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His Marriage Demand
by Yahrah St. John
Prologue
Fallon’s hands trembled with anger as she placed the phone receiver in its cradle. Rising from her chair, she strode across her stylishly appointed corner office and stared out the window overlooking downtown Austin. Although she understood why her older brother, Ayden, wasn’t returning her calls, she was still annoyed he’d gone to Jamaica while she was in such a desperate state.
Stewart Technologies was on the brink of bankruptcy. As CEO, Fallon had done her best to keep the company afloat, working sixty-and eighty-hour work weeks, but she was bailing water from a sinking ship. The last few weeks she’d been unsuccessful in her attempts to secure a bank loan.
She’d gone to Ayden, the black sheep in the Stewart family, for assistance nearly a month ago. Ayden had rejected her assertion that he help the “family business.” The more Fallon thought about it, why should Ayden rescue the company started by a father who would never claim him as his son? Ayden owed no allegiance to her or any other Stewart for that matter.
Was it any wonder he’d ignored her calls?
Although she’d acquired personal wealth of her own through sound investments, Fallon wasn’t in a position to bail out the company. Her baby brother, Dane, certainly wasn’t about to, either. He, like Ayden, wanted nothing to do with Stewart Technologies. Dane was happiest in front of a camera being someone else, and it served him well. He was an A-list actor and got paid millions of dollars. Fallon doubted he’d put up his hard-won earnings to save a company he’d never wanted any part of in the first place.
What was she going to do?
* * *
“Perhaps you should let it fail,” Shana said when they met up for drinks at their favorite martini bar across town an hour later. Shana Wilson was one of Fallon’s favorite cousins on her mother’s side. Nora hated them spending time together because she tried to disassociate herself from her back-country roots. But Fallon didn’t care. Shana was loud and opinionated but down-to-earth.
Fallon stared at Shana incredulously. After all the hard work she’d put into Stewart Technologies, interning in the summer while home from Texas A&M University, learning the business from the ground up and climbing the ladder to finally sit in the CEO chair, she was supposed to give it all up? “Have you lost your mind?”
Shana chuckled. “Don’t have a coronary. It was just a suggestion. I hate seeing you stressed out.”
An audible sigh escaped Fallon’s lips. “I’m sorry, Shana. I know I haven’t been a joy to hang with lately.”
Shana had come dressed for the evening. She was wearing a glittery sleeveless top, miniskirt, strappy heels and large gold-hoop earrings. Her curly weave hung in ringlets to her shoulders. Shana was on the prowl for more than a martini and usually Fallon didn’t mind playing wing woman, but she was in a sour mood.
“No, you haven’t been,” Shana said, sipping her drink, “but that’s why I asked you to come out tonight. All you do is work and go home to that mausoleum. You are too uptight.” Shana looked around the room at the host of men milling around. “Maybe if you met a man and got some good loving, you’d loosen up a bit. I bet I know who could loosen you up while supplying you with the cash influx you need.”