Bayou Beauty (Butterfly Bayou 4)

Damn. He should have turned them all around and walked out of that restaurant the minute he realized the horde had descended. “I need this marriage, Sylvie. That doesn’t mean I’m going to put you on the front lines of this war of mine. I’m sorry for anything Ashley said to you. She can be mean when she’s disappointed, and she’s almost always disappointed. I’ll make sure she doesn’t bother you again.”

“Gabriel told me she asked you for a job and you turned her down.”

“She did. She wouldn’t fit into the corporate culture we have at the company. You should know, though, that I did give Gabriel a job. He’s been working in the financial offices and he’s on a management track. I’m not evil. I’m not trying to keep anyone down, but Ashley would only cause trouble. She’s got zero real interest in business.”

“They said something about their father leaving them in a bad place.”

“Yes, he left the marriage, though I don’t think it had been much of a marriage for a long time,” Rene replied.

“I can imagine that would be hard.”

“Did they try to tell you it was all their dad’s fault? Don’t believe it. Aunt Helene did her own damage. I’ve paid off her bills three times in the last decade to the tune of a million dollars.” He had to lay it out for Sylvie or she would think he was the bad guy here. “I paid for her divorce attorney. I paid for Gabriel’s last year of college because he was going to have to drop out. That was my money, not the company’s.”

Her expression had softened. “How does it work? The whole family company thing? It seems like a lot.”

She had no idea. “I think it probably worked far better during my grandfather’s generation. My father had a brother who wasn’t interested in the company, and three sisters who never expected to take over. They were happy to cash checks and give my dad free reign. That started to change later on as they got older. They saw other companies going public and they got stars in their eyes. My dad knew if we went public, we would lose all control and we would probably turn into something we wouldn’t want to turn into. We also would lose control of being able to take care of our family the way we always had.”

“And how was that?”

He fought the urge to wince because there had been a hint of judgment in the question that let him know Ashley had done some damage. “When my father took over the company, it was decided that all of the siblings would get shares and they would be paid dividends. Now, most of the family worked for the company so they had a salary, too, but over the years the cousins and their children have chosen not to come into the company. They live off of their own careers and the dividends we pay.”

“I suspect sometimes they think they can live off their dividends alone.”

“Yes, and that includes Ashley’s parents,” he explained. “Her mother was given a large trust that should have lasted her lifetime. She lived beyond her means and got the whole family in trouble. I did what I could.”

Sylvie seemed to think about that for a moment. “What would happen if you did take the company public? Would that be enough money for the family?”

He’d thought about it a lot. It would solve so many of his problems, but it wasn’t what his father had made him promise. It wasn’t what his mother expected of him. “If we sold out, every family would get a large chunk of cash, though it would go to whoever is the head of the individual families, and obviously as time goes by and the families split the original stock, it would be less.”

“The aunts and uncles have a bigger chunk than the cousins.”

He nodded. “And in the case where the aunts and uncles are still alive, the cousins would get nothing until they inherited whatever was left, and some of my relatives would spend like there was no tomorrow. The way my father set things up, the company can take care of this generation. I don’t know about the next. I’ve bought up some of the stock from relatives who didn’t want to deal with the company. Some have sold to Charles. For now, this is how I have to work. At some point down the line, we’ll come up with something else.”

“My aunties and uncles never ask for anything more than a free haircut from time to time. Or my momma’s potato salad recipe.” She sighed and relaxed again. “That’s a lot for you to deal with.”

“But I have practice. I promise I’ll make things easy on you.”

She considered him for a moment. “I’m trying to figure out why I’m really here.”