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.
Building buzz was what Matthew did best. He was the only one in the family who had the media contacts and the PR savvy to pull this off.
Control the press, control the world—that’s how a Beaumont handles it.
Hardwick Beaumont’s words came back to him. When Matthew had managed yet another scandal, his father had said that to him. It’d been one of the few times Hardwick had ever complimented his forgotten third son. One of the few times Hardwick had ever made Matthew feel as if he was a Beaumont, not the bastard he’d once been.
Controlling the press was something that Matthew had gotten exceptionally good at. And he wasn’t about to drop the ball now. This wedding would prove not only that the Beaumonts still had a place in this world but that Matthew had a place in the family.
He could save the Beaumont reputation. He could save the Beaumonts. And in doing so, he could redeem himself.
He’d hired the best wedding planner in Denver. They’d booked the chapel on the Colorado Heights University campus and had invited two hundred guests to the wedding. The reception would be at the Mile High Station, with dinner for six hundred, and a team of Percherons would pull the happy couple in either a carriage or a sleigh, weather depending. They had the menu set, the cake ordered, the favors ready and the photographer on standby. Matthew had his family—all four of his father’s ex-wives and all nine of his half brothers and sisters—promising to be on their best behavior.
The only thing he didn’t have under his control was the bride and her maid of honor, a woman named Whitney Maddox.
Jo had said that Whitney was a horse breeder who lived a quiet life in California, so Matthew didn’t anticipate too much trouble from her. She was coming two weeks before the wedding and staying at the farm with Jo and Phillip. That way she could do all the maid-of-honor things—dress fittings and bachelorette parties, the lot of it. All of which had been preplanned by Matthew and the wedding planner, of course. There was no room for error.
The wedding had to be perfect. What mattered was showing the world that the Beaumonts were still a family. A successful family.
What mattered was Matthew proving that he was a legitimate Beaumont.
He opened a clean document and began to write his press release as if his livelihood depended on it.
Because it did.
* * *
Whitney pulled up in front of the building that looked as if it was three different houses stuck together. She would not be nervous about this—not about the two weeks away from her horses, about staying in a stranger’s house for said two weeks or about the press that went with being in a Beaumont Christmas wedding. Especially that.
Of course, she knew who Phillip Beaumont was—didn’t everyone? He was the handsome face of Beaumont Brewery—or had been, right up until his family had sold out. And Jo Spears was a dear friend—practically the best friend Whitney had. The only friend, really. Jo knew all about Whitney’s past and just didn’t care. And in exchange for that unconditional friendship, the least Whitney could do was suck it up and be Jo’s maid of honor.
In the high-society wedding of the year. With hundreds of guests. And photographers. And the press. And...
Jo came out to greet her.
“You haven’t changed a bit!” Whitney called as she shut her door. She shivered. December in Denver was an entirely different beast from December in California. “Except you’re not wearing your hat!”
“I didn’t wear the hat when we watched movies in your house, did I?” Jo wore a wide smile as she gave Whitney a brief hug. “How was the drive?”
“Long,” Whitney admitted. “That’s why I didn’t bring anyone with me. I thought about bringing the horses, but it’s just too cold up here for them to be in a trailer that long, and none of my dogs do well in the car.”
She’d desperately wanted to bring Fifi, her retired greyhound, or Gater, the little mutt that was pug and...something. Those two were her indoor dogs, the ones that curled up next to her on the couch or on her lap and kept her company. But Fifi did not travel well and Gater didn’t like to leave Fifi.
Animals didn’t care who you were. They never read the headlines. It didn’t matter to them if you’d accidentally flashed the paparazzi when you were nineteen or how many times you’d been arrested for driving while intoxicated. All that mattered to animals was that you fed them and rubbed their ears.
Besides, Whitney was on vacation. A vacation with a wedding in it, but still. She was going to see the sights in Denver and get her nails done and all sorts of fun things. It didn’t seem fair to bring the dogs only to leave them in a bedroom most of the time.
Jo nodded as Whitney got her bags out of the truck. “Who’s watching them?”
“Donald—you remember him, right? From the next ranch over?”
“The crusty old fart who doesn’t watch TV?”
Jo and Whitney shared a look. In that moment, Whitney was glad she’d come. Jo understood her as no one else did.
Everyone else in the world thought Donald was borderline insane—a holdover hippie from the 1960s who’d done too much acid back in the day. He lived off the grid, talked about animals as if they were his brothers and discussed Mother Earth as if she were coming to dinner next week.
But that meant Donald wasn’t tuned in to pop culture. Which also meant he didn’t know who Whitney was—who she’d been. Donald just thought Whitney was the neighbor who really should install more solar panels on her barn roof. And if she had to occasionally listen to a lecture on composting toilets, well, that was a trade-off she was willing to make.
She was going to miss her animals, but knowing Donald, he was probably sitting on the ground in the paddock, telling her horses bedtime stories.
Besides, being part of her best friend’s wedding was an opportunity even she couldn’t pass up. “What’s this I hear about you and Phillip Beaumont?”
Jo smiled. “Come on,” she said, grabbing one of Whitney’s bags. “Dinner will be in about an hour. I’ll get you caught up.”
She led Whitney inside. The whole house was festooned—there was no other word for it—with red bows and pine boughs. A massive tree, blinking with red-and-white lights, the biggest star Whitney had ever seen perched on top, stood in a bay window. The whole place had such a rustic Christmas charm that Whitney felt herself grinning. This would be a perfect way to spend Christmas, instead of watching It’s a Wonderful Life on the couch at home.
A small brown animal with extremely long ears clomped up to her and sniffed. “Well, hello again, Betty,” Whitney said as she crouched down onto her heels. “You remember me? You spent a few months sitting on my couch last winter.”
The miniature donkey sniffed Whitney’s hair and brayed before