Page 54 of The Billionaire's Special Relationship

“They’re fair-weather friends, darling. I told you that. As am I.”

“You aren’t a fair-weather friend.”

“Oh yes I am.”

“But you aren’t like that with me.”

“That’s because you’re different. You’re in a special category in my life. Now get up.”

She smiled because nobody had ever viewed her as special. “What are we about to do now?”

“I need to go see my son.”

“Oh!” But then she stopped. “But he may not wanna see you.”

“That doesn’t matter. I have to see for myself that he’s okay. He haven’t accepted any of my calls.” He was calling Alan against his attorney’s advice. “I’m going to have to go see him. And you’re going with me.”

Tabby didn’t argue about that one. She was thrilled to be included. And got up.

But after they showered, brushed and gargled, and were getting dressed, Stuart looked at her naked body one time too many and could no longer containhimself. He wanted her again.

And he had her. He bent her over for a quickie that turned out to be much longer than he had anticipated it would, and got some.

They were cleaning up again when his house manager’s voice came over the intercom. “Excuse me, sir.”

“Yes, Joshua, what is it?”

“Mr. Alan Jacobs, Miss Clare Jacobs, and Miss Nora Jacobs are downstairs in the lobby requesting permission to come up.”

Tabby looked at Stuart. She could tell he wanted to see his son, and maybe his daughter too, but did he want to see the one woman who broke his heart? She could immediately see a change in his entire demeanor. But she couldn’t figure out what it meant.

Stuart pinched the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t seen his ex-wife in over a decade. Why would she suddenly appear?

“Sir, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here.” Then Stuart exhaled. “Go downstairs and escort them up, Joshua.”

“Right away, sir,” his house manager said and then ended the conversation.

It wasn’t lost on Tabby that Stuart continued to get dressed, with his usual pristine attention to detail, without looking at her one single time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Alan, Clare, and Nora sat in the front parlor looking around as if they’d never been in Stuart’s home before. Alan had, many times, but Clare and Nora had not.

“So Daddy lives in a penthouse,” said Clare as she looked up at the high ceiling. “Why am I not surprised that this is where the big man lives?”

“It’s not just him in this monstrosity,” said Nora. “I’m sure he has a different woman sleeping here every night.”

Alan looked at his still-beautiful mother. They both knew Stuart wasn’t like that and that she was the one who cheated on him, and did so repeatedly. Yet she would never cop to her blame for the destruction of their family. But Alan, the oldest, saw it with his own two eyes. That was why he still had a relationship with his father and managed to earn his trust enough to grow up and become CFO of his corporation. But Clare believed theirmother’s lies and didn’t want to have anything to do with their father.

But that worked out for Alan because their hatred of his father allowed them to be fully onboard with his takeover scheme. They had no issue whatsoever combining their fourteen percent with his ten percent to get the ball rolling. Once he convinced other stakeholders to throw their support to him, he became the boss. At least on paper because nobody at Dellstone seemed to respect him the same way they still respected his father.

But now it was phase two. Now he wanted total control, something he would never achieve with his father still in possession of forty-nine percent. But will his father agree?

When they heard walking on the staircase, as if Stuart was coming down, all three of them felt a surge of panic. Clare hadn’t seen her father in five or six years, Nora hadn’t seen her ex-husband in a decade, and the last time Alan saw his father he was beating the stew out of him. None of them felt any peace.

Especially when Stuart entered the parlor with Tabby at his side. He didn’t have his arm around her the way he usually did, and his normally chill manner gave way to a kind of broodiness. These three people she was about to meet burdened him. That she knew. What she didn’t know was why. Was it because he missed them and wanted to be a family again, or because they represented one of the lowest points in his life: his divorce.