“That wasn’t fair,” Sylvie said softly, sympathy plain in her voice. “He couldn’t know what was going to happen.”

“Family was important to my father.”

“Family can mean more than blood, Rene. It’s more than a name. You know that, right?” she asked. “If your name was gone tomorrow and you were Rene Smith without a dime to your name, you would have value.”

He wasn’t explaining this right. “It’s not like that. My parents weren’t snobs.”

“I’m not saying they were. I’m asking when do you get to be you and not the head of the family? When do you get to think about what you need and not what everyone else wants?”

Never. Not once in his life. He’d often thought that if he’d had siblings, they could have shared this burden, but it had only ever been him, and from the moment he’d been born, expectations had been placed on him. He’d had a path and he’d followed it. “It’s not a life I hate. I’m not complaining. I’m only trying to explain what I have to do. I have to keep this house for my mother and I have to keep the company for future generations. It’s not just about my family and our name. It’s about your friend Hallie’s father. He’s been the head of our shipping department for twenty years. If Charles gains control, I have no idea how he’ll run the company. I suspect he’ll set us up for a buyout. That would give everyone the most cash quickly, but we’re not a massive firm. Anyone buying us out will strip us for parts or absorb the pieces they do want, and our six thousand employees will likely be out of work.”

She sat up, her head shaking. “Of course. I wasn’t even thinking about it like that. It could be devastating. Most of the people in the parish work for either Darois or Beaumont Oil. It being sold off would . . . I don’t know what we would do.”

There was the mayor of the town. “It’s not going to happen. That’s precisely why I’ve done everything I have. To save the company and my mother’s home.”

Her chin came up, the same resolute look she used to have before she took a dare when they were kids. “Yes. We will do that. I should get to bed.”

She was leaving? “It’s early. I was hoping we could talk.”