Chapter 70 - Oliver

**OLIVER**

Actually, Oliver had had a nice, relaxing weekend. No one had bothered him with complaints. No hostess had gotten sick or upset a customer. He had gone out with friends and then slept off the drunkenness. He really couldn’t complain about being bored.
On Monday, he arrived at the office whistling cheerfully and was greeted by a not-so-cheerful Susanne. At that moment his whistle got stuck in his throat. An angry Susanne never meant anything good. As she silently looked at him with pursed lips, the uneasy feeling intensified.
“What’s wrong?” He made a worried face. How could one look ruin the relaxation of a whole weekend?
“Two lawyers! Because of your little stopgap, we now have two lawyers on our backs!”
Oliver shook his head, then demonstratively grabbed his ears and shook them. Then he looked at Susanne with wide eyes. “Repeat what you said. I must have misheard you.”
“You didn’t mishear, Oliver Daron!” his usually good-humored business partner snapped, and he didn’t like it at all. When she was in a bad mood, and right at the beginning of the week, it was really bad. “Alexander Fitzpatrick and Emily Saron sent us letters through their lawyers this morning. Both of them! This morning!”
Oliver was really confused. He couldn’t imagine what could have happened over the weekend that they sent lawyers to him at the same time. “What do the lawyers want?” Before he could think of anything, he needed to know what was going on. So far, it had seemed to him that Alexander and Emily were okay with the development. They hadn’t even taken his... joke... about the dress badly. So why were they getting lawyers now instead of just terminating the contract?
“She sent us one because she was forced to sign something to help her boss and then was blackmailed into continuing to work for us and him.” Susanne looked sternly at Oliver, who now preferred to hide behind his PC. “Did you know that Mr. Fitzpatrick is Emily Saron’s boss?”
“I think she told me,” he admitted slowly. “I think I even told you that the day after we first met.”
Susanne frowned, rifled through her papers, then opened a program on the computer and scrolled through a few pages. “Damn, you’re right! We knew it all along, this doesn’t look good at all.”
“What do you mean?”
Susanne rolled over to him in her swivel chair, taking away his chance to hide. 
“Don’t play dumb! I was going to say that we didn’t know she worked at Fitzpatrick Designs and was one of his employees. But I called the company on Wednesday, the day after their meeting at the Fashion Center. How would I know she worked at Fitzpatrick Designs if she hadn’t told us?”
“But Alexander contacted us,” Oliver objected. “You said you spoke to him on the phone and that he was desperate to see Emily again. So we can claim that he told us - so we didn’t extort a signature from her.”
“Think about it, Olli. If he had told us that she was working for him, we would have had to tell her and pull her out instead of insisting on our contract. We’re not allowed to refer a boss to his own employee!”
Oliver groaned. “Sorry Susanne, I don’t understand anything anymore. So Emily is complaining to her lawyer because she is working as a hostess for her boss, something she knew about all along? And Alexander complains because we sent him his own employee? How does he know she is his employee if neither we nor she told him?”
Susanne sighed. “The clutch.”
“The clutch?” Oliver rubbed his nose and closed his eyes. “Fuck,” he swore. “But why did Alexander wait so long to send a lawyer after us? He could have talked to her immediately.”
Susanne rolled back to her desk and picked up two letters. They must have been written over the weekend, and a courier had brought them this morning. Which accountant would do such a thing? With both lawyers, it was definitely Alexander Fitzpatrick who was behind it! They really didn’t have to fight, all they had to do was ask him if he would let them off lightly. They had no chance against the billionaire!
Oliver read the letters. Both demanded the cancellation of the contracts, payment of horrendous damages, and threatened to sue again if any information about the mediation was made public. They wrote of emotional cruelty, blackmail, coercion, defamation.
“Are they crazy?” Oliver threw the letters in the air and looked incredulous. “Pain and suffering money for romantic encounters?”
Susanne sighed and rolled her eyes. Oliver growled angrily because she didn’t seem to be upset about the lawyers’ letters, only about the fact that he had hired Emily in an unusual way.
“I should have torn up those contracts on the spot. But Ms. Saron didn’t sound like she had anything against mediation. I just can’t prove it in court. So we’ll bite the bullet and agree to everything, Oliver.”
“Wait! It’s not that simple. I’m going to meet with Emily and talk to her. I’m sure I can convince her to withdraw the lawyer. After all, she knows I didn’t blackmail her. She agreed to everything voluntarily.” Oliver nodded confidently. He knew he was good-looking and was convinced that she couldn’t resist his charm if he used it correctly.
“Oliver, believe me, you don’t stand a chance. Just think of that scandalous dress.” Susanne sighed. “What were you thinking, sending her such a rag in the name of Alexander Fitzpatrick? I fear it was our undoing. It certainly caused them both to consult lawyers.”
“Think about it, Susanne, we can’t pay damages. If the contracts are canceled, we will have to pay Alexander back the money he already transferred for Emily. Plus damages for both of them. We don’t have the financial means for that!”
His business partner sighed, ran her hand over her forehead and slumped her shoulders. “I know. But I warned you. Again and again. You and your unorthodox methods of acquisition. It was bound to come back and bite us in the ass.”
“I’ll make an appointment with Emily right away. She can’t be so heartless as to want our downfall.” He smiled, but now his smile was a bit more hesitant. Maybe Susanne was right and he had led the agency into an unpleasant dead end. He could forget his dream of a great comeback with Mr. Weber and a new name for the agency. But he wasn’t giving up yet.
“You’ll see, Susanne, Emily won’t sue us.” And he hoped he was right.