont reserves the right to keep the Percheron Drafts brand name and all related recipes....

The whole thing got bogged down in legalese after that. Serena kept rereading the first few lines. “Wait, what? You’re keeping Percheron?”

“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.”