SEDUCING THE BILLIONAIRE

Chapter 28

“So, after basically blowing my case now you need my help?” Bruce leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.
“I don’t need your help, I came here to offer you a job” Connie rolled her eyes “you can take it or leave it, you’re not the only lawyer in town.”
She had checked out other firms but they were more expensive and others had terrible win rates, Bruce was in the middle, good winning rate and not extremely expensive. She didn’t care that aunt Brenda had used him as well, it’s not like he worked for her exclusively. And Bruce of course couldn’t refuse, he had a firm to run, a reputation to build, employees to pay. His law firm had twelve employees, eight of those were lawyers.
Just to get some payback for the way she had betrayed them in the custody battle, Bruce hiked up the usual rate by 20% and Connie didn’t complain.
“so, what exactly do you want?” he asked her, he needed to know what to say when negotiating. He knew Jerome and the firm was way bigger than his with more experienced lawyers but he wasn’t going to let himself be intimidated, he had to show that he was ready to bring the fire and grow.
“I want full custody but he has to visit frequently because am not having him just pop up once a while. Every weekend he has to come and see us.” she smiled, picturing how it would affect whatever relationship he was trying to salvage with Audrey “and I will not be hiding the child, people should know that it’s his. Plus I want $5,000 per month in child support and he has to be paying for a full-time nanny.”
She made all her demands and Bruce took note of them.
After the meeting, Bruce had another meeting with his colleagues then officially got in touch with Jerome to set up a meeting.
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“My client is not giving you $5,000 per month” Jerome refused, just because Duke had the money didn’t mean he would let himself get exploited “let’s take this to court and you’ll end up getting highest k10,000. We’re not going higher than $1,000” he said with finality “as for the nanny, she will be hired by my client, he will negotiate the salary and will be paying her directly. As for the visits, he’ll be visiting every Saturday and once the child turns one year he will be allowed to come over to his place for a day’s visit with the nanny.” He put everything on the table.
“$1,000 is too little, make it $3,000” Bruce tried to negotiate.
“$1,500 is the final offer, if you’re not comfortable with that let’s take this to a judge and see how much you’ll get.”

The highest Duke had been willing to go was $2,000 because he knew he would also be buying things for the child and that money would just go to Connie, but Jerome had to negotiate it down, it was his job as a lawyer to make sure his client got the better end of the deal.
Bruce leaned in to whisper to Connie, telling her that a judge would quote the child support in kwacha and it wouldn’t be higher than k10,000. Connie slightly frowned but accepted it, she would be calling him to make up excuses to get more money out of him.
She was okay with everything else because she knew the more time the baby spent at the mansion the more it would affect Audrey.
“we’ll accept the offer,” Bruce agreed, they had made it clear that Connie would not keep the father’s identity a secret and Duke had agreed under one condition.
“once the baby is born we’ll do the DNA test and this contract will only come into effect after confirmation that the baby is mine”
Connie had no problems with that, she knew he was the only man she had been sleeping with.
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Audrey had just come back from visiting Clement, he had moved into a bigger house and asked if she could help him decorate it. She was so excited about it and had spent the afternoon shopping for curtains, checking out couches, home decors. Of course, she knew that it wasn’t her home, but he had asked her to help and she was happy about it. Having been working with great interior designers she hired for her fully furnished rental homes, she had picked up a few tricks and was certain that she could transform the blank canvas she had been given and turn it into something beautiful.
Clement had given her a budget but she was too excited such that she even used some of her money to buy what she wanted to put in the house. Most of the items were being delivered the next day so she hadn’t really done any actual work that day, it had just been about the planning.
As she was getting home around 15:00hrs she noticed a strange car parked out front. Thinking it was probably just one of Duke’s friends she walked into the house she found aunt Brenda sited in the lounge with a drink in her hand watching TV.
Her first instinct was to ignore the woman and just go up to the bedroom, but Audrey forced herself to go there and greet her.
“oh look who it is, the woman who insists that she’s not a gold digger” said aunt Brenda in mockery as she looked her up and down “did you get surgery? Where did the big stomach go?” she laughed and took a sip of her drink.
“if you’re just here to insult me I’ll be upstairs”
“you can’t even deny it, if it wasn’t for the money you wouldn’t be here, not when Connie is having Duke’s baby” she went on “you’re not his type and you knew it. This marriage has never been about love, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you’re blackmailing him somehow….”

Aunt Brenda knew that it was too late to get Lindsey and have access to her inheritance, the adoption had gone through and it’s not like it could be rescinded just because Duke had impregnated his side chick. The only thing aunt Brenda could do now was try and frustrate Audrey as much as possible, to try and disrupt their life so that at least she could gloat and say she was right all along.

“Do you think I wanna be here?” Audrey failed to hold back “do you think I love living like this? If it was up to me I wouldn’t still be in this house, it’s your nephew who doesn’t want to get a divorce” she blurted it out.
Aunt Brenda remained quiet for a moment, wondering how this information could benefit her but she knew it was pointless. If they got divorced, she knew Duke was smart, he wouldn’t lose everything, he probably had a prenup somewhere. But if Audrey didn’t leave then the house would be drama central with the baby coming in the picture.
Maybe she could use that drama to make Lindsey resent her brother and choose to stay with her.
“does Lindsey know that there will be a baby coming and you want to leave?” she asked and Audrey swallowed hard, the last thing she wanted to do was break the girl’s heart but some of these things were inevitable, she could not stay forever being tortured by Connie and Duke just because she wanted to be there for Lindsey.
She had to think of her happiness as well and at that moment she was thinking the baby was a good excuse to try and push for a divorce again, if Duke refused to sign the papers she would have no choice but to take the matter to court and she knew he wouldn’t want to drag it that far.