The Beaumont Children. Sarah M. Anderson

he couldn’t handle the flack McMaken had given him and the entire Beaumont family on his show on the Foodie TV network.

      Too bad they didn’t know what had really happened.

      Byron’s contact with his family had been intentionally limited over the past twelve months—his twin sister Frances notwithstanding. Nearly all of the family news had filtered down through Frances. That’s how Byron had learned that Chadwick had not only gotten divorced but had then also married his secretary and adopted her daughter. And that’s how Byron had learned Phillip was marrying his horse trainer. No doubt, Frances was the only reason anyone knew where Byron had been.

      Still, Byron was touched by his family’s concern. He’d more or less gone off the grid to protect them from the fallout of his one great mistake—Leona Harper. Yet here they were, trying to convince him to return to Denver by giving him the blank slate he’d been trying to find.

      Chadwick started to say something but paused and looked at his wife. Something unspoken passed between them. Just the sight of it stung Byron like lemon juice in a paper cut.

      “You wouldn’t have to get independent financing,” Serena told Byron. “The up-front costs would be covered between the settlement you received from the sale of the Beaumont Brewery and the capital that Percheron Drafts can provide.”

      “We bought the entire building outright,” Chadwick added. “Rent would be next to nothing compared to what it would be in downtown Denver. The restaurant would have to cover its own utilities and payroll, but that’s about it. You’d have near total financial freedom.”

      “And,” Matthew chimed in, “you could do whatever you wanted. Whatever theme you wanted to build upon, whatever decorating scheme you wanted to use, whatever cuisine you wanted to serve—burgers and fries or foamed truffle oil or whatever. The only caveat would be that Percheron Drafts beer would be the primary focus of the beverage menu since the restaurant is in the basement of the brewery. Otherwise, you’d have carte blanche.”

      Byron looked from Chadwick to Serena to Matthew’s face on the screen. “You guys really think this will sell beer?”

      “I can give you a copy of the cost-benefit analysis I prepared,” Serena said. Chadwick beamed at her, which was odd. The brother Byron remembered didn’t beam a whole hell of a lot.

      Byron could not believe he was considering this. He liked living in Madrid. His Spanish was improving and he liked working at El Gallio, the restaurant helmed by a chef who cared more about food and ingredients and people than his own brand name.

      It’d been a year. A year of working his way up the food chain, from no-star restaurants to one-star Michelin establishments to El Gallio, a three-star restaurant—one of the highest-ranked places in the world. He had made a name for himself that had absolutely nothing to do with his father and the Beaumonts, and he was damned proud of that. Would he really give all that up to come home for good?

      More than anything, he liked the near total anonymity of life in Europe. There, no one cared that he was a Beaumont or that he’d left the States under a swirling cloud of gossip. No one gave a damn what happened with the Beaumont Brewery or Percheron Drafts or what any of his siblings had done to make headlines that day.

      No one thought about the long-running feud between the Beaumonts and the Harpers that had led to the forced sale of the Beaumont Brewery.

      No one thought about Byron and Leona Harper.

      And that was how he liked it.

      Leona...

      If he were going to move back home, he knew he’d have to confront her. They had unfinished business and not even a year in Europe could change that. He wanted to look her in the face and have her tell him why. That’s all he wanted. Why had she lied to him for almost a year about who she really was? Why had she picked her family over him? Why had she thrown away everything they’d planned—everything he’d wanted to give her?

      In the course of the past year, Byron had worked and worked and worked to forget her. He had to accept the fact that he might not ever forget her or her betrayal of him—of them. Fine. That was part of life. Everyone got their heart ripped out of their chest and handed to them at least once.

      He didn’t want her back. Why would he? So she and her father could try to destroy him all over again?

      No, what he wanted was a little payback.

      The question was how to go about it.

      Then he remembered something. Before it’d all fallen so spectacularly apart, Leona had been in school for industrial design. They’d talked about the restaurant they’d open together, how she’d design it and he’d run it. A blank slate that was theirs and theirs alone.

      It’d been a year. She might have a job or her own firm or whatever. If he hired her, she would work for him. She would have to do as he said. He could prove that she didn’t have any power over him—that she couldn’t hurt him. He was not the same naive boy who’d let love blind him while he worked for an egomaniac. He was a chef. He would have his own restaurant. He was his own boss. He was in charge.

      He was a Beaumont, damn it. It was time to start acting like one.

      “I can use whomever I want to do the interior design?”

      “Of course,” Chadwick and Matthew said at the same time.

      Byron looked at the workroom and then through the doors to the dungeon of the old warehouse. “I cannot believe I’m even considering this,” he muttered. He could go back to Spain, back to the new life he’d made for himself, free of his past.

      Except...

      He would never be free of his past, not really. And he was done hiding.

      He looked at his brothers and Serena, each hopeful that he would come back into the family fold.

      This was a mistake. But then, when it came to Leona, Byron would probably always make the worst choice.

      “I’ll do it.”

      * * *

      “Leona?” May’s voice came through the speaker on her phone.

      Leona hurriedly picked up before her boss, Marvin Lutefisk, head of Lutefisk Design, could hear the personal call. “I’m here. What’s up? Is everything okay?”

      “Percy’s a little fussy. I think he might have another ear infection.”

      Leona sighed. “Do we still have some drops from the last round?” She could hardly afford another hundred-dollar trip to the doctor, who would look at Percy’s ears for three seconds and write a prescription.

      But the other option wasn’t much better. If Percy got three—now two—more ear infections, they would have to talk about putting tubes in his ears, and even that minor outpatient surgery was far beyond Leona’s budget.

      “A little bit...” May sounded unconvincing.

      “I’ll...get some more,” Leona announced. Maybe she could sweet-talk the nurses into a free sample?

      Just like she’d done nearly every single day since Percy’s birth, Leona thought about how different things would be if Byron Beaumont were still in her life. It wouldn’t necessarily solve her health care issues, but her little sister May treated Leona as if she had the means to fix any problem, anytime.

      Just once Leona wanted to lean on someone, instead of being the one who took all the weight.

      But daydreaming about what might have been didn’t pay the bills, so she told May, “Listen, I’m still at work. If he gets too bad, call the pediatrician. I can take him in tomorrow, okay?”

      “Okay. You’ll be home for dinner, right? I have class tonight, don’t forget.”

      “I won’t.” Just then, her boss walked past her cubicle. “Gotta go,” she whispered and hung up.