She welcomed his condescending tone because it pushed her from falling into the heat of his eyes and kept her focused on her task. “Is that a fact? Where’d you learn that management technique? Management ‘R’ Us?”
Something that almost looked like amusement flickered over his gaze and she was tempted to smile. A lot of people found her abrasive and yeah, she could rub people the wrong way. She didn’t pull her punches and she wasn’t about to sit down and shut up just because she was a girl and men didn’t like to have their authority challenged.
What was rarer was for someone to get her sense of humor. Could this Richards actually be a real man who smiled? God, she wanted to work for a man she wouldn’t have to fight every step of the way. Maybe they could get along. Maybe...
But as quickly as it had appeared, the humor was gone. His eyes narrowed and Casey thought, You’re not the only one who can be condescending.
“The purpose is twofold, Ms. Johnson. One, I’d like to see what skill sets my employees possess. And two, I want to see if they can follow basic instructions.”
So much for a sense of humor. Men as hot as he was probably weren’t allowed to laugh at a joke. Pity. On the other hand, if he smiled, it might kill her with handsomeness and the only thing worse than a CEO she couldn’t work with would be a CEO she lusted after.
No lusting allowed. And he was making that easier with every single thing he said.
“Let me assure you, Mr. Richards, that this company did not spring fully formed from your forehead yesterday. We’ve been brewing beer here for—”
“For over one hundred and thirty years—I know.” He tilted his head to the side and gave her a long look. “And you’ve only been doing it for less than a year—is that correct?”
If she weren’t so pissed at him, she’d have been terrified, because that was most definitely a threat to her job. But she didn’t have time for unproductive emotions and anger was vastly more useful than fear.
“I have—and I earned that job. But before you question how a woman my age can have possibly surpassed all the good ol’ boys who normally brew beer, let me tell you that it’s also because all the more experienced brewers have already left the company. If you want to maintain a quality product line, you’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.” She waved the memo in front of her. “And I don’t have time to deal with this crap.”
But instead of doing anything any normal boss would do when basically yelled at by an employee—like firing her on the spot—Richards tilted his head to one side and looked at her again and she absolutely did not shiver when he did it. “Why not?”
“Why not what?”
“Why don’t you have time to respond to a simple administrative task?”
Casey didn’t want to betray any sign of weakness but a trickle of sweat rolled out from under her hat and into her eye. Dammit. He better not think she was crying. She wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. “Because I’m operating with a bare-bones staff—I have been for the last nine months. I’m doing the work of three people—we all are. We’re understaffed, overworked and—”
“And you don’t have time for this ‘crap,’ as you so eloquently put it,” he murmured.
Was that a note of sympathy? Or was he mocking her? She couldn’t read him that well.
Not yet, a teasing voice in the back of her mind whispered. But she pushed that voice away. She wasn’t interested in reading him better. “Not if you want to fulfill production orders.”
“So just hire more people.”
Now she gaped at him. “What?”
He shrugged, which was an impossibly smooth gesture on him. Men should not be that smooth. It wasn’t good for them, she decided. And it definitely wasn’t good for her. This would be so much easier if he were at least 70 percent less attractive. “Hire more people. But I want to see their résumés, too. Why let the new people off easy, right?”
This guy didn’t know anything, did he? They were screwed, then. This was the beginning of the end. Now she would have to help Larry write a résumé.
“But...there’s been a hiring freeze,” she told him. “For the last eight months. Until we can show a profit.”
Richards stepped forward and traced a finger over the top of the conference table. It was an oddly intimate motion—a caress, almost. Watching his hand move over the wood...
She broke out in goose bumps.
“Tell me, Ms. Johnson‚ was it Chadwick Beaumont who put on the hiring freeze? Or Ethan Logan?”
There was something about his voice that matched his caress of the conference table. Casey studied him. She had the oddest feeling that he looked familiar but she was sure she would remember seeing him before. Who could forget those eyes? Those...everything?
“Logan did.”
“Ah,” he said, shifting so he wasn’t silhouetted against the window anymore. More light fell on him and Casey was startled to realize that the green eyes were set against skin that wasn’t light but wasn’t exactly deep brown, either. His skin was warm, almost tan, and she realized he was at least partly African American. Why hadn’t she seen that right away?
Well, she knew why. First off, she was mad and when she was mad, she didn’t exactly pay attention to the bigger picture. She hadn’t noticed the fullness to his frowning lips or the slight flare of his nostrils. Second off, his eyes had demanded her total attention. They were striking, so gorgeous, and even...familiar?
His hand was still on top of the conference table. “So what you’re telling me is that the only non-Beaumont to run this company instituted a series of policies designed to cut costs and, in the process, hamstrung the operations and production?”
“Yes.” There was something about the way he said the only non-Beaumont that threw her for a loop.
And then—maybe because now she was paying more attention—it hit her like a ton of bricks.
This guy—this Zeb Richards who wasn’t quite black and wasn’t quite white—he looked vaguely familiar. Something in the nose, the chin...those eyes...
He looked a little bit like Chadwick Beaumont.
Sweet merciful heavens. He was a Beaumont, too.
Her knees gave in to the weight of the revelation and she lurched forward to lean on the coffee table. “Oh, my God,” she asked, staring at him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
Richards snatched his hand back and put it in his pocket like he was trying to hide something. “I can neither confirm nor deny that—at least, not until the press conference on Friday.” He moved away from the conference table and toward his desk.
If he was trying to intimidate her, it wasn’t working. Casey followed him. He sat behind the desk—the same place she had seen Chadwick Beaumont too many times to count and, at least three times, Hardwick Beaumont. The resemblance was unmistakable.
“My God,” she repeated again. “You’re one of the bastards.”
He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Everything about him had shut down. No traces of humor, no hints of warmth. She was staring at the coldest man she’d ever seen. “The bastards?”
“Beaumont’s bastards—there were always rumors that Hardwick had a bunch of illegitimate children.” She blinked. It all made sense, in a way. The Beaumonts were a notoriously good-looking group of men and women—far too handsome for their own good. And this man... He was gorgeous. But not the same kind of blond handsomeness that had marked