His Illegitimate Heir by Sarah M. Anderson Page A

damned thing. Not his father, not his family, not the world. Everything he wanted out of this life, he had to take. Being a black businessman made him a tougher negotiator, a sharper investor.
    He wanted the brewery and the legitimacy that came with it. He wanted his father’s approval and, short of that, he wanted the extended Beaumont family to know who he was.
    He was Zebadiah Richards and he would not be ignored.
    Not that Casey was ignoring him. She’d turned to look at him again—and for the second time tonight, he thought she was seeing more than he wanted her to.
    Dammit, he should have kept his mouth shut.
    â€œYou tell me—does it matter?”
    â€œIt shouldn’t.” More than anything, he wanted it to not matter.
    She shrugged. “Then it doesn’t.”
    He should let this go. He had his victory—of sorts—and besides, what did it matter if she looked at him and saw a black CEO or just a CEO?
    Or even , a small voice in the back of his mind whispered, something other than a CEO? Something more?
    But he couldn’t revel in his small victory. He needed to know—was she serious or was she paying lip service because he was her boss? “So you’re saying it doesn’t matter that my mother spent the last thirty-seven years doing hair in a black neighborhood in Atlanta? That I went to a historically black college? That people have pulled out of deals with me because no matter how light skinned I am, I’ll never be white enough?”
    He hadn’t meant to say all of that. But the only thing worse than his skin color being the first—and sometimes only—thing people used to define him was when people tried to explain they didn’t “see color.” They meant well—he knew that—but the truth was, it did matter. He’d made his first fortune for his mother, merchandising a line of weave and braid products for upper-class African American consumers that had, thanks to millennials, reached a small level of crossover success in the mainstream market. When people said they didn’t see color, they effectively erased the blackness from his life.
    Being African American wasn’t who he was—but it was a part of him. And for some reason, he needed her to understand that.
    He had her full attention now. Her gaze swept over him and he felt his muscles tighten, almost as if he were in fight-or-flight mode. And he didn’t run. He never ran.
    â€œWill our beer suddenly taste black?” she asked.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous. We might broaden our marketing reach, though.”
    She tilted her head. “All I care about is the beer.”
    â€œSeriously?”
    She sighed heavily. “Let me ask you this—when you drink a Rocky Top beer, does it taste feminine?”
    â€œYou’re being ridiculous.”
    That got him a hard glare. A glare he probably deserved, but still. “Zeb, I don’t know what you want me to say here. Of course it matters, because that’s your life. That’s who you are. But I can’t hold that against you, and anyway, why would I want to? You didn’t ask for that. You can’t change that, any more than I can change the fact that my mother died in a car accident when I was two and left me with this,” she said, pointing to her scarred cheek, “and my father raised me as best he could—and that meant beer and sports and changing my own oil in my car. We both exist in a space that someone else is always going to say we shouldn’t—so what? We’re here. We like beer.” She grinned hugely at him. “Get used to it.”
    Everything around him went still. He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t sure his heart was even beating. He didn’t hear the sounds of the game or the chatter of the fans around them.
    His entire world narrowed to her. All he could see and hear and feel—because dammit, she was close enough that their