Friends With A Prostitute

Chapter 31

"My wife wants a divorce," Andrew said, pacing up and down in his office. His lawyer was sitting on the visitor's chair waiting for him to finally say what was on his mind.

"Really? What happened? Wouldn't have thought there was even a rumble in paradise from how happy you guys look at the luncheons," the lawyer replied.

"I think she knows about my affairs."

"I told you to be more careful."

"Brian, this is not the time for 'I told you so.' I'm set to sign one of the biggest business deals of my life with Akula. And you know how conservative the bastard is. I can't let my..." he stuttered for a moment in search of the right word, "domestic affairs ruin it."

"So don't. You signed a prenup, right? You have nothing to fear. Where is the petition? Did you read it?"

"No, not yet. I've been too edged up by all of it." Andrew walked over to the cabinet where he had placed the petition, retrieved it, and handed it to Brian.

"Ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. ID details, kids," Brian leafed through the papers muttering to himself, "annulment of prenup?!" he suddenly stopped. "Okay. That might be a bit of a problem."

"Annulment of the prenup? What? Is that even possible? What does it say?" Andrew was almost ashen in his startle.

"Yep. Exactly that. 'The petitioner prays that the prenuptial agreement be annulled based on evidence of invalidity and that assets be subsequently divided evenly.'"

"Can she do that? She can't do that. Wait... Not Cynthia. Cynthia would never have the guts to do something so brazen."

"It's not frequent but occasionally prenups do get annulled. So, did you screw up the signing? That was probably not a good idea." Brian carried on leafing through the rest of the pages nonchalantly.

"Under what conditions? I thought these were "get out of hell free" cards?"

"Umh... I don't know what they'll bring up but if they're brave enough to put it in the petition then it's probably some damning evidence."

"Come on Brian!" Andrew yelled in an exasperated tone. "I wish you would at least pretend to care. My life is falling apart here!"

"I do care, Andrew. But there's only so much I can do when you constantly ignore my advice. I give you warnings all the time and you toss my advice right the window. What am I supposed to do?"

Andrew sighed. "Okay fine. I promise I'll listen to it all this time. Now tell me, what's happening right now?"

"The only way she can void the prenup is if she proves that it was signed under the wrong circumstances. If it was signed under duress, no proper legal representation or unforeseen circumstances occurred. Anything ring a bell there?"

"I gave her a lawyer when she signed so she had representation." Andrew put air quotes on the word representation. "I didn't force her to sign it. We talked about it. And there are no 'unforeseen circumstances.' What could she be on about?"

"Are you sure though. You know the law is all about finding loopholes. Also, did you mention all your assets in the prenup? Disclose everything?"

"Of course, I did! Who do you think..." Andrew paused as remembered, "There was the lodge that I bought just after my lawyer drew up the prenup. I didn't want to mess everything up by telling him to amend the whole prenup again with the new addition. But there's no way she knows about it. She never comes to my office, and I'm pretty sure her head is too thick to understand any of the business talks I throw at her over dinner." He then paused as if thinking for a moment then added, "To be honest, I just married her for the optics. I love the bachelor lifestyle, but everyone kept going on about settling down and things. And she was easy. Didn't think she would be pulling stunts like these. Anyway, so what do we do now?"

"We'll have to see what they bring up at the negotiations table. You don't want this to go to court do you?"

"No! Never. That bastard Akula might just cancel the deal if he hears about this. Let's keep this between us by the way. This is the one time where I want you to respect the whole attorney-client privilege nonsense."

"Of course, Andrew. Anything for you, my dear." Brian said in a sarcastic tone.

Andrew rolled his eyes, "Geez! You're really something."

"Just tell me the negotiations date, will you. You definitely don't want your lawyer showing up unprepared." Brian winked at Andrew and lightly tapped his chest with the petition.

Andrew, taking the petition from Brian, replied with a mocking smile, "Oh certainly my dear Brian."

But when Brian had gone out the door, the look of exasperation returned to Andrew's face.