Falling For Her Fake Fiancé (The Beaumont Heirs 5) (13 page)

Fourteen

W
hen had Frances lost control? That was the question she kept asking herself on the insanely long elevator ride down to the hotel lobby. She asked it as the valet secured a cab for her, and she asked it again on the long ride out to the mansion.

Because she had. She’d lost all sorts of control.

She slipped into the mansion. The place was dark and quiet—but then, it was late. Past midnight. The staff had left hours ago. Chadwick and Serena and their little girl were no doubt asleep, as were Frances’s younger siblings.

She felt very much alone.

She took off her shoes and tiptoed up to her room. She jerked her zipper down so hard she heard tearing, which was a crying shame because this dress was her best one. But she couldn’t quite care.

Frances dug out her ugly flannel pajamas, bright turquoise plaid and baggy shapelessness. They were warm and soft and comforting, and far removed from the nothing she’d almost fallen asleep wearing when she’d been in bed with Ethan.

God, what a mess. And, yes, she was aware that she was probably making it messier than it had to be, just by virtue of being herself.

But was he serious? Sure, she could have believed it if he’d said he loved being with her and she was special and wonderful before the sex. It was expected, those words of seduction. Except he hadn’t said them then. He’d said things that should have been insults—that she made his life harder than he wanted her to, that she drove him mad, that she was a complicated hot mess.

Those were not the words of a man trying to get laid.

Those were the words of an honest man.

And then after? To lay there in his arms and feel as if she’d exposed so much more than her body to him and to have him tell her that he enjoyed being with her, that he liked her, that—

That he’d happily push back their agreed-on marriage because she was worth waiting for?

It was all supposed to be a game. A game she’d played before and a game she’d play again. Yes, this was the long game—a wedding, a yearlong marriage—but that didn’t change the rules.

Did it?

She climbed under her own covers in her own bed, a bed that was just as large as Ethan’s. It felt empty compared with what she’d left behind.

Ethan wasn’t following the rules. He was changing them. She’d warned him against doing so, but he was doing so anyway. And it was all too much for Frances. Too much honesty, too much realness. Too much intimacy.

Men had proposed before. Professed their undying love and admiration for her. But no one had ever meant it. No one ever did, not in her world. Love was a bargaining chip, nothing more. Sex was calling a bluff. All a game. Just a game. If you played it right, you got diamonds and houses and money. And if you lost...you got nothing.

Nothing.

She curled up into a tight ball, just like she’d always done back when she was little and her parents were fighting. On bad nights, she’d sneak into Byron’s room and curl up in his bed. He took the top half and she took the bottom, their backs touching. That’s how they’d come into this world. It felt safer that way.

Once, Mom had loved Dad. And Dad must have had feelings for Mom, right? That’s why he’d married her and made their illegitimate child, Matthew, legitimate.

But they couldn’t live together. They couldn’t share a roof. They’d have been better off like Ethan’s folks, going their separate ways 85 percent of the time and only coming together when the stars aligned just so. And in the end, her father had won and her mother had lost, and that had been the game.

She almost got up and got her phone to call Byron. To tell him she might have been rash and that she needed to come hang out for a couple of days until things cooled off. Mom was out there, anyway.

It was late. Byron was probably still asleep.

And then there was Friday. Donut Friday.

She had to face Ethan again. With an audience. Just like they’d planned it.

She had nothing to wear.

* * *

Delores walked in with a stack of interoffice envelopes. Ethan glared at her, trying to get his heart to calm down.

He hadn’t heard from Frances since she’d stormed out of his room two nights ago, and it was making him jumpy. He did not like being jumpy.

“Any donuts yet?” he made himself say casually.

“Haven’t seen her yet, but I can check with Larry to find out if she’s on the premises,” Delores said in a genial manner. She handed him a rather thick envelope. It had no return address. It just said, “E. Logan.”

“What’s this?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” When Ethan glared at her, she said, “I’ll go check on those donuts.”

The old battle-ax
, he thought menacingly as he undid the clasp and slid out a half-inch-thick manila folder.

“Potentially of our mutual interest—C. Beaumont,” proclaimed a small, otherwise benign yellow sticky note on the front of the folder.

The only feeling that Ethan did not enjoy more than jumpiness was uncertainty. And that’s what the manila folder suddenly represented. What on earth would Chadwick Beaumont consider of mutual interest? The only thing that came to mind was Frances.

And what of Frances could merit a folder this thick?

The possibilities—everything from blackmail to depravities—ran together in his mind. He shoved them aside and opened the file.

And found himself staring at a dossier for one Zeb Richards, owner of ZOLA.

Ethan blinked in astonishment as he scanned the information. Zeb Richards, born in Denver in 1973, graduated from Morehouse College with a bachelor of arts degree and from the University of Georgia with a master’s in business administration. Currently resided in New York. There was a small color photo of the man, the first that Ethan had seen.

Wait—had he met Zeb Richards before? There was something about the set of the man’s jaw that looked familiar. He had dark hair that was cropped incredibly close to his head, the way many black men wore it.

But Ethan would remember meeting someone named Zeb, wouldn’t he?

Then he flipped the page and found another document—a photocopy of a birth certificate. Well, he had to hand it to Chadwick—he was nothing if not thorough. The certificate confirmed that Zebadiah Richards was born in Denver in 1973. His mother was Emily Richards and his father was...

Oh, hell.

Under “Father” was the unmistakable name of one Hardwick James Beaumont.

Ethan flipped back to the photo. Yes, that jaw—that was like Chadwick’s jaw, like Phillip’s. Those two men had been unmistakably brothers—full brothers. The resemblance had been obvious. And they’d looked a fair deal like Frances. The jaw was softer on her, more feminine—more beautiful.

But if Zeb’s mother had been African-American... That would account for everything else.

Oh,
hell.

Suddenly, it all made sense. This agitation on behalf of ZOLA to sell the Beaumont Brewery? It wasn’t a rival firm looking to discredit Ethan’s company, and it wasn’t an activist shareholder looking to peel the Beaumont Brewery off so it could pick it up for pennies on the dollar and sell it off, like Ethan’s father did.

This was personal.

And it had nothing to do with Ethan.

Except he was, as of about two nights ago, sleeping with a Beaumont. He was probably still informally engaged to be married to said Beaumont, although he wouldn’t be sure of that until the donut situation was confirmed. And, perhaps most important of all, he was currently running the Beaumont Brewery.

“Delores,” he said into the intercom. “Was this envelope hand-delivered to you?”

“It was on my desk this morning, Mr. Logan.”

“I need to speak to Chadwick Beaumont. Can you get me his number?”

“Of course.” Ethan started to turn the intercom off, but then she added, “Oh, Ms. Beaumont is on the premises.”

“Thank you,” he said. He flipped the intercom off and stuffed the folder back into the envelope. It was no joke to say he was out of his league here. A bastard son coming back to wreak havoc on his half siblings? Yeah, Ethan was
way
out of his league.

Chadwick must have a sense of humor, what with that note about Zeb Richards being “potentially” a mutual interest.

But Frances—she didn’t know anything about her siblings from unmarried mothers, did she? No, Ethan was certain he remembered her saying she didn’t know any of them. Just that there were some.

So Zeb Richards was not, at this exact moment, something she needed to know about.

Unless...

He thought back to the way she’d stood before him last night, all of her armor fully in place while he’d been naked in every sense of the word. And she’d said—
No, be honest
, he told himself—
sneered
that she’d thought he’d be better at the game.

Was Zeb Richards part of the game?

Just because Frances said she didn’t know any of the illegitimate Beaumonts didn’t mean she’d been truthful about it.

She’d asked Ethan why he wanted to marry her. Had he asked why she’d agreed to marry him? Beyond the money for her art gallery?

What else was she getting out of their deal?

Why had she shown up with donuts last week?

The answer was right in front of him, a manila folder in an envelope.

Revenge.

Hadn’t she told him that she’d lost part of herself when the family lost the Brewery? And hadn’t she said she should hate him for his part in that loss?

What had seemed like a distant coincidence—Frances disrupting his personal life at nearly the exact same time some random investor was trying to disrupt his business—now seemed less like a coincidence and more like directly correlated events.

What if she not only knew Zeb Richards was her half brother—what if she was helping him? Getting insider information? Not from Ethan, necessarily—but from all the people here who loved and trusted her because she was their Frannie?

Did Chadwick know? Or did he suspect? Was that why he’d sent the file?

Ethan had assumed it’d been the encounter with Phillip Beaumont that had prompted Chadwick’s appearance at the Brewery the other day. But what if there’d been something else? What if one of Chadwick’s loyal employees had tipped him off that Frances was asking around, digging up dirt?

And if that was possible, who’s side was Chadwick on? Ethan’s? Frances’s? Zeb Richards’s?

Ethan’s head began to ache. This, he realized with a half laugh, was what he was trying to marry into—a family so sprawling, so screwed up that they didn’t even have a solid head count on all their relatives.

“She’s here,” Delores’s voice interrupted his train of thought.

Ethan stood and straightened his tie. He didn’t know why. He pushed the thought of bastards with an ax to grind out of his head. He had to focus on what was important here—Frances. The woman he’d taken to his bed last night and then promptly chased right out of it, all because he was stupid enough to develop feelings for her.

The woman who might be setting him up to fail because it was a game. Nothing but a game.

He had no idea which version of Frances Beaumont was on the other side of that door.

He wanted to be wrong. He wanted it to be one giant coincidence. He did not want to know that he’d misjudged her so badly, that he’d been played for such a fool.

Because if he had, he didn’t know where he would go from here. He was still the CEO of this company. He still had a deal to marry her and invest in her gallery. He had his own company to protect. As soon as the Brewery was successfully restructured, he’d pull up stakes and move on to the next business that needed to be run with an iron fist and an eye to the bottom line. They’d divorce casually and go on with their lives.

And once he was gone, he’d never have to think about anything Beaumont ever again.

He opened his door. Frances was standing there in jeans and boots. She wore a thick, fuzzy cable-knit sweater, and her hair was pulled back into a modest bun. Not a sky-high heel or low-cut silk blouse in sight. She looked...plain, almost, which was something because if there was one thing Frances Beaumont wasn’t, it was plain.

And despite the fact that his head felt as if an anvil had just been dropped on it, despite the fact that he was in over his head—despite the fact that, no, he was most likely not as good at the game as he’d thought he was and, no, she did not like him—he was glad to see her. He absolutely shouldn’t be, but he was.

It only got worse when she lifted her head. There was no crowd today, no group of eager employees around to stroke her ego or destroy his. Just her and Delores and a box.

“Frances.”

“Chocolate éclair?” she asked simply.

Even her makeup was simple today. She looked almost innocent, as if she was still trying to understand what had happened between them last night, just like he was.

But was that the truth of the matter? Or was this part of the game?

“I saved you two,” she told him, holding the box out.

“Come in,” he said, holding his door open for her. “Delores, hold my calls.”

“Even—” she started to say.

“I’ll call him back.” Yes, he needed to talk to Chadwick, but he needed to talk to Frances more. He wasn’t sleeping with Chadwick. Frances came first.

Frances paused, a look on her face that yesterday Ethan would have assumed to be confusion. Today? He couldn’t be sure.

She walked past him, her head held high and her bearing regal. Ethan wanted to smile at her. Evening gowns or blue jeans, she could pull off imperial like nobody’s business.

But he didn’t smile. She did not like him. And liking her? Wanting to take care of her, to spend time with her? That had been a massive error on his part.

So the moment the door shut, he resolved that he would not care about her. He would not pull her into his arms and hold her tight and try to find the right sweet nothings to whisper in her ear to wipe that shell-shocked look off her face.

He would not comfort her. He couldn’t afford to.

She carried the donut box over to the wagon-wheel coffee table and set it down. Then she sat on the love seat, tucking her feet up under her legs. “Hi,” she said in what seemed like a small voice.