From the first day Stella started dating Robert, Phillip watched him like a hawk to see what kind of guy was dating his mom. Even at that age, Phillip was somewhat protective of his mom and wanted to make sure she wasn’t dating some creep who might treat her badly or try to take advantage of her.
Phillip soon learned that Robert a stand up guy who was very good to his mother, treated her with respect, kindness, and dignity, Robert was also very good to and genuinely cared about Phillip, taking him to ball games or movies when he was in town and that was all that mattered to Phillip.
Sadly and without warning, Robert’s life was suddenly and tragically cut short after only six years after he and Stella met and were married. It happened when Robert’s plane encountered an RPG fired by rogue middle eastern militia faction in the area they were in overseas and was forced to the ground where it crashed and destroyed on impact.
Since Robert had no family or living heirs, he had made arrangements to take care of Stella in the event of something like this occurring. He left them his palatial 5,400 square foot two story home in nice upscale neighborhood, which was where Phillip and Stella now were living.
Even though the neighborhood was a recent development, it didn’t have the major down sides of new developments such as houses being built practically on top of one another with little space between them and no yard. The houses were spaced out so you weren’t crowding others and the yards were big enough for kids to play football in comfortably.
The other primary advantage which Stella LOVED and ADORED was that there was no nosey HOA(Home Owner’s Association) constantly looking over people’s shoulders trying to boss people around.
The neighbors didn’t think it was necessary, and besides they felt they had enough of big government looking over people’s shoulders with their clusterfuck policies and silly mandates, so they didn’t need some petty, little, self appointed dictator(s) trying to tell them how to manage their property.
Robert also left Stella 51 percent interest in his Oil corporation and provided his annual salary to be given to her for life with adjustments for cost of living increases.
Robert did however, appoint someone he trusted and had groomed for the job to take over as head of the company day to day overseas operations(Chief Operating Officer) but Stella took over Roberts office in the corporate Headquarters in Houston where he worked when in town.
Stella was still ultimately in charge and had the final say in what went on in the business and with her being the majority 60 percent stock holder, the board could not use its leverage to manipulate her.
To help Stella, Robert chose people who he knew and trusted who would not take advantage of Stella, of her naivete or lack of knowledge in the corporate world or who would try to use manipulate her to their advantage and appointed them as her advisors and assistants.
As sincere and well meaning Robert was, all the safeguards he had put in place to protect Stella from the “Serpents and Jackals” of the corporate world weren’t really necessary.