There was so much hurt in her voice that suddenly he was furious with her parents, no matter how kind or loyal they were. “They had jobs—but you still had to go to the food pantry?”
“Don’t get me wrong. They love me. They love each other...but they acted as if money were this unknown force that they had no power over, like the rain. Sometimes, it would rain. And sometimes—most of the time—it wouldn’t. Money flows into and out of our lives independent of anything we do. That’s what they thought. Still think.”
He’d never questioned having money, just because there had always been so much of it. Who had to worry about their next meal? Not the Beaumonts, that was for damn sure. But he still worked hard for his fortune.
Serena went on, “They had love, Mom always said. So who needed cars that ran or health insurance or a place to live not crawling with bugs? Not them.” Then she looked up at him, her dark brown eyes blazing. “But I do. I want more than that.”
He sat there, fully aware his mouth had dropped open in shock, but completely unable to get it shut. Finally, he got out, “I had no idea.”
She held his gaze. He could see her wavering. “No one does. I don’t talk about it. I wanted you to look at me for what I am, not what I was. I don’t want anyone to look at me and see a welfare case.”
He couldn’t blame her for that. If she’d walked into the job interview acting as if he owed her the position because she’d been on food stamps, he wouldn’t have hired her. But she hadn’t. She’d never played the sympathy card, not once.
“Did Neil know?” Not that he wanted to bring Neil into this.
“Yes. I moved in with him partly because he offered to cover the rent until I could pay my share. I don’t think...I don’t think he ever really forgot what I’d been. But he was stable. So I stayed.” Suddenly, she seemed tired. “I appreciate the dresses and the dinner, Chadwick—I really do. But there were years where my folks didn’t clear half of what you paid. To just buy dresses for that much...”
Like a bolt out of the blue, he understood Serena in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever understood another person. She was kind and she was loyal—not to a fault, not at the sacrifice of her own well-being—but those were traits that he’d always admired in her. “Why did you pick the brewery?”
She didn’t look away from him this time. Instead, she leaned forward, a new zeal in her eyes. “I had internship offers at a couple of other places, but I looked at the employee turnover, the benefits—how happy the workers were. I couldn’t bear the thought of changing jobs every other year. What if I never got another one? What if I couldn’t take care of myself? The brewery had all these workers that had been there for thirty, forty years—entire careers. It’s been in your family for so long...it just seemed like a stable place. That’s all I wanted.”
And now that was in danger. He wasn’t happy about possibly failing to keep the company in family hands, but he had a personal fortune to fall back on. He’d been worried about the workers, of course—but Serena brought it home for him in a new way.
Then she looked up at him through her dark lashes. “At least, that’s all I thought I wanted.”
Desire hit him low and hard, a precision sledgehammer that drove a spike of need up into his gut. Because, unlike Helen and unlike his mother, he knew that Serena wasn’t talking about the gowns or the jewels or the fancy dinner.
She was talking about him.
He couldn’t picture the glamorous, refined woman sitting across from him wearing rags and standing in line at a food pantry. And he didn’t have to. That was one of the great things about being wealthy. “I promised you I wouldn’t fail you, Serena. I keep my promises.” Even if he lost the company—if he failed his father—he wouldn’t leave Serena in a position in which welfare was her only choice.
She leaned back, dropping her gaze again. Like she’d just realized she’d gone too far and was trying to backtrack. “I know. But I’m not your responsibility. I’m just an employee.”
“The hell you are.” The words were out a little faster than he wanted them to be, but what was the point of pretending anymore? He hadn’t lied earlier. Something about her had moved him beyond his normal restraint. She was so much more than an employee.
Her cheeks took on that pale pink blush that only made her more beautiful. Her mouth opened and she looked like she was about to argue with him when the waiter came up. When the man left with their orders—filet mignon for him, lobster for her—Chadwick looked at her. “Tell me about you.”
She eyed him with open suspicion.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I swear it won’t have any bearing on how I treat you. I’ll still want to buy you pretty things and take you to dinner and have you on my arm at a gala.” Because that’s where you belong, his mind finished for him.
On his arm, in his bed—in his life.
She didn’t answer at first, so he leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Do you trust me when I say I’ll never use it against you?”
She tucked her lower lip up under her teeth. It shouldn’t look so sexy, but on her it did. Everything did.
“Prove it.”
Oh, yeah, she was challenging him. But it didn’t feel like a battle of wills.
He didn’t hesitate. “My dad beat me. Once, with a belt.” He kept his voice low, so no one could hear, but it didn’t matter. The words ripped themselves out of a place deep inside of his chest.
Her eyes went wide with shock and she covered her open mouth with her hand. It hurt to look at her, so he closed his eyes.
But that was a mistake. He could see his father standing over him, that nice Italian leather belt in his hand, buckle out—screaming about how Chadwick had gotten a C on a math test. He heard the belt whistle through the air, felt the buckle cut into his back. Felt the blood start to run down his side as the belt swung again—all because Chadwick had messed up how to subtract fractions. Future CEOs knew how to do math, Hardwick had reminded him again and again.
That’s all Chadwick had ever been—future CEO of Beaumont Brewery. He’d been eleven. It was the only time Hardwick Beaumont had ever left a mark on him, but it was a hell of a mark. He still had the scar.
It was all such a long time ago. Like it had been part of a different life. He thought he’d buried that memory with his father, but it was still there, and it still had the capacity to cause him pain. He’d spent his entire life trying to do what his father wanted, trying to avoid another beating, but what had that gotten him? A failed marriage and a company that was about to be sold out from under him.
Hardwick couldn’t hurt him now.
He opened his eyes and looked at Serena. Her face was pale and there was a certain measure of horror in her eyes, but she wasn’t looking at him like he feared she would—like she’d forgotten about the man he was now and only saw a bleeding little boy.
Just like he saw a woman he trusted completely, and not a little girl who ate at food pantries.
He kept going. “When I didn’t measure up to expectations. As far as I know, he never hit any of his other kids. Just me. He broke my toys, sent my friends away and locked me in my room, all because I had to be the perfect Beaumont to run his company.”
“How...how could he do that?”
“I was never his son. Just his employee.” The words tasted bitter, but they were the unvarnished truth. “And, like you said, I don’t tell people about it. Not even Helen. Because I don’t want people to look at me with pity.”
But he’d told