The Billionaire Playboy's Regret (Lark and Max)

Sawyer looked at Max, "fifty million for the assault, emotional and physical injuries, the treatment he's going to need in the future including plastic surgery to fix his nose. He's also going to need braces since his jaw was cracked and needs to be realigned. The embarrassment alone for having to wear braces at his age."

"I wear a retainer nearly every night," Max looked across the table with a smirk, "it's not a bad thing." Lark looked at Max, "huh, you didn't wear it last night."

Grady's hiss of irritation as they went off script and Doug immediately jumped onto the comment made her bite her lip. She didn't care about Doug, but this was her first time working professionally with her father.

"Sorry Dad." She patted his hand, "I know it bothers you."

"You're f*****g him!" Doug screamed across the table. "I knew it. I knew the way he behaved when he jumped me was because you were screwing."

"No," Lark laughed at Doug's behavior. "We're not having s*x. Max and Ollie are my best friends since we were born. We shared a crib as babies. He knew I was nervous last night, so he stayed in my room to make sure I was okay. Do you know who else stayed in my room? His sister Ollie and our other best friend from childhood Johan. See they understand how much facing you was going to cause me distress, so they all stayed with me. I think Ollie may have even posted something on social media of the four of us snuggled up watching a movie on her laptop."

"You're not best friends. If you were, you would have told me about them. I met Ollie a couple of times, but never once did I meet him or this Johan guy you mentioned.'

"I'm a busy man, Doug." Max spoke up. "You did know Ollie was Gael Moreno's granddaughter because you applied to her company to work in her legal department, but you didn't even make it through the front door, and you complained to Ollie about it." He looked at Grady who slid a signed affidavit towards Sawyer, "along with Ollie's signed statement about Doug complaining the first time they met while at a restaurant and asking her to speak with HR, his resume and his five emails, the last one mentioning Ollie are all there."

"Olivia Villeneuve is a household name, especially here in Houston because she's done a heap of charity work on behalf of the Moreno family." Grady continued, "often she brings her twin along with her and they are frequently photographed and splashed all over Houston news and tabloids. Unless you live under a rock, have no access to the internet ever and have never followed any kind of corporate news, you would know who the Villeneuve twins are. I find it hard to believe a corporate lawyer," he eyeballed Doug, "wouldn't know the names of two of the biggest CEOS in corporate history and further didn't know their association with his girlfriend."

"What if he did?" Sawyer pushed back. "Simply knowing of their relationship doesn't mean it excuses your client for beating the supreme s**t out of mine."

"The Villeneuve twins are renowned for their tempers," Grady argued. "You can google Villeneuve and fight and come up with too many stories for their PR teams to squash."

"I'm in therapy for it," Max smirked at Doug.

"However, most of their fights," Grady shot Max an annoyed look, "were in high school and all of Max's fights were related to the girls. His sisters if you will," he waved between them. "We're not disputing Max's responses to seeing his sisters upset. What we have an issue with, is when someone blatantly uses Lark as bait to get a payday from her wealthy neighbor and the man, she considered a brother growing up." "Bait?" Sawyer leaned back, "this is good. You were always good with a story, Grady, please go on." He drawled it out.

"Any buffoon could do a search and find out Max's temper when it comes to the women in his family. Two years ago, he got into it with a guy who touched Ollie inappropriately in a bar and every news agency posted it. A year ago, he got into a screaming match with a college professor over making his sister Mori cry and one of her classmates posted the video of it and it went viral. In high school, he beat up Lark's date to prom for some bullshit he pulled in front of a bunch of kids, and he was put on probation for six months for it."

Lark was surprised, she didn't know he'd gotten probation for the event. She looked at Max who shrugged.

"All of those situations were settled out of court and your client knew Lark was back at her family home, living next door to the Villeneuves. Max did a huge GQ article which was published the same week Doug cheated on my daughter, in which his temper is actually brought up. He blatantly stated when it comes to the women in his family, he cannot help but feel the need to keep them safe. He also mentions in the article how he visits his maman," Grady waved at Bobbie, "every Saturday afternoon to check on her because he knows his father travels extensively for work. Doug has been to my house multiple times. He knows hows who my neighbors are, despit didn't plot to come on a Saturday afternoon to make my daughter his attempts to deny fact. We literally share a back yard. Tell me, Sawyer, convince me, your to me he didn't know Max, who was quoted in print, with his bad temper over the girls crying and was going to be present on the Saturday was going to hit him." Grady tossed the GQ magazine on the table along with a series of printed articles from the internet.

cry.

Prove

this

"From my vantage point," Max motioned to where his mother was setting up a video on her laptop, "Doug raised his fist to Lark, and she was on the ground. All I could think was he was going to hit her, and I couldn't let it happen."

"I would never hit her." Doug argued as the video began to play and the quick way Doug lifted his hand as Lark fell to her knees was frozen on the screen.

Grady pushed a document across the table and eyeballed Sawyer.

Sawyer frowned, "what is this?"

"A hospital bill for Lark's sprained wrist last year."

"She fell!" Doug bellowed furiously.

"Nurse's notes are under it. Read them aloud for the room would you Sawyer?"

"Questioned patient on potential domestic violence due to the fingerprints around her wrist." Sawyer closed his eyes and looked to Doug. "You put your hands on her?"

"No! She was falling and I caught her. I caught her by the wrist. It was why my fingerprints were there." "A million," Grady pushed an offer onto the table. "One million dollars. Doug needs to sign a no-contact agreement which means he needs to stop the constant harassment of Lark. He is to never call, email, text, or visit her again. If he sees her in a public setting, he is to go the opposite way. He is not to initiate contact with her and he's not to ever ask her for a penny again. This is a one-time offer. He'll get a million and he'll never darken her doorstep again."

"No." Sawyer frowned. "You think one million is a decent counteroffer to fifty?"

"I do because if you think Max is worried about dragging this into court and letting the entire world know how he protects his family from abusive and manipulative pieces of s**t who would try to use them to further their own goals, you would be wrong. Not only will we take this all the way, but we'll also create a media circus which will cause Doug to be known all over the world as a man who raises his hands to a woman, plotted and manipulated her by gaslighting her into thinking she did something wrong for reacting to him setting her up to find him screwingf his secretary. Imagine how bad it's going to look when we prove he used her as bait to Max's temper. You think you can't find work now, Doug? You won't be able to find a job pumping gas, mostly because Olivia Villeneuve owns most of the gas stations but semantics." Grady leaned back, his hands folded against his stomach, "oh and one more thing," he motioned to Bobbie to slide a document across the table, "this is the sealed juvie record for Doug from when he was arrested in middle school for punching his girlfriend in the face and splitting her mouth open because she broke up with him in front of everyone to date his older cousin."

"It was an accident!" Doug started to argue as Sawyer groaned. "I slipped."

"You're an i***t," Sawyer rubbed his head. "Ten million."

"One." Grady wasn't backing down, "and considering the one million is nine hundred thousand more than I wanted him to offer, I'd suggest taking Max's offer before we simply pick up, walk out and really start digging into your client's sordid past. We have nothing to hide because it's all already out there. We know what we're playing with. Do you know what you're playing with, Sawyer?"

"Give me a minute," he pulled a protesting Doug out of the room, across the hall into another meeting space and closed the door.

The minute the door closed Grady looked at his daughter. "Seriously. You had to let him think you two are a couple."

"We are," Max grinned. "I did sleep in her room last night."

"I don't want to hear it." Grady grunted. "Keep it clean and stick to the plan, please. Doug unhinged is not anything I want a part of."