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He didn’t quite fill in the joking mode anyway.
“Think you can have all the numbers worked out before the end of the month?”
Shawn nodded as he crossed his foot over his knee and thumbed through papers. “Shouldn’t be too hard. They’re in the red. We’ll have a few creditors to pay off and then Masterson’s assets willbelong to BlackCo. It’s a solid move from what I’m seeing. Let me re-verify so we all have a level of comfort and get back to you. I’ll have something for you to look at and present for final approval in a few days.”
Sam didn’t waste any time jumping in from where Cole left off no sooner than Shawn finished. “You’ll like her. She knows her stuff. Grew up in the field like we did. Determined and a hard worker. And has all the curves.”
Marshall stared at his brother.
“She’s still a rookie,” Cole countered around a mouthful of peppermint candy he plucked from the bowl on the end table. “She’s looking to earn a little experience and break in her new degree. We gave her the plans to see if she would notice the errors in the mathematics. The same ones you wanted to go over, Marshall. We noticed them too. Get this.” In went another candy. “She beat Shawn’s latest record of spotting the errors by almost a minute.”
Now it clicked. Marshall’s attention cut to his brother to find the man studying a paper with the sternest look he’d seen on a man. If things could spontaneously combust, those papers would be ash in his lap.
“Burn!” Sam quipped. “Beat by a girl. Beautiful one too. Brains and beauty.”
There was a running contest in the office between the brothers. While they took their jobs seriously to a fault, they liked to push each other and test their limits of observation when it came to rig schematics. Something their father had begun when they were just starting out and it carried on almost a decade later.
Marshall raised his hand and the room quieted. Sometimes being the eldest came with a few perks. Respect drilled into them since birth had the rowdy crew settling.
“But all that will have to wait, I suppose?” Cole deducted from the sudden somber air that took over the room.
“I know you gentlemen have a lot on your plate and itching to get out of the office for a few weeks and your family’s loss you have a lot to tend to, but gentlemen, if you don’t hear what I have to say, there won’t be a company to worry about.” Cruise turned to Marshall from where he sat silently gathering his thoughts and running through his own paperwork while his brothers chatted. “I hope you don’t mind, I called your mother and sister too. They need to hear this, sir.” Mr. Cruise fumbled through his work, another clue something didn’t sit well with him, and pulled out a thick legal-sized document with his father’s name blazed across the front in black ink followed by ‘WILL and TESTAMENT.’
A flash of black and red caught his eye from the right as another door swung open that led into a connecting office.
Five sets of eyeballs turned as the last of the Blackwoods waltzed through the side door.
Finally. If someone didn’t tell him what was going on, no one was getting a single day off until Christmas. He’d work them eighteen hours a day all the way up to New Years of next year.
“I see all my boys are here. Sorry I’m late. Mr. Cruise.” Their mother joined Cole on the couch as his sister made a beeline for the TV. As BlackCo’s communications director, the woman stayed plugged into every social media outlet and that only entailed a fraction of her job requirements.
Everywhere she went all the TVs were turned to local and worldwide news catching everything from the latest celebrity happenings to political events, natural disasters and everything in between. If it involved this company, she knew about it.
“Hey.” Stella gave each of her brothers a quick hug. “Why’s Shawn all red?”
“Story for another time. Well, we’re all here now,” Marshall cut in before anyone could get started down that long road. He pegged the lawyer with a stony stare that hopefully delivered the same wave of impatience that suddenly made his large office seem the size of a cubicle.
“Right. Now that the ladies are here… I was going over your father’s will and testament. Again, I’m sorry I couldn’t be the one that read it to the family or this wouldn’t have happened. Anyway, there was a mistake. You see, three weeks before your father’s passing, he made a change to the will. A big one and somehow the instructions I left with my legal assistant were skewed and didn’t make it to the copy that was read to you all.”
Shawn pushed up from his chair and took the papers Mr. Cruise offered. “What the hell? How was that overlooked?” As the corporate lawyer for the company, Shawn took details seriously. The fine lines around his eyes hinted at the irritation he held for the other man.
Their mother read over the papers Shawn passed down and her sudden gasp had his stress levels rocketing skyward.
Cole and Sam took the papers and even his sister turned from her perch by the TV.
He took a mental step back. Knowing his father this could go either way.
What if he didn’t have to find a bride? Did his father come to his senses and realize you couldn’t force love and marriage? God, he hoped so. He didn’t need that kind of pressure.
“You no longer have to find a bride in six months or risk losing your company,” started the lawyer.
The audible sigh of relief made its way around the room.
“No, no, no, Mr. Blackwood. You don’t understand.” His lawyer came to the edge of his chair, dashing a meaty hand from side to side.
Marshall gritted his teeth until his molars threatened revenge. “Then enlighten me, please, Mr. Cruise. I’m at my rope’s end.”
“You have to find a bride in two weeks, by your thirty-seventh birthday or the company will be dismantled and sold off. Period.”
