She turned to Larry, who was pale and possibly shaking. She understood why he was scared—Larry was not the brightest bulb and he knew it. That was the reason he hadn’t left when Chadwick lost the company or when Ethan Logan tried to right the sinking ship.
That was why Casey had been promoted over him to brewmaster, even though Larry had almost twenty years of experience on her. He liked his job, he liked beer and as long as he got regular cost-of-living increases in his salary and a year-end bonus, he was perfectly content to spend the rest of his life right where he was. He hadn’t wanted the responsibility of management.
Frankly, Casey was starting to wonder why she had. “I’ll take care of this,” she told him.
Surprisingly, this announcement made Larry look even more nervous. Apparently, he didn’t put a lot of faith in her ability to keep her temper. “What are you going to do?”
His reaction made it clear that he was afraid she’d get fired—and then he’d be in charge. “This Richards guy and I are going to have words.”
Larry fretted. “Are you sure that’s the smart thing to do?”
“Probably not,” she agreed. “But what’s he going to do—fire the brewmaster? I don’t think so, Larry.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, okay?”
Larry gave her a weak smile, but he nodded resolutely.
Casey hurried to her office and stripped off her hairnet. She knew she was no great beauty, but nobody wanted to confront a new boss in a hairnet. She grabbed her Beaumont Brewery hat and slid her ponytail through the back. And she was off, yelling over her shoulder to Larry, “See if you can get that drainage tube off—and if you can, see if you can get it flushed again. I’ll be back in a bit.”
She did not have time for this. She was already working ten-to twelve-hour days—six or seven days a week—just to keep the equipment clean and the beer flowing. If she lost more of her staff...
It wouldn’t come to that. She wouldn’t let it. And if it did...
Okay, so she’d promised Larry she wouldn’t get fired. But what if she did? Her options weren’t great, but at least she had some. Unlike Larry, she did have an updated résumé that she kept on file just in case. She didn’t want to use it. She wanted to stay right here at the Beaumont Brewery and brew her favorite beer for the rest of her life.
Or at least, she had. No, if she was being honest, what she really wanted was to be the brewmaster at the old Beaumont Brewery, the one she’d worked at for the previous twelve years—the one that the Beaumont family had run. Back then the brewery had been a family business and the owners had been personally invested in their employees.
They’d even given a wide-eyed college girl the chance to do something no one else had—brew beer.
But the memo in her hand reminded her that this wasn’t the same brewery. The Beaumonts no longer ran things and the company was suffering.
She was suffering. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d strung together more than twenty-four hours of free time. She was doing the job of three people and, thanks to the hiring freeze the last CEO implemented, there was no relief in sight. And now this. She could not afford to lose another single person.
She was a thirty-two-year-old brewmaster—and a woman, at that. She’d come so far so fast. But not one of her predecessors in the illustrious history of the Beaumont Brewery had put up with quite this much crap. They’d been left to brew beer in relative peace.
She stormed to the CEO suite. Delores was behind the desk. When she saw Casey coming, the older woman jumped to her feet with surprising agility. “Casey—wait. You don’t—”
“Oh, yes, I do,” she said, blowing past Delores and shoving open the door to the CEO’s office. “Just who the hell do you think you...are?”
Casey came to a stumbling stop. Where was he? The desk was vacant and no one was sitting on the leather couches.
But then a movement off to her left caught her eye and she turned and gasped in surprise.
A man stood by the windows, looking out over the brewery campus. He had his hands in his pockets and his back turned to her—but despite that, everything about him screamed power and money. The cut of his suit fit him like a second skin and he stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, as if he were master of all he saw.
A shiver went through her. She was not the kind of girl who went for power suits or the men who wore them but something about this man—this man who was threatening her job—took her breath away. Was it the broad shoulders? Or the raw power wafting off him like the finest cologne?
And then he turned to face her and all she could see were his eyes—green eyes. Good Lord, those eyes—they held her gaze like a magnet and she knew her breath was gone for good.
He was, hands down, the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Everything—the power suit, the broad shoulders, the close-cropped hair and most especially the eyes—it was a potent blend that she felt powerless to resist. And this was her new boss? The man who’d sent out the memo?
He notched an eyebrow at her and let his gaze travel over her body. And any admiration she had for a good suit and nice eyes died on the vine because she knew exactly what he saw. Underneath her lab coat, she had on a men’s small polo shirt with Beaumont Brewery embroidered over the chest—and she’d sweat through it because the brew room was always hot. Her face was probably red from the heat and also from the anger, and she no doubt smelled like mash and wort.
She must look like a madwoman.
A conclusion he no doubt reached on his own, because by the time he looked her in the eyes, one corner of his mouth had curved up into the kind of smile that said exactly one thing.
He thought she was a joke.
Well, he’d soon learn this was no laughing matter.
“Congratulations,” he said in a voice that bordered on cold. “You’re first.” He lifted his wrist and looked down at a watch that, even at this distance, Casey could tell was expensive. “Thirty-five minutes. I’m impressed.”
His imperious attitude poured cold water on the heat that had almost swamped her. She wasn’t here to gawk at a gorgeous man. She was here to protect her workers. “Are you Richards?”
“Zebadiah Richards, yes. Your new boss,” he added in a menacing tone, as if he thought he could intimidate her. Didn’t he know she had so very little left to lose? “And you are?”
She’d worked in a male-dominated industry for twelve years. She couldn’t be intimidated. “I’m Casey Johnson—your brewmaster.” What kind of name was Zebadiah? Was that biblical? “What’s the meaning of this?” She held up the memo.
Richards’s eyes widened in surprise—but only for a second before he once again looked ice-cold. “Forgive me,” he said in a smooth voice when Casey glared at him. “I must say that you are not what I was expecting.”
Casey rolled her eyes and made no attempt to hide it. Few people expected women to like beer. Even fewer people expected women to brew beer. And with a name like Casey, everyone just assumed she was a man—and usually, they assumed she was a man like Larry. Middle-aged, beer gut—the whole nine yards. “It’s not my problem if you made a set of erroneous assumptions.”
The moment she said it, she realized she’d also made some erroneous assumptions herself. Because she had not anticipated that the new CEO would look quite like him. Oh, sure—the power suit was par for the course. But his hair was close-cropped to his head and his eyes... Damn, she just couldn’t get past them.
He grinned—oh, Lord, that was not good. Well, it was—but in a bad