Page 5 of The Billionaire's Special Relationship

But it was also true that Jennie was a powerhouse alright. She had every attribute imaginable. She just wasn't a good person. He saw how she treated her household staff. He saw how she treated her business associates. He saw how she treated Miss Morgan.

Not that he was some great man himself. He wasn't and didn’t pretend to be. But he knew how to treat people. He knew how to move in circles that weren't money rich in any sense of the word because those were the circles he hailed from. He was raised in a trailer so raggedy he could lay in his bed and look up and see the sky through the holes in the roof. Or look down and see the dirt of the earth from the holes in the floorboards. He was the kind of people shedespised. Which made her, in his eyes, the poster child for the kind of person he despised. And they expected him to marry her? Hell would have to freeze over first. And then he still wouldn’t marry her.

He got up, paid the tab his friends had conveniently forgot to pay, and headed outside. They came on his plane. They had no choice but to wait on him.

But when the SUVs pulled up and they all piled inside, Stuart didn’t say a word to Jennifer nor anyone else.

He sat quietly on the ride to the airfield. The trip was a waste of time.

But all he could think about anyway wasn’t his mother’s incorrigibleness, but that pretty young lady with the gorgeous brownish-gray eyes. He was pulling for the kid. She was going to make it and make it on her own terms he hoped. A part of him even wished he could see it.

But he never got encumbered. He never got involved. Besides, Jennifer was sweet, too, when he first met her. She was angelic even. But as he looked over at her as they rode to the airfield and he caught her looking at him with nothing short of disgust in her eyes, that angel had long left the building.

But Tabby Morgan? He smiled thinkingabout her, and the way she winked at him. He could only hope she would turn out to be a far better person than he or Jennifer would ever be. And that her dreams would ultimately come true.

But as soon as he got off of that plane and returned to his life back in New York, he forgot all about that cute, quirky young lady. Not because she was forgettable. But because he lived the kind of life that wouldn’t allow him to remember.

Never encumbered.

Never involved.

CHAPTER THREE

TWO YEARS LATER

Tabby Morgan was banging on the door of a dirt-white trailer like she was the police. No way was that heifer getting away with this, was all she could think about. The review was bad enough, but she could live with a bad review. But for that girl to claim she never even got the food? To tell a lie like that? There was no way!

Two years ago, when the recession hit Larkin hard and Argyles restaurant cut her hours down to next to nothing, she became a rideshare driver to make ends meet. She delivered food and delivered people and she did both fast and respectfully. But what she didn’t do was allow people to take advantage of her. That was why she was banging so hard on that door that she thought she was going to knock that whole raggedy-ass trailer down.

But when the door was finally opened, not by the girl who had taken the food she’d just delivered, but by a big, burly white boy who folded his tatted arms like he was the real police, she knew she had to calm herself down and temper what she really wanted to say. Tabby was nobody’s pushover. And she was nobody’s fool.

But right was still right. “I just delivered twobags of food to this address from Deever’s Grocery store.”

He frowned. “So what?”

She knew he was going to be hostile. His stance alone proved that. But he was looking at her as if she was public enemy number one. But she still didn’t let that stop her. “The girl that came to the door and got those groceries just gave me a one-star review and claimed I never delivered that food to her when I literally just handed it to her.”

“So what?”

Tabby couldn’t believe he said that. “So I want her to reverse that review and tell the truth. She got that food. And I delivered it on time too. She’s got to tell the truth.”

“She ain’t got to tell shit!” The young man, who looked to be around twenty-seven, which was Tabby’s age, seemed as if theft didn’t require correction. “You better get on out of my face, that’s whatyoubetter do. You better get on from ‘round here gal.”

“So basically she’s gonna just steal those people food?” a kind of shocked Tabby asked him. “Is that what you’re saying to me? That she’s gonna get the company I work for to reverse her charges and pay nothing for the food she just received? Which means I’ll have to pay for it. Is that what I’m hearing?”

He smiled. “You ain’t as dumb as you look.”

Tabby was accustomed to putdowns and ridicule in her line of work so she ignored his little comment. “So she decidedshe’s gonna get herself some free food today at my expense? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Although,” he said, glancing down at her slender frame, “we might be able to work something out. Because you fine, girl.” His round, pink face lit up with a two-teeth grin. “And you ain’t bad looking either. You go a few rounds with me then I’ll see what we can do about that little nothing review, and that lil’ food you so worried about.”

Tabby was accustomed to creepy guys coming onto her. She was accustomed to all types. That was why she ignored that little comment too. “You don’t understand what I’m saying to you, sir.” Her face was serious and distressed, as if going a “few rounds” with him was the last thing on her mind. “I can lose my job if she claim I didn’t deliver that food when she knows I did.”

His patience with her was over as he flung that torn screen door wide open so fast that Tabby had to back up to avoid getting hit.

And then she backed off. There was no way she could go toe to toe with a guy that big when she was so small, and there was no way calling the cops was going to help her case. They never believed people that looked like her anyway.

“Yeah you better leave,” he said as she immediately left the front porch of that trailer and got back into her small Chevy Bolt. When she looked back up, the girl had come out onto the porch eating one of the bananas that was just delivered to her, and both her and that creepy guywere laughing at Tabby like they just knew they got one over on her.