My hand went behind her head, and I pulled her forehead to me. I gave her a forehead kiss then told her to eat the rest of her food. She hadn’t been eating like she should have. Daylen told me that she was having problems pumping enough milk, and it was getting her down. I had the same issues with JJ, so I understood. I’d been staying close.
Now, I had to figure out how to broach this conversation with Robert. I wouldn’t say that he hated Simone. What I would say was that she had become non-existent in his world. When I brought her up, it would very much slam her back there.
A Few Nights Later . . .
“Absolutely not! Jubilae Plates Brand, I’m not about to play with you and Simonette.” He laughed. “No wonder you weremore acrobatic tonight than normal. You’ve never held your fucking leg over your head.”
Robert was not trying to hear anything that I said. I slapped my hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter. He didn’t have to call out my extra effort to soften him up for this conversation.
“Robert, baby, hear me out. I’m not saying get her a lawyer or anything like that. All I’m saying is to pay her bond so that she can fight her case from the outside. You know like I do that there is a big difference when you have to fight a case from behind the walls,” I told him.
He pulled his eyeglasses down to the tip of his nose, then slowly turned his head and glared at me. We both had our laptops open on our overbed table. We made an agreement that we would never work longer than two hours in the bed a day.
“Pressie, what the fuck do you know about fighting cases behind the walls like you spent all your life with street niggas? Last I checked, Julius, God rest his soul, was far from a street nigga.” He looked up. “Julius, do you hear this dumb shit? Haunt her in her sleep for putting that street life on you unnecessarily.”
I fell back with laughter. “What kind of man tells his wife’s dead husband to haunt her? Robert! I never said anything about being with a street nigga. I just like to read and watch documentaries.”
He tapped the desk next to my computer. “Pressie, finish that damn presentation and get off my nerves. I’m not giving that lady shit. She can fight for her life from behind those walls. She could be a model inmate and teach etiquette classes. I don’t understand how her ass was signing business papers when the damn lady didn’t know how to pay the water bill when we were together. Kevin got her ass good as hell with that one.”
Okay, this wasn’t working. I would have to pull out the low dogs. “Okay, baby, that’s fine. I just know that Sim is goingto feel guilty and end up giving her not only bail money but probably lawyer money as well. You know she’s gonna do it behind Daylen’s back, so he’s gonna be mad at her. I’ll get the guest bedroom ready because you know she’s going to come here first the second he makes her cry because he’s fussing at her.”
None of what I said was a lie. That wholeshe’s still your motherstatement that Lanette said affected Sim. She would never admit it. That baby’s heart was not solid gold—it was liquid. It would ooze out to places it shouldn’t be if you didn’t help contain it.
Robert’s chest rose and fell hard. He knew that his baby girl was sensitive. “Only the fucking bond and I want a damn receipt. Your ass is going to pay me back, too, with your generous ass.” He continued to mumble under his breath as he typed hard on his keyboard.
“See, aren’t you happy that we merged together, Robert? We complement each other in love and business,” I said before I leaned over and kissed his lips.
He gazed at me with tight eyes before they softened. “We didn’t merge shit, Pressie. I acquired that ass and heart. This was a straight love acquisition.”
Some Time Later. . .
Life had been amazing for the Brands. They were dominating in the pharmaceutical industry and the Black love lane. After the magazine spread about their wedding and relationship, it put more eyes on them than they could have ever imagined. MediGenix’s human resource and legal team now pushed the relationship they once thought would bring a negative light to the company. It opened the company to a new interest from a different demographic of consumers which fattened the bottom line.
On top of their jobs as the CEO and president, Robert and Jubilae had been on a mini press tour. Multiple news broadcasts, podcasts, and television shows had reached out. Thecouple discussed whether they wanted to be interviewed. They came up with the agreement that not only would they be paid by those who wanted to interview them, but the requestors would also have to donate a certain agreed-upon dollar amount to help underprivileged patients get access to the medications that they needed free of charge. So far, they had raised over two million dollars in donations.
“DJ, you better put that down before GramPa gets you.” Jubilae reprimanded her almost one-year-old grandson. He was a busy bee, to say the least, ever since he started walking a few weeks ago. He gave everyone a run for their money.
Robert glanced at his grandson from his seat on the couch next to his wife. “Don’t tell his lil ass nothing, Pressie. When I toss his ass over the couch, he’s gonna know something.”
The nickname Pressie would never go away. He tried not to use it in front of the children since they knew the origin of it. It baffled the youngins that people over a certain age were still sexually active. Jubilae found out for herself in her forties that her parents still did what they did when she went to their house unannounced. That was a mistake that she never made again.
At the mention of the word toss, DJ rushed over to his ‘grampa.’ He was a rough little boy who liked to be tossed. Jubilae laughed. “See, now you have to since you told him that you would. You know that boy loves to be thrown in the air.”
Like she said, DJ lifted his hands and shouted up repeatedly. Without thought, Robert picked him up and tossed him in the air. Giggles were all that could be heard. Right there as he sat on the couch, DJ was tossed up by his grandfather.
Simonette and Daylen were on aMommy and Daddy Moon. It was an idea that Julie gave them. They both worked hard in their careers and as new parents. It was easy to lose yourself when you had children, so Julie encouraged them to take a romantic vacation. Julie, Charles, Declan, Robert, and Jubilaegot together and gifted Day, Sim, Rissa, and Weston a week trip to Bora Bora. Weston’s parents had their son. He was still bad as fuck.
“Lanette sent Simonette a case update,” Jubilae blurted.
The case was still ongoing, but it didn’t look good for Simone. It came out during an argument between Simone and Kevin that he had set her up. Over the years, Kevin begged Simone to leave Robert to be with him. She rejected him every time. She even went as far as to tell him in so many words that Robert was better than him. When Robert left her and she went crawling to Kevin, ready for a relationship, his bitterness kicked in. How dare she play him like that!
Now that she was no longer wanted by the man that she claimed was everything, she was prepared to be with the runner-up. Kevin couldn’t have that, so he felt like it was time to push Simone off her pedestal. He told her all the things that she needed to hear to think that he truly loved her so that he could gain her complete trust.
If you asked what Kevin did, he would say that he was a businessman. The reality was that he was a con artist or scammer, whichever description you preferred of the two. That was what he was. When he came to Simone with a business opportunity that would yield them millions, she jumped on it with no understanding of what it was. All she heard was millions. She would finally be able to throw into Robert’s face that she was still able to live the good life without him.
Kevin convinced her to sell her home for some startup money, and she did. Simone moved into a condo that was nice but beneath her. She didn’t complain too much because she would be a millionaire when it was all said and done with. Every form that Kevin told her to sign, she did without so much as a question.
Simone had signed documents that helped Kevin defraud the elderly around the nation. Yes, they had yielded millions, but she also had yielded charges. Kevin was sure not to add his name on anything. She was unable to prove what Kevin had all out admitted to her, because it was his word against hers. Her lawyer was not the best and pushed her to take a plea, which she refused.
