Richard's POV
“The next step to take now is sue her, Richard. You need to take the custody of your child, you can't sit here all day and mop over the loss of a child to her mother who is refusing to let you have her. You're more than this Richard and you deserve better too. Sue Vanessa Decruz and get your daughter out of there”
After she had slammed the door in my face the previous day, I walked away from the house with all the strength left in me. Suddenly I felt too weak to drive home, too weak to sleep through the night, too weak to carry my office documents and take a look at them, too weak to attend the board of directors meeting, too weak to carry on with life. Vanessa had managed to shred me off the rest of energy left in me.
After my friend who also happened to be one of the company's lawyer, a friend I had managed to make within those three years of loneliness and agony, noticed that I was absent from the meeting, he quickly came over to my office to ask me what was going on. After I had explained everything to him, he decided suing her was the best option and the only option left.
“I don't want my daughter to get involved in that family mess, No, I can't let her have that memory growing up. She's too young for that” I rejected his offer.
“Maybe you should tell me the way out of this then”
“I'll keep begging her till she decides to let me see my daughter, it's a family issue that we'll sort out ourselves” I explained
“What are you begging for exactly? Forgiveness?, For what!. It was her who left your house after she pushed your mother down the stairs and even with the agreement you people had, she still left. Wake up Richard, this woman is not who you think she is back then”
“Vanessa was never like this, something must have happened that made her this way. She mentioned something about me instructing my family member to push her out of the house that night she left and I've been trying to call Tiffany to ask her what happened exactly, she didn't pick up her call. There's more to our story, Felix. I just can't sue her like that without asking what went wrong that night” I explained
“You have a point here, but what do you think we should do?”
“Honestly, I don't know. I don't even have the strength to carry on without the both of them. I know I was rude, evil to her back then, I even manipulated her into signing the contract back then. Guess I'm just paying for all my sins”
Breaking the 20 seconds silence that lasted between us, Felix finally spoke up “Talking about contract, did you guys sign a contract about the pregnancy deal, I mean a document where she agreed to give you the baby?” He asked
“Yes, we did. We had an agreement” I replied and he smiled while I wondered where this was leading to.
“Do you still have the documents with you?” He asked
“Yes, it's here” bringing out the documents, I passed them to him.
“This is exactly what we need right now, we'll go to her and remind her about this, failure to agree to this means we'll drag her to court and we'll work the case, get the custody of the child and we all will move on with our lives”
“I don't want Vanessa to go through that, it's not easy separating a mother from her child, I just need joint custody and even if possible, both of them”
“Forget about Vanessa, she's gone. Let's focus on the child here. All we'll do is let her know that you want joint custody of the child and if she doesn't agree, we'll threaten to take the case to court”
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Two days later, I was sitting in a cafe with Felix while we waited for Vanessa. We already invited her through her boss, Emily.
We need to get things clear so we won't get to take this case to court and I don't even like the idea of court case.
“I'm sorry I'm late, the traffic was heavy” She apologized immediately she entered and joined us taking a seat opposite mine. She was beautiful as always. Only God knows how much I want to hold her right now.
“It's all good, this is Felix, he's my lawyer and friend and we'll be talking about the custody of our child” I explained
“What child, please? You mean my child” Felix and I looked at each other the same time.
“Vanessa, you need to know the fact that you guys had an agreement three years back.” he brought out the document and passed it to her. “Failure to agree with the contract means we'll take this case to court and you'll lose the custody of your child” Vanessa was still looking at the documents, after she was done with it, she pushed it towards us.
“The documents states that he'll pay 300,000 dollars for the child and he only paid 150,000 dollars”
“If it is the rest of the payment that you need, we'll give that to you” Felix answered
“I never knew you'd stoop this low, Richard. You want to threaten me the same way you did back then, remember it was you who manipulated me into all these mess that I am right now. My life would have been better if not for the fact that you just won't let me live my life in peace”
She cried out.
“I'm sorry Vanessa, for everything but still I need joint custody of my child” I said.
“It's not possible” she replied
“What do you mean by that, the documents clearly state that…”
“.....I give the child to you, right? not children”
“What are you talking about, Vanessa?”
“She was a twin, her twin sister died with the old Vanessa back then and moreover, you only paid half of the money which means you get to have one of the twin and even the document clearly states that I give you one child. So, I decided to give you the dead one because you killed her yourself that night by throwing me out of the house into the street that I knew nothing of.”
Standing up from her seat, she picked up her bag and smiled before leaving us with the shock evident on our faces.
“You don't know what you're in for Richard, you chewed more than you can swallow years back and it's time for you to pay the price. It’s payback time.” She said before leaving finally.