CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SIX DAYS LATER and they were on the rooftop terrace of Stuart’s penthouse apartment.
He was seated on his lounger, in his thick bathrobe, staring at Tabby as she swam in his infinity pool.
It was amusing to him the way she would get to the far edge and then quickly swim back as if the pool had no end and it could carry her all the way over the roof.
He even yelled to her once that she had nothing to fear, but she stayed true to her own instincts.
Which actually pleased him. She was going to be her own person in his world and not easily persuaded to change.
Maybe, just maybe, she was going to be able to handle his world.
He realized it when she didn’t panic after his arrest in Larkin, but she managed to get evidence his own highly paid team couldn’t get.
Then she was shrewd enough to pay for that evidence out of his wallet she had in her possession, and then to bring that evidence straight to him in his own car.
It was nothing short of providence, he told her once, when he left his keys and wallet in that motel room and she was the one who went back and retrieved them.
But Tabby corrected him. “Providence my foot,” she said. “Look at God. Give that glory to God!” Which was exactly what Stuart meant, but he conceded that Tabby voiced it more succinctly.
But for the most part, he was less attentive to Tabby the way he should have been, and spent most of his time in his own head.
He worried about Alan’s well-being and who could have tried to kill his son.
He worried about his corporation and how was it being managed now that he didn’t have the last word.
He knew he would regain a majority stake: He had his aces in the hole ready to flip on Alan just like they flipped on him: If the price was right.
But he had to find out who the mastermind was behind that takeover to begin with.
Because nobody was going to tell him it was Alan.
Alan was smart with numbers, but he was no mastermind.
“Stuart? Stuart?”
It wasn’t until she said his name a third time did he realize Tabby was out of the pool and standing beside his lounger drying off in the bikini he had an exclusive boutique owner bring to her, along with a full wardrobe, while they still waited on the DA.
“Did you hear me?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
Tabby just stood there staring at him. He was badly distracted. And had been for days. She sat on the edge of the lounger beside the one he occupied.
“What did you say?” he asked her. “I was . . .”
“You were in your own head,” Tabby said, “like you’ve been for days. I said I love swimming.”
“And you’re very good at it. Were you professionally trained?”
Tabby smiled as if she knew he knew better than that. When he smiled, too, she took her towel and hit him with it. “Boy bye!” she said.
But he grabbed that towel, which pulled her to him, and then he grabbed her. She was laughing as he pulled her on top of his lap. He began tickling her, which made her laugh even harder.
“I was only asking you a question,” he said when their playfulness died down.
“But it was a stupid question.”
“Well excuse me!”
“But come on now, Stuart. You know good-and-doggone-well I’m no professionally-trained swimmer.”
“Then how did you learn to swim that well?”
“We used to dive in the creek when I was little.”
“In a filthy, snake-infected creek?”
“Exactly,” said Tabby.
Which made Stuart smile again.
“What’s so funny?”
“Tabby, those in my circle would never have agreed that their childhood creek was anything less than crystal clear and gorgeous. They would have . . . How do I put it?”
“They would have camouflaged,” said Tabby. “That’s how we put it where I come from. They would act like they were born with silver spoons in their mouths when they were as dirt poor as we were.”
Stuart laughed and nodded. “You are so right.”
Then the laughter died out. And his look turned serious. “Stay just the way you are, Tabitha. Don’t ever try to be like us.”
“Don’t worry. If your circle is like that group you showed up at Argyles with two years ago, no way would I try to be like that. All y’all be doing? No way. Y’all be doing too much.”
Stuart laughed at that too. But even Tabby could see the strain in his eyes. Which made her go there. “Stu?”
He looked at her. “Yes?”
“What’s taking so long?” She looked at him. “It’s been six days since your lawyers took that tape to the District Attorney. What’s she waiting for? She’s got all the evidence she needs to drop those charges.”
“She’s new. She’s ambitious. We didn’t take that into account.”
“But what does that mean?”
“It means she’s not about to give up a big fish too soon.”
If Tabby didn’t know that Stuart was a big fish before she got to New York, she knew it once she got there.
“People like her enjoy the publicity,” he continued. “They thrive on it. She’s no Tish James. She doesn’t stand on principal, she stands on publicity. She’s trying to find something else she can pin on me. That’s why it’s taking so long.”
“But six days?”
“Yes. We’ve been cooped-up in this apartment for six long days waiting on her to make a decision, yes.”
“But I need to check on my house. My cousin Stacy said Keith and his brother already out of jail. What if they break in my house again?”
“You’ll go back and check on your house. But not now.”
“But I can just check on it and come right back.”
“You aren’t going without me, and I can’t go right now.” Then Stuart gave her a stern look. “That’s the end of that discussion.”
Tabby wondered why he didn’t just let her go alone. Or with one of his bodyguards. She understood why she needed him, but over the last few days she was beginning to wonder why did he need her?
That was why she decided to ask him a question she wanted to ask him days ago. Because his answer would tell her a lot. “You don’t have any friends?” she asked him.
Stuart studied her. Where did that come from? “I have far too many friends. Why?”
“Where are they?” Tabby looked around as if they could be hiding somewhere. “Nobody’s called that I know of. Nobody’s come by to check on you. Where are these people if they’re supposed to be your friends?”
“They aren’t those kinds of friends. Fair-weather only, darling.”
Tabby didn’t understand.
“They aren’t going to taint their brand by hooking their wagon to me. At least not right now. They’ll come around in droves once the charges are dropped.”
That was not the answer Tabby was hoping for.
Because it begged the question: Was that why he was keeping her around?
Because he had nobody else? Once the charges are dismissed and his friends come around again, was he going to kick her to the curb?
Was that going to be the end of their “relationship,” such as it was?
And what about women? There was no way a man who looked like Stuart, and who did like Stuart did in the bedroom, was going to be flying solo all the time. No way. “What about the women?” she asked him.
Stuart could tell that was more likely the question she really wanted to ask. “What about them?”
“Don’t you have any girlfriends?”
She knew he’d be lying if he said he didn’t. She watched him intensely.
“I do not have girlfriends, no. Do I have friends? Yes.”
But that was even more troubling to Tabby. “Friends with benefits?” she asked. Like me? she wanted to add.
“Some have benefits, yes,” Stuart responded honestly.
Tabby’s heart dropped. He didn’t say one of his lady friends had benefits.
Which would put her in competition with one other person.
But he said some? That sounded like a lot.
That sounded like this beautiful man that she was falling hard for every day she was around him, was even more out of reach than she already assumed.
And to think she had unprotected sex with this man every single time they had sex?
Why would she trust that he wouldn’t put her in danger if he was slinging it around to whomever wanted it?
She took care of her part. She was definitely on birth control.
But why didn’t she make him take care of his part? And why didn’t he do so himself?
But before she could ask any of those questions, the intercom buzzed and the silvery voice of the slender black man she knew as Mr. Joshua, Stuart’s house manager, came on. “Excuse me, sir, but Mr. Fenson is here to see you.”
Stuart pressed a side button. “Send him up, Josh.”
“Yes sir,” Joshua responded.
Tabby attempted to get off of his lap, but Stuart pulled her back down. “You’re fine,” he said as he gave her butt a quick rub over his penis.
But Tabby didn’t feel fine siting on his lap when somebody she didn’t know was about to join them. What would this person think of her? But it was Stuart’s world. She was just visiting. “Who’s Mr. Fenson?” she asked him.
“He’s on my security team. He’s my chief investigator,” he said as he repositioned her body again.
Tabby could feel his penis hardening beneath her tiny bikini, which was probably why he kept repositioning her. And why she heard a very low, very guttural moan escape his lips as he did so.
“You think he has some info?” she asked him.
“He’d better have something. When it became clear to me what the DA was up to, I ordered him to find that ticket taker that claimed to have seen me in that garage, and get the real story out of him.”
“By doing what? Paying him off?”
“And finding out who paid him off first. That’s the idea. I tried to wait until the charges were dropped to avoid accusations of witness tampering, but this is taking too damn long. I’ve got to get more information. I’ve got to get this behind me.”
“I agree,” Tabby said as the elevator door opened to the rooftop and an older, white, stocky man stepped off. Carrying a briefcase, he made his way over to them.
“How you holding up, Boss?” he asked as he approached them.
“I’ve seen better days. How are you?”