A little smile curled up his aunt’s lips. “Good for you, honey. But please come here because it can be hard for me to hear, and you’re not yelling like Charles and our little protestor here.”

Put like that, he couldn’t refuse her. He moved in. “Why did you want me here, Aunt Roberta? I made myself plain last night. I’m not going to beg for this job. And even if you decide to vote me back in, some things are going to change. I’m not going to come to the board for every single decision I have to make, especially when it comes to what’s best for our employees. We owe our employees, too, and we owe the next generation. My father was a good steward, and one of the things he taught me is that we owe it to our children and grandchildren to keep this company strong. I cannot promise that I’ll give the stockholders everything they want, but I’ll do my best to ensure this company is around for whoever runs it after me.”

Roberta nodded. “You don’t have to convince me. You had my vote before I came here, and you have it now. How you treated the little weasel there convinced me.” She pointed to Gabriel. “He did something he shouldn’t have, but you showed him mercy. I know I don’t look like a woman who would appreciate that, but I do. Especially when it comes to family.”

A bit of hope lit inside him. He might be able to have exactly what he wanted. “I meant what I said. Things have to change. If you trust me with the company, you have to let me run it. And I want to buy Darois House. It shouldn’t be connected to the company. My mother will buy the house at market value and the money can be split between the shareholders.”

Marietta sighed. “That might get me a small yacht.”

Charles practically stared a hole through him. “I don’t agree to any changes. I promise you, Rene, I’ll fight every new project you run by us. And you will run everything by the board. You want an extra breath, it’s going to have to be approved by me.”

That was what he wasn’t going to do. “Then you should feel free to take that CEO seat and see where it lands you.”

“He can’t.” Rene’s mother stepped up, the file now in her hands. “He’s going to lose his shares because you’re not the only one who can hire a private investigator. He sent these over just after you left this morning. You’ll find this file has all the evidence we need to prove Charles was working against company interests.”