CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
“I’m Stuart Jacobs’ attorney. Oh she’ll take my call,” he said happily and Mel and the legal team laughed as JK moved further over to hold his phone conversation.
Stuart, relieved that they were making progress, leaned back looking at Tabby.
When she turned back and looked at him, he had an overwhelming sense of appreciation in his eyes.
“Your quick thinking got to that video before whomever it was had a chance to wipe it clean. Thank you,” he said heartfelt.
“You would have done the same thing for me,” Tabby said. “In fact, you did.”
Stuart smiled. But his smile didn’t last. Tabby could tell this ordeal, and the fact that he now had her on his hands, was taking its toll on him.
Then JK ended his phone call. “If that video shows what I just proffered to the DA what it shows,” he said, “then she said all charges just very well might be dropped.”
“Might?” asked Tabby.
“That’s legalese. She’s not going to commit to anything with certainty until she reviews all evidence and make a determination. The charges will be dropped.”
Tabby was elated. “When can you meet with her?” she asked.
“You’re more excited than Stuart is,” JK said.
“Oh I’m excited,” Stuart said with a smile. “Just pissed that they put me through this nonsense.”
“Agreed,” said JK. “But I’m heading to her now. You stay put and I’ll keep you well-informed.”
“Once this is resolved,” Stuart asked, “I’ll able to see Alan. Correct?”
That name again, Tabby thought. Alan Jacobs. Who was he to Stuart?
“Don’t even think about trying to see him before it’s resolved.
But once it’s over, then yes. But right now don’t try to call the hospital to check on him or any of that.
Don’t call Nora or Clare either. They can claim you were trying to intimidate witnesses even though they didn’t witness a thing. But I don’t put anything past Nora.”
“Neither do I,” agreed Stuart.
“Just wait until we get this thing dismissed. Don’t call.
Don’t inquire. Don’t do anything that would jeopardize your bail, Stuart.
And even if the charges are dropped right away,” JK added, “don’t go to that hospital tonight.
The press will probably still be out there.
Which they’ll do everything in their power to make you look guilty as sin.
So just wait until tomorrow. Since the charges will have been dropped by then, hopefully, it’ll be yesterday’s news. It’s too fresh tonight.”
Then JK looked at Tabby. “Good work, young lady. Your quick thinking might have saved the old man’s ass.”
“Old man?” Stuart said with a smile.
Tabby was so relieved that she could be of help to Stuart that she was all smiles now. “Thank you,” she said to JK.
After JK confirmed that his assistant had sent Tabby’s video to his phone, he and his team hurriedly left. “I’ll call you,” he said to Stuart as he hurried out.
“I’m heading out too,” Mel said as he stood up. “The wife is expecting me for dinner, and I’m going to keep my word for a change. Keep me in the loop.”
“Will do,” Stuart said, Mel said his goodnights to both of them, and then he left.
And then it was just the two of them.
Stuart placed his hands on Tabby’s small waist, which coaxed her to lean back against him. “I’m exhausted so I know you are,” he said to her. Then he wrapped his arms around her. “You’ll never know how much I appreciate what you did for me, Tabitha.”
The way he was holding her showed his appreciation, Tabby thought.
But there was something on Tabby’s mind. She had to make sure she wasn’t hugging a man already spoken for. “Can I ask you a question?”
Stuart had a feeling it was going to be a loaded question. Which he wouldn’t mind answering. But not here. “You can ask,” he said as he began standing up, which prompted her to stand up too. “But upstairs. I’ve been incarcerated. I need a bath.”
Tabby wasn’t about to argue with that. After driving for ten hours straight, and then waiting outside of this building for what felt like another full hour, she needed a bath too. So he placed his hand around her waist again and they made their way upstairs.
After they made it upstairs to his luxurious bedroom, it was odd to Tabby how she always felt insecure undressing around her previous boyfriends: at least those who made it that far. But around Stuart? It felt so natural that she didn’t give it a second thought.
She didn’t know why it felt so natural, but it seemed as if her heart was telling her that she could truly trust this man.
And she felt safe with him unlike she’d ever had with anybody else she’d ever been with.
But he was so beyond the kind of man she had ever been attracted to that it all seemed strange.
And kind of weird. But in a great, beautiful way!
Stuart loved the way she didn’t play games with him. He undressed and she undressed as if they’d known each other for years. Because that was what she felt like to him. It felt as if his soul knew her. They had a powerful connection.
While the tub was filling up, and while Tabby was checking out his enormous closet that seemed to go on for days, like a maze, Stuart poured two glasses of wine from the full-sized bar in the parlor adjacent to his bedroom.
That fascinated Tabby too. “Who has a whole bar in their bedroom?” she said with a laugh. “Stuart Jacobs, that’s who.”
“Although technically,” Stuart said with a smile, defending himself, “this is a parlor adjoined to my bedroom. It’s not in my actual bedroom.”
“I’m sorry, bro, but you were right the first time. That’s just a technicality. Just admit it: Your spoiled ass has a bar in his bedroom!”
Stuart laughed out loud. Which warmed Tabby’s heart.
He didn’t come across as easygoing when she first met him two years ago, and even when they met again yesterday.
But he was very easy. Easy in manner. Easy in style.
And definitely, she noticed when he walked from around that bar in his full nakedness, easy on the eyes.
If he looked this great now, she could only imagine what he looked like when he was younger.
Why would she even think that, she thought.
Did she wish he was younger? She’d never dated a man more than a few years older than she was, and they were usually domineering kind of guys who barely made it to the second date.
But oddly enough, his age didn’t give her any pause.
It gave her comfort. It made her trust him more.
“Shall we?” he asked as he carried the two glasses of wine in his hand. She followed him into the ensuite bathroom, once again admiring his big body, as he sat their glasses on the side board of his fancy tub.
But when he looked back and realized she had hesitated, he immediately realized why. “It’s okay, Tabby,” he said to her. “Come to me. It’s okay.”
Tabby knew being in a bathroom again gave her a kind of PTSD from what happened to her last night, that it slowed her roll. But she knew she had to get over it. She just had to. She went to Stuart.
He didn’t wrap her in his arms or feed her any everything will be alright lines. He just stood there when she made her way up to him. “You’re good?” he asked her.
And that made her smile. Because he didn’t make more out of it than he needed to, and he didn’t try to minimize it either. He recognized that she had had a flashback, and that was all he needed to do. “I’m good,” she said. And they got into the tub.
And even after they got in his big tub, with her small body between the legs of his big body, and her back against his chest, it all felt so calming. So much so that they both became drowsy to the point of dozing off.
Tabby didn’t realize she had dozed off until she felt Stuart’s hand all over her body. He had bath himself: she could tell by the suds on his body. And now he was bathing her.
“Welcome back, sleepyhead,” he said as his soap-filled hand continued to bathe/massage her body.
“Did I fall completely asleep?”
“Completely girl,” he said, and she laughed. “But that’s a good thing. You were drained.”
“Yes I was,” she admitted. And she leaned back and enjoyed the way his hand massaged her.
“Downstairs you said you wanted to ask me a question.”
“I did. I do.”
When she didn’t go on, Stuart smiled. She was still groggy. “What’s your question, Tabby?”
“Oh right!” She sat upright. “Who’s Clare? Who’s Nora? And who’s Alan Jacobs?”
Stuart smiled. “I said you can ask a question, not three questions.”
But Tabby didn’t smile. This was too serious for her. Was one of those women his wife or girlfriend?
“Alan’s my son,” he said.
“Your son?” Tabby turned her head around to get a look at him. She didn’t even know he had a son. “They thought you tried to kill your own son?”
“That’s what they thought, yes.”
That made no sense to her. “But why? What would be the reason?”
Stuart wished it wasn’t a story he had to tell, but he knew it was. “A little over three weeks ago, my son, who worked for me as my chief financial officer, managed to successfully initiate a hostile takeover of my corporation. Do you know what that means?”
“It means he stole your company behind your back,” Tabby said.
Stuart laughed. “You know how to cut through the bullshit,” he said. “But yes. That’s exactly what it means.”
“Does he still have it?”
“Yes. But not for long. I’m working to wrestle it back.”
“But how?”
“I only need two votes to regain majority ownership. I have the money to pay for those two votes easily, and Alan doesn’t, at least not at the rate I can pay, but that’s not what I’m going for.
I once had seventy-five percent ownership before the courts forced me to give up twenty-four percent to Nora. ”
“Who’s Nora?”
“My ex-wife. I was married at twenty and divorced at twenty-nine.”
“It lasted nine years?”
“We were separated by year four. Just after my daughter was born. The courts gave her custody of Alan and Clare, our son and daughter, when she successfully argued that I was an irresponsible party boy.”