WHAT IF [L.S]

TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

- Edited -

Last night was insane, I couldn't sleep until almost four am because all the events just kept repeating in my mind. The first part of the plan was a success. And it was all because of me.
Louis couldn't sleep either, he was as excited as I was. We stayed up late talking and laughing like we haven't done for a long time.
We were happy.

They still needed to give our music back, though. So until that didn't that happened I couldn't talk to Eleanor to see how the second part of the plan was.

This morning I woke up with my phone ringing, it was my lawyer. I accepted his call and he informed me everything that happened in the past twelve hours.
It appeared that he had a call from the representatives of SYCO Music, and they wanted to talk to us and settle a new agreement.
I told him that I didn't want any more agreements, I will only settle if they'd give me my music career back.
He told me that if we wanted that, first we needed to hear what their conditions were.

So, kind of exhausted, I accepted to meet their representatives with the companionship of my Lawyer, and of course Louis.

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The meeting took place in a private hotel restaurant. There were nine people at that table. Me, Louis, both of our lawyers, a representative of Columbia Records, a representative from SYCO MUSIC, a lawyer in name of Sony, a representative from Modest Management, and the one and only, Simon Cowell himself.

"Well, we all are aware of the events that happened last night, under the leadership of Mr. Harry Styles here." - Their lawyer started. - "a couple of days before, we received a copy of this contract signed by Mr. Harry Styles, where he stated that he knew the terms of the non-defamation contract. Based on this signature, and watching last night public statement, Sony Music, SYCO Music, Modest Management and Columbia Records are in their rights to start a lawsuit against Mr. Harry Styles for defamation."

"My client didn't break that contract." - My lawyer replied.

"I'm pretty sure he had. We have it recorded on tape. We can watch it if you like."

"I don't have to. Because you'll see, based on that non-defamation contract my client couldn't speak about the experiences those labels put him through if he was with his husband companion, which he wasn't. Because Mr. Louis Tomlinson here was at his house last night. Is that right?" - He said looking at Louis.

Louis nodded in agreement.

"So, my client didn't actually break his contract because it didn't say anything about talking in public on his own. Didn't it?
Besides, I'm pretty sure you can tell by watching that tape you have, that my client was reading a letter. He wasn't technically speaking in public, he was reading a previous written letter. Which you can't confirm he wrote after signing those papers. He could have written months before, maybe it wasn't even his letter, he just read it in a tv show. Your contract doesn't forbid him from reading, does it?"

The lawyer from Sony was giving me a death look, he was angry, we had beaten him up with his own contract.
He couldn't answer anything, he didn't have any clue of what to say, and I could tell he wasn't expecting it.
The room stayed in silence for a couple of seconds. Until my lawyer started talking again.

"So, as I see that nobody is going to argue about it, my client has some requests before leaving this room for good."

The lawyer in front of us nodded in agreement.

"First, you are going to set a price for each of their solo albums. Louis' and Harry's. The price would have to be affordable and logical for them to buy.
And by buying I mean buying all of their author rights, so the both of your labels won't have anything to do with them anymore.
Their albums would no longer be linked to any of you, or the people you represent. Is that clear?"

"I'm not going to do that." - Simon replied.

"Well I guess we have nothing else to do here, then. And Harry can continue speaking publicly of all the things you've done to him. And I'm pretty sure he left a lot of things out yesterday. You'll have to deal with the bad publicity Simon."

My lawyer stood up and started to pick up his folders. I knew what he was doing, he was being provocative to him, so I followed his lead and stood up as well. Ready to walk out of that door. Louis smiled at me as well, he also understood and came with me to the door.

"Ok! We will settle. Come back." - Simon's voice reverberated all over the restaurant.

"I wasn't finished with the requests of my client." - My lawyer continued. - "They also want full rights and ownership of their names, and One Direction's name. They both want to buy their ⅕ part of the band and all of the songs they wrote with the totality of their royalties. And as you may know, most of those songs were written by the two of them. Any question so far?"

The people in front of us denied with their heads.

"Great, so everything is clear now. Of course you'll have to undo this last non-defamation contract, because Mr. Harry Styles and Mr. Louis Tomlinson, from now on are their own owners, they own their freedom of speech and their freedom to appear publicly they way they want to. With nothing more to add, you can send those papers and the settlement for their music in the morning. Goodbye."

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I know this chapter maybe was a little boring :( but I didn't want to leave this part out of the story because it is when everything is defined. So yes...

And I just wanted to say that I'm a huge fan of lawyers tv shows, so this was quite funny to do from my perspective. I think I might have been a lawyer in a past life or something. Idk.
I promise the next one is going to be better.

And I almost forgot! This story is coming to an end soon. I'm not sure if two or three more chapters left. So enjoy as much as you can.

You know you can always read my other ones as well! 😬

Mag 🦋