Chapter 76 Two Options

Chapter 76 Two Options
DOMINIC POV:

And as I had anticipated, Arthur was waiting for me, early in the morning, a few days later. He broke sooner than I had anticipated.

I walked into the office building, a flurry of people throwing their concerns my way, while the others nodded curtly in acknowledgement. With the holiday week just over, everyone was sluggish, but the security team worked harder than ever before, restraining a clearly distraught man.

“I have to meet Dominic Presley!” he yelled. “Let me go, you fuckwad!”

His language was colorful, but his struggle was futile. He hissed in pain as he was dragged towards the side door, leading into the building but away from normal operations.

“Mr. Presley is not in office,” someone tried to reason with him. “Please come with us.” The underlying warning was ignored.

Arthur scanned over the eager, whispering crowd, wondering why a random man was making a scene so bright and early in the morning. His eyes fell on me, and his eyes lit up with recognition. 

“Hey, Dominic!” he yelled. 

He jerked around, trying to shake the guards off. He could only take a few steps before he was pressed down again, this time, with more force.

“Should I tell them about Eileen?” he screamed. 

My foot stopped midair. I gritted my teeth, feeling a rush of panic go through me. I knew the kind of vitriol he was capable of. As to what he would say about Eileen, I didn’t want to know. And I didn’t need anyone else hearing either.

“Shove him into a meeting room and make sure he keeps his mouth shut,” I whispered to my assistant. 

He nodded and hastily made his way to Arthur before speaking to the guards. They led him away. 

I didn’t miss the smug look in his eyes. He knew he had my weakness within my grasp, and I would rather die than allow him to leverage it.

Hours passed, the meetings ran long, and I nearly forgot about the infuriating man. Until my assistant leaned in. “Mr. Presley, he is trying to escape the room and find you himself. What should we do?”

I waved it off. “Let him wait, then.”

He wasn’t important enough for me to set my work aside and entertain.

The clock struck three in the afternoon before I got a few minutes of reprieve. I looked at my watch and shot Eileen a quick message, telling her I miss her before I made my way to the meeting room. 

The space was small, only able to hold four people at a time, but the glass was sound proof. I entered the cabin and found Arthur resting his head on the table, seemingly asleep. The bottle of water that had been offered to him was empty and scrunched up, laying on the floor. 

It told me everything I needed to know about him.

I knocked on the table. His head shot up and he glared.

“Took you long enough.”

I sat opposite him and waited. “Go on.”

“You think you can stroll in here and dictate when I speak?” Arthur hissed. 

Clearly the wait had messed with his head. He felt completely out of control and showed anger to replace his helplessness.

“The door is right beside you.”

The clock ticked. He didn’t move.

“This is not how you negotiate a deal, Mr. Presley,” Arthur finally said. 

Like he could teach me anything about that. He looked like he had walked out of a college, the smell of weed lingering on his clothes, no job lined up.

“Go on then, teach me how.” I decided to humor him.

He squared his shoulder. I would have thought he was preparing for war if not for him speaking, “I understand that you are the more reasonable out of the two… Aurelia is too emotional to understand what I want. But you...” he trailed off, smiling. 

I raised my brow. “Well? What do you want?”

“To give you a fair deal. You have two options. One, you pay me half a million dollars and get rid of me forever. You can pretend to be a happy family with Eileen and our daughter.”

I waited. 

“It’s an insignificant amount of money for someone like you. This option is convenient. I take it and never show my face again.”

“And the other option?” I wondered, knowing this was the choice he wished for me to make. I could see the desperation in his eyes.

“Or, I take Bethany off your hands. That way, you can have Eileen all to yourself. No baggage and all that.”

I nodded in understanding. “Excellent choices. I’m glad you thought about the benefits on my behalf. But I found both the options… insufficient.”

His confidence fell another point. 

“You want to drag this to court and make Eileen and Bethany suffer?” His voice was low, almost threatening.

I shrugged. “We will see if Eileen and Bethany suffer, or you run out of funds to fight this grueling court battle.” I cocked my head to the side. “Do you know how long custody battles take? A few years, if the court doesn’t have a backlog of cases.”

Arthur had obviously known that. The court summon was a scare tactic. If Eileen had been alone, she would have fallen for it. Still, she could, if I didn’t hold her back.

“I can’t fight against a billionaire like you,” he agreed. “So, I just want this settled quietly. I will leave you at peace.”

I would have allowed him off easily if he hadn’t questioned my love for Bethany. To call my baby girl baggage? 

Unforgivable.

“Keep dreaming, then. I will not give you a single dime,” I announced. I pushed to my feet and smoothed my lapels.

As I made my way to the door, he blocked my path. “Who do you think the world will believe? A father who has been deprived of his right to see his daughter, or a billionaire who was recently embroiled in a cheating scandal and hopped into bed with the nanny in the next second.”