Revenge

Between a rock an a hard place

Isabella's POV

I take Charlie from Paul's office to the restaurant and tell the waiter to bring Charlie anything he wants to eat. Of course, it is a dessert, but today I will let him have it. He is my little hero today!  We walk into my office, and I am still fuming, thinking about Paul's audacity earlier. Did he really think he could just walk back into my life like this? I walk up and down in my office. Why was I so stupid to come out in public? I should have waited, and I should not have let Paul find out about Charlie, but hell, how was I supposed to know we were still married. I need to see that lawyer as soon as possible. I can not wait until tomorrow. I curse myself again for being stupid. I should have known once Paul found out about Charlie, he would not let go. Maybe I should call his mother and ask her to get her son to divorce me quietly and quickly, but I quickly reject that. I do not want anyone in this city to find out I am still married to that bastard. I pick up my phone and call the lawyer's office and ask him if I can see him today. The secretary tells me I can come immediately.

I take my car keys and tell Charlie. "Mommy has to go for a meeting, eat your dessert, and please leave some space for real food. You have to stay with Aunt Suzie until Mommy comes back, okay?" Charlie looks up at me, his pretty little face covered in chocolate, and I just want to hug him. He looks so cute and adorable. My son is very clever for his age. I think it is because he has been surrounded by grownups his whole life and hardly came into contact with children his age. Charlie nods and looks at me with his big green eyes. As I walk past Suzie, she can see I am upset. She knows me too well.

"I will tell you later, right now I have to go and see a lawyer, please look after Charlie and find him another school, but please look for the best school this city has to offer.  No one is to know where Charlie is going to school. Make sure you tell that to the principal as well, tell them it is for my son's safety." Suzie nods, and I can see she is worried, but I do not have time to explain right now.

It takes me about five minutes to get to the lawyer's office. I have my copy of the agreement with me, and I just pray he can do something about it. I do not want a fuzz as well. I do not want my private life all over the newspapers and magazines, for Charlie's sake, and my own. I never liked being in the spotlight, and that is why I never came out as the CEO and co-owner of Charlie's place. I still remember that we had a prenuptial agreement before our marriage. I am glad about that. I signed back then when we got married because I knew the marriage would not last, and I was thinking about my grandmother's money. The Stevens family thought I had nothing, so they made me sign the agreement, just one more humiliation I had to endure back then. Like I would take anything from them! So I have the prenuptial agreement with me as well. I always safe essential documents. One never knows when you will need them. I walk into Mark Collins' office building. The secretary recognizes me immediately and takes me through to the office.

"Mr. Collins is waiting for you, Mrs. Stevens." I look at her coldly and correct her, "Miss Johnson, please do not call me Mrs. Stevens." She smiles politely and apologizes,

"Sorry, Miss Johnson." I smile back at her and say.

"It is okay." I like this young girl with an open face.

"What is your name," I ask her.

"Hanna Steward, Miss Johnson."

I shake her hand and say, "Call me Isabella" As we walk into the lawyer's office, I can see Hanna looking at him with love in her eyes, so the secretary is in love with her boss. I smiled amused, she saw my smile and blushed.

I wink at her to tell her, 'Do not worry, your secret is safe with me.' She is a bright young thing and knows what I meant with the wink. She smiles back at me, thankfully. Mark Collins looks up at me, and a warm smile fills his face. I walk over, and he gets up, takes my extended hand, and shakes it.

"Good day Mr. Collins, Isabella Johnson." I introduce myself. I withdraw my hand from his.

"Good day, Miss Johnson. Please call me Mark." I like this young man with his clean, handsome face. He is just a bit taller than me.

"Isabella, if I may call you that," he starts, and I just nod, permitting him to call me by my name, "Do you have the document with you?" he asks.

I hand it over to him, and he looks through it and smiles. "Mr. Stevens had signed his son away five years ago, and this contract is water tide, but since he never divorced you, it is not helping us much at this stage, I have checked, and he has applied to have the contract nullified in court. So unless you want to fight it in court, there is not much we can do at this stage." I look at him and sigh.

"I do not want to go to court. As soon as this goes to court, it will be all over the news. Is there anything I can do besides go to court? Can I not just file for divorce and keep it quiet."

He looks at me and says, "Will Mr. Stevens fight a divorce in court?" I know he will, and I nod.

"Well, in that case, it can be very messy unless you can prove he never provided for you or your son."

I see a spark of hope, and I say, "I never accepted any money from him, although he did give me a card the night we signed the papers with money in it." Mark does not look happy about it.

"You took it?" he asks.

"Yes, I did, but I framed it and never used it."

Mark writes something down and looks up, "Well, that might be a problem as he can prove he wanted to provide for you. Do you know if he deposited any money into the account after that?"

I look at Paul and say, "I do not know."

I called the bank to find out, and after I provided them with all my details, they confirmed that there was indeed an amount of money paid into the account every month. I look at Mark and tell him. He nods and writes something down.

"Well, the only thing we can do is go to court with these documents and try to prove that Mr. Stevens did not want to be married to you in the first place, but I can tell you now Isabella the court may take his side. He has a lot of contacts here and is a mighty man. So if you want to take that chance, we can, but it will be messy, and all your and your husband's scandals may come out in the open."

I look at him and say, "I have no scandals. He is the one with all the adultery scandals. What if Charlie wants nothing to do with his father?" I ask Mark.

"He may say it is because you have turned Charlie against his father, and that will be really bad for us. He may even call Charlie a witness, and the lawyer will ask the child why he did not want anything to do with his father. If Charlie sounds too much like an adult and answers like an adult, it may backfire on us heavily. My advice to you is to rather go to your husband and talk it over with him, try to be reasonable and get him to agree to a quiet divorce since the two of you are famous people. It will be the best way for both parties. Besides Isabella, if you go through with this and go to court, do you really want to see your son go through all the drama? It can be very traumatic for a small child like him." I am between a rock and a hard place now. I know the only people that can help me now is Paul's parents, and I do not even know if they will be willing to help me. So I have to get them on my side!

Third person's POV

Mark sigh as he looks at the pale face of the woman in front of him, she seems cold and distant, and he knows she has gone through hell with Paul Stevens, he feels his heartbreaking for her, and he wishes he could be more helpful, but he can not give her false hope, for a quiet, quick divorce.

"I know I can not put my son through this hell. It is all my own fault I should have never brought Charlie out into the open, I thought we were divorced, and he had no say over my child." She gets up and goes to stand in front of the window. There is a cold, determined expression on her face.  She walks over to Mark and shakes his hand.

"Thank you for your advice, I will see what I can do, and I will be in touch with you soon." Isabella leaves the lawyer's office. She is not happy at all and keeps swearing at herself for being so damn stupid. She underestimated Paul. She knows Paul will never give up Charlie. She saw the way he looked at her son today. She knows he has fallen in love with her little boy. When she gets to her car, she does not drive immediately and sit behind the steering. Tears are now falling down her cheeks. Her only hope now is to talk to Paul's parents and agree if they help her out of this mess, to let them be part of Charlie's life. She is unwilling to share her child with them, but it is better to instead share him with them as with that bastard.

"Paul Stevens, I hate you!" She says out loud as she drives away to go back to her office. She stops outside the office and takes the card out of her handbag, with the number of Elaine Stevens on it. She calls the number, and after a few moments, Elaine answers the phone.

"Good day, Mrs. Stevens. It is Isabella Johnson talking." Elaine can hardly contain her happiness when she hears Isabella's voice. Has Isabella changed her mind about her seeing her grandson?

"Hello, Isabella. How can I help you?"

Isabella sighs and says, "I need your help. If you agree to help me, I will let you and your husband be part of Charlie's life." Elaine is overexcited and can not help to smile.

"I will do anything to be part of Charlie's life, Isabella. Tell me what I can do for you." Elaine thinks that Paul has made a nuisance of himself and that Isabella wants her to tell Paul to stay away. She can do that. She will even threaten him and disown him if he does not listen, but Isabella's following words shock Elaine to silence,

"Tell Paul to divorce me with the same conditions as stipulated in the last divorce agreement."

Elaine is speechless. "But dear, you are divorced. I saw the agreement with my own eyes." Isabella sighs again,

"He never filed it in court, Mrs. Stevens, so according to the law, we are still married, and I do not want to go through a messy divorce and put Charlie through it." Elaine admires this young woman even more. She is always looking out for her son and puts him first in everything.

"I will see what I can do, but Paul is stubborn, and I do not think he will agree to it, but I promise you I will do my best."

Isabella knows she is probably right, but she must try, and she will need to get these to people on her side to try and convince Paul and says, "Why don't you and your husband join Charlie and me for dinner tonight at seven at my house. I will send you the address."

Elaine is so excited she almost cries and says, "We will be there, and thank you so much, Isabella." After Isabella hangs up, Elaine calls her son.

As soon as he answers, she says, "Paul Stevens, you better not mess around with Isabella and my grandson anymore. You will give her a divorce, and I do not want to hear anything else about it." Paul is angry on the spot, so she ran to his mother.

"Mother, please mind your own damn business and do not tell me what I need to do about my wife and son, I will never divorce her, and that is the end of the story." Paul hangs up in her ear.

Elaine is shocked and can not believe her son just talked to her like that. It was the first time in his life he spoke to her like that. She calls her husband and tells him about the dinner with Isabella and their grandson.

"I will drive from the office right now, but why did she change her mind?"

Elaine answers her husband and says, "She wants us to help her get Paul to divorce her."

Her husband is quiet for a while, then asks, "What do you mean to divorce her? They are already divorced." Elaine explains everything to Laurens, and he frowns. Why would he help her to divorce his son? He thinks about the little boy on TV and smiles. His grandfather's heart has been touched by that little man already. Paul better not mess up and make Isabella disappear again, but he knows his son, and he knows he will mess up, so the quicker he can get Paul to divorce Isabella, the better it will be for him and Elaine and his little grandson.

He drives to his son's office, and as soon as he walks in, his son looks up and says, "If you are here to threaten me to divorce Isabella, you may as well leave father. I am not letting them go, and there is nothing you or mother can do about it. I love them both, and I have loved her for years, but I was too bloody stupid and proud to admit it. I will not give up Isabella or Charlie."

Laurens looks angry at his son, but before he can say anything, Paul gets up and says, "Excuse me, I have an appointment." Then he walks out of the office, leaving Laurens there fuming.

"That bloody brat! How dare he talk to me like that' Laurens thinks by himself, but deep down, he is proud of his son, for once his son stood up for something in his life and showed him that he is a man and has grown up. So Laurens smiles and thinks, 'If you love her my son, I can not stand in your way, but you better not mess this up.'