Chapter 242 - Mistresses And Bastards All Over The Place

Long chapter incoming

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"Maybe she could be adopted or something." Zaria made a guess. She couldn't think of Erika as Nathaniel's granddaughter no matter how hard she thought about it. It just made no sense. 

However, Zeus laughed at her statement as though she was a jealous child acting out after finding out that she had a larger family than she thought. "You just don't want to be lumped together with her, right?" 

She huffed at him. "I don't know about that. Do you want to be lumped together with her? As her beloved elder cousin?"

"Ew, of course not!" He looked like he was on the verge of barfing, making her roll her eyes. Who was the dramatic one, exactly? 

Desmond cut in before the siblings could grab each other's throat out of mutual frustration. "Do you think Erika was sent to this company by her on purpose because Nathaniel had wanted to use her from the word go?" 

Zaria thought hard about it. "When exactly did he find out that I was his granddaughter?" She thought back to their first meeting in Luxenville, where the elderly man had dramatically asked about her parents' names and surnames.  Considering how much she resembled Lucy, it was highly likely that he had thought about their striking resemblance and considered the possibility that I could be his long-lost daughter's child. Could that be the time when he investigated her background?

"Erika came to the company after my meeting with Nathaniel. However, I looked into her family background before hiring her and she is an orphan. She grew up in foster care until she was sixteen, when her family put her out on the streets. She is definitely not Nathaniel's biological granddaughter." 

Zeus pondered, pacing  around the office lightly. "That's unless she was his granddaughter to begin with, and one of her parents was his long lost child." 

"How many long-lost children does he have, exactly?" It was baffling. But this was Nathaniel they were talking about. If he was the kind of father that Lucy described, it would be shocking if any of his children was still in contact with him. 

"The right question should be, does he have any child who is still in contact with him?" Zeus asked the question that had just crossed her mind. "I mean, no one wants a father who wouldn't even let them fart without his permission." 

When Zaria glared at him for his choice of words, he cleared his throat. "According to mother, he had mistresses and bastards all over the city." 

"Yikes." She frowned in disgust.

"Calling a random man "grandfather" is creepy, don't you think?" He added, more convinced that Erika could in fact be the daughter of one of Nathaniel's innumerable bastards. 

"Maybe he found out that his granddaughter just happens to work for the company he wants to destroy. I mean, what are the odds?" Zeus was almost impressed by the coincidence. 

"I still want to talk to mother about it." Zaria decided. Lucy was currently in a meeting with Natalie so she would find her later to discuss the matter. 

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Meanwhile, Natalie had been discussing random ideas with Lucy but she still couldn't figure out what the woman before her was up to. One had to note that Lucy and her were not close enough for small talk, no less during working hours. 

"You said you had a proposal for me." She probed. 

"Yes. Do you want a cup of coffee?" She offered. When Natalie nodded, she poured them each a cup from the coffee machine that Zaria had placed in her office for convenience. 

Natalie took a tiny sip of hers while waiting for the woman to speak. 

"I'm creating a new application, Dawn. I want you to own it." Lucy spoke. 

"Is that some gift of sorts?" Natalie was puzzled. It was odd in every way. Why would Lucy want to give her a gift, and even if she did, why would it be an application called Dawn?

"Not exactly." Lucy responded to her doubt by letting her have a look at the desktop version of the application on her desktop. "You will be working for me. You only need to handle the management side of things."

Natalie was baffled the more she looked at it and in the end, she shook her head. "I don't understand. Dawn is quite similar to Twilight. Besides, what's with the name? Twilight and Dawn? Don't get me started on how the logos are opposites." She observed that Twilight had a tiny setting sun in its logo while Dawn had a tiny setting moon. " Aren't you giving yourself competition?"

"That's exactly what the purpose of Dawn is." She sipped her coffee with a slight smile. "The comparison will get people talking. It's a great way to know what our consumers need. Of course, everyone will be waiting for me to sue the owner of Dawn for copyright infringement and follow the news closely." 

"What happens if Dawn thrives better than Twilight?" She wondered aloud. 

"After all the publicity, I'll buy it back as part of Twilight. Dawn focuses on different fields from Twilight anyway, and I was going to add said fields to Twilight someday after all." 

Natalie was baffled. So, from the word go, she was going to expand Twilight. But instead of doing that directly, she wanted to cause such a huge drama just to give herself publicity. "Yeah. You are wicked." 

"Am I?" She let out a soft laugh. 

Natalie knew that there was no use dwelling on the fact that Lucy was using the unsuspecting media so she dropped that fact. "You are trying to use me so tell me, why do I need to collaborate with you on this? What's in it for me?" 

"I know about your startup. If you want, I can fund it." She tempted her. 

Natalie was not moved in the slightest. "If I'm going to start a company, I would be prepared for whatever it takes, don't you think? I have enough money for that." 

Her words earned her a meaningful giggle from Lucy before the latter tore apart her argument. "Money which you earned working for your family. You know better than anyone that you don't want to be entangled with your family in any way, even if it's financially. Besides, you were going to start said company with your boyfriend…I mean, ex-boyfriend, who you no longer want anything to do with. What will you do now? Ask your best friend, Desmond, to fund it?" She didn't give Natalie time to defend her move. "Come on, Nat. He is a businessman. He is not going to do anything that doesn't give him maximum profit and that's not going to be the best deal for you. Not to mention, he has a girlfriend now." 

Natalie facepalmed. This was so much like Lucy. Create a problem where there is none and offer a solution for it. 

"You don't trust me." Lucy observed.

"Like I should." Natalie frowned. "Why would anyone in their right mind trust a tycoon like you?"

"Should I take that as a compliment?" 

Natalie crossed her arms defensively. "You and my family are not in the best relationship. How can I be certain that you are not trying to lure me into your trap?"

"What would I gain from that?" Asked Lucy, as though it was an outrageous accusation even though they both knew that it wasn't.

"How would I know? Maybe your plan all along is to sue me in the end. It could help you get revenge against my family for whatever they did to you." Natalie pointed out directly. 

"I have a reason to believe that this is exactly why contracts exist." She picked a stack of paper from the folder tray and pushed it in front of her. "Besides Natalie, the grudge between your mother and I is in the past. I won't pretend to have forgiven her but I won't go after you because you are her daughter either." 

It was unsettling hearing Lucy talk about it that way, and it evoked her curiosity. "What kind of grudge?" 

"None that should be your concern." Dismissed the older woman. 

"Touché." Natalie read through a few clauses of the contract and when she saw the severe consequences for any party who would breach it, she was convinced that Lucy did not intend any malice. "I'll think about your deal after reading all the clauses of the contract." 

That was a done deal, so Lucy moved to the next topic. "There is something else I need to talk to you about."

"What may that be?" Natalie looked up from the papers.

"My son." 

What an odd topic, Natalie thought. "Well? What about Zeus?"

Lucy intertwined her fingers as though this was the last thing she had ever wanted to have to discuss. "You are a reasonable woman, Natalie." She started. " And by that, I mean intelligent and smart. On the other hand, my son is reckless. There are things he may neither understand nor want to understand."

This was one of those infamous topics that every woman hated, thought Natalie, and she went straight to what she knew must be Lucy's point. "So you want me to stay away from him." 

Lucy did not deny it but didn't directly admit it either. "It's not that I dislike you. Hell no." She explained. " If I were to choose a daughter-in-law for myself, I would choose you over anyone else." 

"Actually, I'm not sure I want to be the daughter-in-law of the businesswoman I find scheming." She laughed it off like a joke but Lucy knew she was offended. 

"We would make a good team. I mean, who supports a man more than his wife does, right? I would definitely want a woman I can trust beside him. And I would do everything to help you if you need it. But that can't happen, unfortunately." 

Natalie was initially uninterested in the topic and couldn't be bothered to react, but Lucy's last words made her spine go rigid. 

"Why?" She asked. "If you like me so much that you think of me as a potential daughter-in-law and partner, then why do you want me to stay away from the man who could make that possible?" 

Lucy remained silent for a minute too long, and Natalie took that as refusal to answer her question. She gathered the rest of her stuff and shoved the contract into a folder before grabbing her bag. "Then I'll be on my way. Don't worry. I have no ounce of feelings for Zeus and definitely no intention to get together with him." 

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AN 

Why do you think Lucy is adamant to tear Zeus and Natalie apart? 

The next chapter will be up in 3-4 hours.