Destinies Collide

An Eventful Dinner

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Hullo dear readers, I'm Yume and this is my first Wattpad book. Since I was already crossposting this fic in Ao3 and fanfiction.net, I figured I might as well do it here too right? It might even motivate me to update faster XD

Welcome and enjoy the ride!

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July 19th, 1988

Michael Wright believed himself to be a good person. He paid his taxes, was polite to his neighbours, friendly at the workplace, and made regular donations to charities he became involved with within his line of work. On the other hand, his line of work was the law, which for many might sour his argument on goodness. Still, as a self-proclaimed decent member of society, he believed himself aware of good and bad characters, and a reasonably sharp judge of it, which is why he had a feeling his current client was of the latter sort. Michael's work at Macfarlanes is usually with private clients, which is why he finds himself slightly wrongfooted in attempting to lay out the terms of a merger along with a representative from Grunnings - and a new one at that, given he does not remember his past dealings with the company being as unpleasant.

"I'm not sure about this, Mr Dursley" he held back a sigh and attempted to mentally word an argument as to why the offer was not acceptable in a way that didn't tell his client it would be acting in bad faith.

He'd learned in the past two hours that Mr Dursley took exception to being referred to as anything other than a pillar of society, nevermind that the supposed offence was an offhand comment on the number of employees being replaced as opposed to incorporated into the company, which would prove both time-consuming and wasteful.

"I advise you to reconsider" Dursley insisted, propping large hands on the desk before standing from the chair and looking down at him "Why not come by the house and discuss this over dinner, tomorrow night? It's a big deal, boy... unless you think you can't handle it? I'm sure your boss could assign someone more experienced for the job."

"Of course, I can handle it," Michael assured the man, not taking as much offence to his workability as he probably hoped. Truth is, while some of his clientele was quite similar to Mr Dursley, his preferred cases were pro-bono, of which he had the highest amount in the company, and thus left him unused to following the whims of big businesses and their representatives. Unfortunately, to be able to continue taking as many pro-bono cases as he liked, he had to continue dealing with less-than-desirable paying clients.

"Then it's settled, I'll let Petunia know to expect a guest" The man smiled in satisfaction and walked out before Michael could get a word in.

"Wait, I didn't mean-" he attempted anyway but to no avail. With a sigh, he let his shoulders drop and ran a hand through his dark hair. If Dursley thought being fed would make him blind to the joke of an offer their company wanted to present, he had another thing coming. Macfarlanes may do many things, but knowingly negotiating in bad faith is not one of them.

There was, at least, a good side to the end of that meeting, he noted as he parked his car in the garage of the large house, and it was that he was able to get home earlier. Not that there was anyone, in particular, waiting for him, at least not until morning when Marie would come by to tidy things up and prepare a week's worth of meals. Other than that, there was nothing but a large and empty house left for him after his mother's passing. Uncaring of his solitude, Michael went through the motions of washing himself and reheating some dinner, the long hours of the week seeming to catch up to him, and, soon enough, he'd fallen into a restful sleep.