like you don’t fit in. We would be incomplete without you.”
She was not going to cry. Especially not when she was about to take a big old leap. “I feel the same. I love you guys. But I’m going to have to cut this evening short because I need to go accept a man’s proposal.”
Hallie gasped and her hand squeezed. “Are you serious?”
“I am, and I don’t think I should text him. I should probably go over there.” She should do it before she changed her mind. Or he found someone else.
Suddenly she didn’t want him to find someone else.
“Go,” Sera said, releasing her. “But you better be ready to give us everything. All the details.”
She wouldn’t have it any other way.
She hugged her friends and strode for her car.
It was time to take a chance.
* * *
* * *
“You did what?”
Rene looked up from his cards. Remy Guidry was sitting across from him at the poker table, but it was obvious he wasn’t paying attention to his hand. “I asked Sylvie to marry me. I thought I mentioned I was going to do that last week.”
“You mentioned some crazy stuff about trying to quash your cousin’s mischief,” Remy replied. “I thought you were joking.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Quaid Havery knew exactly how serious the situation was. After all, he was Rene’s personal lawyer. They’d spent lots of time strategizing. “We’ve looked for loopholes, but the contracts are all firm. Darois House is technically owned by the company, and the CEO can take possession of it.”
“You can’t buy it?” Armie LaVigne sat next to Remy. He had a healthy stack of chips in front of him. “This place has been your family home since long before you were born.”
“Only because the CEO has been either me or my father or grandfather for the last sixty years.” Hours later and he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Sylvie. She’d been genuinely shocked. He’d been so certain he could explain things to her and she would understand. Sylvie was the most logical and careful of his acquaintances.
They made sense.
“Charles won’t accept a buyout,” Quaid replied. “We already tried that.”
His cousin was rapidly becoming the bane of his existence. “He told us we’d had the house for long enough and it was time someone else in the family had a chance at it. I believe he also mentioned he deserved it more since he has three children and a wife.”
Alyson was already planning a full renovation of the manor. She was a ghoulish woman who kept sending his mother requests for information about everything from how wide the windows were to how quickly she could vacate the property.
His mother had been in tears. He’d promised his father he would take care of her and he was failing.
“So this whole hullabaloo is about the fact that you aren’t married? Because that seems rather old-fashioned.” The fifth in this week’s game was Major Blanchard. The deputy had a beer in front of him he’d been nursing all night long. “My dad asks about my dating life all the time, but he never threatens to kick me out of my apartment if I don’t hurry it along. Does your family know it’s the twenty-first century?”
They did not. Or if they did know, they did not care. “I’m afraid the Darois family remains untouched by progress. And it’s not merely about me being married. But that is the easiest way for me to fix the situation. As CEO, I give up my voting shares. That means there are nine votes. I’ve got four of them solidly in my pocket. Charles has four in his. The deciding vote will be cast by my great-aunt Roberta, who thinks being married makes a man a better person, and you cannot change her mind. She talks about it at every family function.”
“The company is doing well. Why would they want to change management?” Remy asked.
“Because Charles is selling them a bill of goods,” Rene replied with a sigh. “Some of my cousins recently came into their voting shares, and Charles has convinced them that I’m holding back on dividends. At least two of them live off the company dividends, and they want more. I can’t give them more unless I sell off some properties that I believe will be very important as we head into the future. Charles is being shortsighted.”
He’d tried to explain this to everyone, but his family heard what they wanted to hear. Especially his cousins, who had dollar signs