CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
She drove nonstop, except to refuel, all the way to New York city.
Relying on his navigation and the address he had on his driver’s license in his thick wallet, she made it to a luxurious high-rise apartment building on New York’s Upper Westside nearly ten hours after her journey had begun.
It was nightfall when she had to park nearly three blocks away, and then made her way to the apartment building.
She was nervous as nervous could be as she walked toward that apartment building.
Nightfall in Larkin was nearly a ghost town.
People were out, but they were few and far between.
But here in New York, the streets were so lid up and hundreds of people were walking around that it seemed like noonday.
She was amazed. But she had a purpose in mind.
She didn’t drive Stuart’s Porsche all that way for the hell of it. She had a serious goal in mind.
And she was still worried sick about him.
But she was confused when she walked up to the building and saw a huge group of reporters and photographers hanging around the entrance.
There were so many of them that police officers stood at the entrance doors barring anybody from going inside of the building except for a couple of residents who showed their IDs.
One resident they allowed inside was a thirtyish white guy who seemed amused by the press presence.
But another resident, an older white woman, seemed annoyed.
But Tabby didn’t know what was going on, and there was no way for her to get through the crowd to find out.
Or was this just normal activity in the Big Apple?
She didn’t know so she decided to ask a bearded photographer, who gave off the vibe of one of those paparazzi people who took pictures of celebrities and sold them. He was on the outskirts of the huge circle like she was. “What’s going on?” she asked him.
He was fumbling with his big camera, but he managed to glance at her. “Stuart Jacob’s been arrested. He’s on his way home now.”
They were there for Stuart? Was he that successful? She decided to find out. “Who’s Stuart Jacobs?” she asked the photographer.
This time he seemed irritated with her, not because she asked the question, but because she didn’t know the answer. “The founder of Dellstone? The billionaire?” He asked both questions as if it was obvious who Stuart Jacobs was.
But Tabby was still getting over what he actually said.
Stuart didn’t just work at Dellstone, but was the founder?
And he wasn’t just rich, but was a billionaire?
She was floored. And that guy was looking at her as if she was stupid for not knowing already.
But how was she to have known any of that from where she lived in Larkin?
Even when he wrote her that big check two years ago, she didn’t think to Google him.
She didn’t think to pay any attention to his address.
She just cashed the check. It was a tip. She earned that money.
But that was a good thing that she didn’t know who he was. Because had she known he was that rich, she would have never had the nerve to come to New York to help him. A billionaire didn’t need help from the likes of her. A billionaire could help himself.
She thought about leaving. But how? She couldn’t take the man’s car with her. She’d already taken money out of his wallet for gas to get there. She couldn’t just keep his wallet and buy herself a ticket back home. She was stuck there.
It would be nearly an hour of waiting before a limousine drove up and bodyguards jumped out. The reporters and photographers swarmed around the limo as one of the guards opened the back door and Stuart stepped out.
When she saw Stuart, he immediately looked different to her.
The idea that that man had been naked in bed with her, and had been deep inside of her, seemed impossible now.
He suddenly looked like an untouchable billionaire would look as he buttoned that fancy suit he was wearing when they took him away from Larkin, and began walking, flanked by what she could only assume were his attorneys and blanketed by bodyguards, toward the entrance.
But Tabby wasn’t so floored by his status that she didn’t make her way as close as she could to that entrance when the press had fled to meet him at the limo. She knew her only hope of seeing him tonight was to get his attention.
She started calling out his name as he, swarmed by reporters, headed for the entrance. But her calls were drowned out by the reporters’ questions:
“Mr. Jacobs, Mr. Jacobs, did you try to kill Alan Jacobs, sir?”
“Why did you do it, sir?”
“What if Alan dies, Mr. Jacobs?”
“Were you still angry at him for stealing your company right from under your nose, sir?”
“Did you do it, Mr. Jacobs?”
But then suddenly Stuart heard a familiar voice. It was constantly calling his name, but only his first name. Which stood out. But he knew that voice!
He began to look in the direction of that voice. And that was when he saw, buried in that crowd, the very person he most wanted to see. But was it a mirage? Could it be true?
“Tabby?” he said out loud. Then he hurried toward her, making a path for himself.
“What are you doing?” asked JK Barris, his lead attorney, as he hurried behind him.
But Stuart wasn’t thinking about anybody but Tabby. And as soon as he could grab hold of her, he did. And then he placed his arm around her waist as he ushered her, right alongside him, into the building.
Tabby was thrilled when he saw her and grabbed her away from the crowd.
It could not have turned out better. But when he and his attorneys and the man she didn’t know at the time was Mel Weiss, the CEO of Dellstone, made their way onto the elevator, and those doors closed her in with all of those powerful people, she felt like a tadpole in a sea of sharks.
She was terrified and so out of her element that she didn’t know how to behave.
But when Stuart looked his kind eyes into her eyes, she felt safe again.
“How did you get here?” he asked her. He still held his arm around her waist in a protective hug that he knew she needed. Her eyes showed what she’d been through.
“I drove your car,” she said.
“All that way?”
She nodded as if it was no big deal to her. And that was when Stuart smiled. “I forgot you were a rideshare driver,” he said, and she smiled too.
But JK and Mel looked at each other. A rideshare driver? They had a defense to mount and he was bringing along some rideshare driver?
“Just who is this?” JK decided to ask Stuart.
“This is Tabitha Morgan,” Stuart said. “And Tabby, this man right here is JK Barris. He’s my lead counsel and one of the best attorneys in the business.
And this is his team,” he added, motioning toward the other lawyers on the elevator.
All of whom were on retainer by Stuart. “And this guy right here is the CEO of Dellstone, and a friend of mine.”
“Nice to meet all of you,” Tabby said.
“And Miss Morgan is who to you exactly?” JK asked Stuart. “I’m only asking because I need to know who the players are here.”
Stuart wanted to claim her as his own right then and there, but he didn’t want to cast any derision on her. They wouldn’t understand. “She’s a friend of mine,” he said.
It wasn’t how Tabby felt about it after last night, but she understood now why he would say that. What else was she going to be to a man in his position? Certainly not his girlfriend or anything that serious.
“And you were willing to drive all the way from Ohio to New York,” said Mel, “just to . . . to what?”
Stuart could feel Tabby’s body beginning to tremble. She was not accustomed to this level of grilling. “She drove my car back,” he said.
It was a lame excuse since everybody on that elevator, except for maybe Tabitha, knew he could have easily hired a service to bring his car back to him. In their circles, it was done all the time.
But Stuart didn’t care how they felt about it. It was the first time he didn’t feel anxious and worried since the Feds drove him away from her. She was by his side. That was all that mattered to him.
And Stuart was all that mattered to Tabby. “You’re out because they dropped the charges?” she asked him. “I knew they would.”
“Not so fast. But they did grant bail. I’m out on bail.”
“Oh.” Then she perked back up. “I have proof of your innocence,” she said confidently.
The elevator was already quiet when she made that statement. But nothing like it felt after she made that statement.
“What do you mean you have proof?” JK asked.
Mel couldn’t wait to find out either. But not on an elevator that some news outlet could have paid somebody to bug. “We’ll discuss it inside,” he said firmly, as all talking ceased and they continued to travel, in silence, all the way up to the penthouse.