months, he and Leona had talked about restaurants—how they’d love to travel and dine at the world’s best establishments and then open up their own. She’d design everything and Byron would handle the food, and it’d be so much better than working for Rory McMaken, the egotistical bastard.
Leona spoke, pulling him out of the past. “You’re leaving behind El Gallio to open your own restaurant here?”
“Crazy, right?” He looked around the workroom. “Don’t get me wrong. I loved Europe. No one there knew or cared that I was a Beaumont. I could just be Byron, a chef. That was...” Freeing.
He’d been free of the family drama, free of the long-standing feud between the Beaumonts and the Harpers.
“That must have been amazing,” she said in a wistful tone. Which was so at odds with how he remembered the way things had gone down that he turned back to her in surprise.
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back to all of this. But this is an opportunity I can’t pass up. It’s a chance to be a part of the family business on my terms.”
“I see. So you’ve decided to be a Beaumont, then.” Her voice was quiet, as if he’d somehow confirmed her worst fears.
He would not let her get away with using guilt on him. Guilt? For what? He was the injured party here. She’d lied about who she was—not once, but for almost a year. And then she’d cast him aside the moment her father asked her to. Hell, for all he knew, that had always been the plan. It’d only been after he’d left the country that Leon Harper had managed to sell the Beaumont Brewery out from under the Beaumonts. Maybe he’d told Leona to split one of them off—divide and then conquer.
Right. If anyone should be feeling guilty here, it was her. He’d never lied about his last name or his family. He’d never made promises and then broken them. Thank God he hadn’t actually asked her to marry him before she betrayed him.
“I’ve always been a Beaumont,” he answered decisively. “And we are not to be trifled with.”
He shouldn’t have said that last bit, but he couldn’t help it. He was the boss here. She worked for him. Emotionally, he didn’t need her. If she was getting any ideas about turning the tables on him, she’d best forget them now.
She looked away.
“Anyway,” he went on, focusing on the job. His restaurant. “I’m starting from scratch and I wanted...” Unexpectedly, his words dried up. He wanted so much, but like he’d said, he’d gotten used to disappointment. “I know there was a time in our past when we talked about a restaurant.”
Even though she was studying the tips of her shoes very closely, he still saw her eyes close.
He remembered that look of defeat—he’d only seen it one other time—when her father, Leon Harper himself, had shown up at Sauce and gotten Byron fired and demanded that Leona come home with her parents right now or else. Leona had looked at the ground and closed her eyes and Byron had said “babe” and...
Well. And here they were.
“If you don’t want the job, that’s fine. I know that Harpers and Beaumonts don’t work well together and I wouldn’t want to make your father mad.” He didn’t quite manage to say father without sneering.
He watched her chest rise and fall with a deep breath. “I want...”
Her words were so quiet that he couldn’t hear her. He stepped in closer and took a deep breath.
Which was a mistake. The scent of Leona—sweet and soft, roses and vanilla—was all it took to transport him to another time and place, before he’d realized that she wasn’t just someone with the last name of Harper, but one of those Harpers.
He leaned forward, unable to stop himself. He’d never been able to stay away from her, not from the first moment she’d been hired at Sauce as a hostess. “What do you want, Leona?”
“I need to tell you...” Her words were still little more than a whisper.
He touched her then, which was another mistake. But she took what control he had and blew it to bits. He cupped her face in his hand and lifted her chin until he could look into her hazel eyes. “What do you need?”
Her eyes widened again as his face moved within inches of hers, and she exhaled, something that sounded a hell of a lot like satisfaction. His gut clenched. Despite her lies and betrayal, the messy ending to their relationship and the long year on a different continent—despite it all—he wanted her.
“The job,” she said in a voice that didn’t even make it to a whisper. “I need the job, Byron.”
She didn’t kiss him, didn’t tell him she was so sorry she’d picked her family over him. At no point did she apologize for lying to him. She just stood there.
“Right, right.” She couldn’t be clearer. She was here for the job.
Not for him.
* * *
Her heart pounded and she wasn’t sure she was still breathing.
Byron had dropped his hand and turned back to the stove, leaving her in a state of paralysis.
If he was going to stay in Denver, he had to know and the longer she didn’t tell him—well, that would just make everything worse.
Somehow. She wasn’t sure how things could get much worse, frankly. Byron hiring her to design a restaurant—and then switching between unbridled lust and a cold shoulder?
That thought made her angry. Why did he have to hire her to see her? He could have called. Sent a text.
The anger felt good. It gave her back some power. She was not a helpless girl at the mercies of the men in her life, not anymore. She’d gotten away from her father and had a son and done just fine without Byron. So what if all he had to do was look at her and her knees turned to jelly? Didn’t matter. He’d left her behind. She was only here for the paycheck. Not for him.
She could not tell him about Percy, not when she couldn’t be sure what version of Byron she would get. She’d spent the past year carving out a life that made her as happy as possible—a job she liked and a family she loved, with May and Percy. She’d spent a whole year free to make her own choices and live her own life. She’d stopped being Leon Harper’s wayward oldest daughter, and she’d stopped dreaming of being Byron Beaumont’s wife. She was just Leona Harper and that was a good thing.
Now she had to remember that.
“Well,” she started, then cleared her throat to get her voice working properly. “I guess what I need is a menu. It doesn’t have to be specific, but are you going to serve burgers and fries or haute cuisine or what? That will guide the rest of the design choices.”
“Something in the middle,” he replied quickly. “Accessible food and beer, but better than burgers and fries. You can get that anywhere. I want this to be a different kind of restaurant—not about me, but about the meal. The experience.” He looked out at the depressing room that she was somehow going to transform into a dining hall. “A different experience than this,”
