Page 20 of The Billionaire's Special Relationship

Tabby smiled. She’d never met anybody like him. “That big fat tip you gave me did me a world of good.”

That interested Stuart. “Did it now?”

“Oh yes sir. I was able to pay off my car note, put two extra rent payments in the can should my hours get funky,and they did, and I was able to fill my frig with groceries. It was a blessing. Thank you again.”

“Glad to be of assistance,” he said with a smile as if he was a regular helper when he was no such thing.

But as she began looking around at a loud detainee who insisted he was innocent and he did nothing wrong, and she looked as if she could sympathize with that obvious crook, Stuart folded his legs and took full note of her. There was something so kind about her that it perplexed him. In the little time he’d been around her, including two years ago, she’d had nothing but maltreatment thrown her way. Even down to her catching her boyfriend in bed with another woman from what he heard her admitting at the crash scene. But she still smiled and kept a positive attitude and looked on the bright side every time. He didn’t detect an ounce of bitterness or hatred in her anywhere. Which was so unlike the world he came from that it was downright refreshing to see. It warmed his heart.

But when she looked at him with those soft, sincere, brownish-gray caring eyes but didn’t say anything when it was obvious she wanted to, he decided to go there. “You want to ask me something?”

His question stopped her from just gazing at him. And she had to think of something to say. “Do I call you Mr. Jacobs, or can I call you by your Christian name?”

“Of course youmay call me by my Christian name.” When Tabby continued to just stare at him, he realized she may have forgotten his name. “Which is Stuart,” he added.

She extended her hand. “And I’m Tabitha. Hello, Stuart.”

He shook her hand. “Hello, Tabitha. Nice seeing you again.”

“Although most people call me Tabby. It’s like Abby with a T.”

“Do you like that nickname?”

“No,” she said. “But I hate Tabitha more. So I’m cool with it.”

Stuart considered her again. “Do you always look on the bright side?”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

They both laughed. Stuart nodded. “Yes. That’s what you’re doing.”

“I don’t call it looking on the bright side I guess. I just call it being realistic. It is what it is. That sort of thing.”

Stuart understood. “Got it.”

“But thank you for getting those charges dropped against me. Boy, was that huge. They were trying to railroad me for something I didn’t do. That girl had them snowed.”

“Was she a former friend of yours?”

“Her? No way! The first time I ever saw her was when she was in bed with my boyfriend.”

“But she was behaving as if you had wronged her.”

“That’s how these girls are around here. That’s why I don’t rock with any of’em.”

Stuart smiled at her rawness.

“They wanna fight over men all the time. Even when they’re the ones cheating right with the man. The way I see it? If that joker don’t want me then deuces. I’m out of there. What I look like wanting somebody that don’t want me? That don’t make no kind of sense, does it?”

“None,” Stuart agreed.

“But that’s why she was fighting me. She actually thought I wanted that cheater back.”

Stuart was hoping he knew the answer to his question, but he asked it just to be certain. “Do you want him back?”

“Hell no!” she responded, and he laughed. “I don’t stay with no cheating man. They can have that. I’m tired of that.”

But for some reason, Stuart was intrigued with her as if he was sizing her up the same way he sized up potential executives in his corporation. “You’re tired of it even if you love him?” he asked her.