Filed To Story: The Lingering Kiss of Farewell Novel
Wil could only agree with her because the hire car out of Houston was under Marilyn Riddley’s name and everything in Marrin’s world had been shut down that very afternoon. He was willing to bet she wrote a computer programme for herself, to wipe Marrin Reeves’ existence from everything. Her bank account had been closed, and she’d actually turned in her passport as Marrin Reeves to the courthouse. It was a part of the process.
So, someone in the courthouse had accepted it, pretended to process it but then stole it and gave it to some drug dealer to use. He was going to have to report that, so it could be investigated by the courts itself how it went missing.
He had Marilyn’s accident report and all the photos to go along with it. He also now had her medical records because he’d filed an official missing persons report on Marrin Reeves the day after Marilyn had been secreted away from Calvin. Though he’d not told Calvin that, he had done it as Marrin’s lawyer.
Wil had let that missing report sit for two weeks and then had Anabell contact both the hospital and police in Virginia in a full legal capacity to get the files, with reference to needing to clarify if Marilyn Riddley was in fact Marrin Reeves.
It was an underhanded, roundabout way of doing it, but both he and Anabell knew Marilyn wasn’t just going to give them what they wanted, after the way Calvin had been. It was legal and above board, but sneaky and underhanded at the same time.
1 guess having a writer’s mind allowed Marrin to sit and plot and plan it all out, and she had the time to organise it as well.”
Anabell chuckled softly.
“Her books are full of people moving in the shadows just like this.”
It’s not funny Anabell.”
Wil frowned at her. He didn’t see the funny side to it at all.
“Yes, it is,”
she stated, and looked right at him.
“Calvin thought he was so smart, and she out maneuvered him with ease. Even if the plane had not crashed, he’d have been left in Italy standing there like an i***t with flowers and an engagement ring ready to propose. And all because he divorced the woman he loved, and she believed he wanted to kick her out of the country. She left as he wanted, just did it on her terms, not his. She even gave him what he wanted without a fight.”
Wil couldn’t even argue with her about it. He had the footage of Marrin at the airport that day. She’d been all dressed up and looked beautiful even. Calvin had gotten copies of all of it, and after he’d twisted things in his mind, he’d ordered Wil to destroy it all. But Wil hadn’t. He’d kept it for this very day when he found Marrin, and proved his own theory right, that she’d not made that call to Calvin on purpose, just to make him think she was dead. It was because she didn’t want him to think she was dead.
All he had to do now was write it all up as it was laid out; in chronological order, duplicate it and set things into motion, for what he needed to happen; himself, Liam and Marilyn all in a room together to discuss everything he was going to show them, Wil knew that he could not just hand this information over to Calvin, the man would get on his jet and hunt the woman who was currently likely to be terrified of him and just make things worse for himself.
Wil was the only one to know everything about Calvin and Marrin and have copies of it all right from the beginning to this moment now. Their marriage contract, the marriage certificate, the divorce papers that she herself had amended by hand, those things she wanted from Calvin. Seeing her personally to the airport and the kiss goodbye, they were her demands, not Calvin’s.
They should help him to convince her that she had loved him, and when he told her why they’d divorced, and he was going to have to, he imagined, she might actually be able to come to understanding Calvin, and believe he loved Marrin.
Calvin did have a right to be a part of his children’s lives and a simple DNA test would show they were his. Will even knew when they were born now. It was in her medical files, she’d birthed them in the same hospital, where she had recovered from her accident.
He didn’t know how Calvin was going to handle the truth of everything when Wil laid it all out for him. Her accident and calling him at the time of them over here in the USA hearing about that plane crash, Wil suspected it was to tell him she was alright, not to make him think she was dead.
Her having amnesia was going to be a big issue for Calvin to deal with, but with all the evidence he had and a proper diagnosis of it and Marilyn’s life having moved on as it had, that should help convince him it was the truth.
The twins were also a concern, and though a DNA test could prove that easily, Calvin had assaulted their mother and not just once but twice. He’d harmed her and put her in the hospital. The boys were going to know this, and that might see them not want anything to do with him. That was going to hurt Calvin. He’d wanted a family with her, had one now and just didn’t know it.
Then harming Marilyn, who was actually Marrin, all those things Wil had stated in the car after that first attack was right. Marilyn was Marrin’s alter ego and she herself would know when she got all of this that
Calvin was her ex??usband and he’d been the one to harm her. It’s likely that very thing was not going to go down so well with her at all, only feed her thoughts on Calvin being an abusive ex and make her not want anything to do with him.
Calvin had been buried in work for the past few weeks, but Wil didn’t actually think he’d given up on what he wanted. No, it was likely the man was just sitting back biding his time, until that restraining order was over. He was too quiet for Wil’s liking, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it at this point, Calvin hadn’t once mentioned Marrin or Marilyn’s name over the past few weeks.
Wil thought he was going to get up and head for Marilyn’s home in Virginia the minute he was allowed to. That Calvin would actively hunt her down. If he’d not already found out where she lived, he could have had his tech team look into it on the quiet, without telling WII.
Wil’s gut told him it wasn’t actually over. Wil just had to pre??mpt it and get to Marilyn first and going through her lawyer was the quickest and easiest way, less chance of more charges being laid; only on him this time.
So he compiled everything and attached a letter addressed directly to Liam Stevens and had it couriered over to him. He knew when that man signed for it as well, got a text from the company saying it was delivered.
Careful planning is what was now needed to happen. He did not want Marilyn running with her boys either, like she might now believe she had done once before, to escape from an abusive ex-husband in order to protect herself and her children.
So he played the devil’s hand, offered up mediation without Calvin in one hand and, if that was declined, offered to just hand everything he’d found out over to Calvin himself; to let the chips fall as they may. It was a bluff, but they wouldn’t know that.
He was Calvin’s lawyer, and so it should be seen as he would actually do that, but for now he was offering to try and sort this out without Calvin having to know, until that restraining order was over. An offer and a veiled threat is what it really was. All in order for him to get what he wanted, Marilyn in a room with himself, to try and explain things to her, and maybe see her not be afraid of Calvin, and come to understand him and maybe give the man a fresh chance at proving he wasn’t a brute and did not only love her but want her and the children in his life to cherish forever.
The romantic in him wanted to fix it all. The lawyer and cynic in him didn’t know if it was at all acheivable.
2
Marilyn
She had been returned to her home in Bedford and her life was once again peaceful. It was just her and the boys for the rest of the summer, though with her broken ankle and fractured wrist, the dizziness she still suffered at times, they couldn’t really do much. She was pretty much house or yard bound for the foreseeable future.
Her follow??ps with her neurosurgeon here in Bedford, the same one she’d been under for her original accident, had run his own tests to compare her to her old ones. He’d asked her questions about how this new head injury had come about and frowned at learning she’d fallen down a flight of stairs.
She’d left out all the other details about Calvin Reeves. This man had known about the name of the person she’d called from her car the day of the accident. He’d been in the room when the police had come to question her.
He also looked at her children. He’d seen them when they were just babies during her follow??p appointments. She still had annual visits for neurological reviews. It was something she had to do for the rest of her life, seeing as she’d had a traumatic brain injury.
He knew their names, had greeted them when she’d gone into his office ‘Morning Cal, Vin.”
And she’d had to ignore the shiver that ran through her body upon hearing it. Everyone said it like that, as she did herself, when calling them for lunch or dinner.
“Cal, Vin, come and eat dinner is ready,”
she’d holler out to them.
Something she did every single day of her life since they were old enough to play on their own and be called for meals. Something that was ingrained into her and, after being in Houston, now sent a shiver through her at hearing their names put together like that. Because it put a mental image of Calvin Reeves in her mind’s eye.
Though it wasn’t a pleasant image for her to see, his face was distorted in anger every time she saw it, because that was all she’d ever gotten from him, even in that one mediation he’d gotten angry. Calvin Reeves and anger just went hand in hand for her now.
So, she was trying to be mindful of her own words when calling the boys to her now. She used their full names, Callum and Vincent, and even put the ‘and’ in between their manes to prevent herself from seeing that man’s angry image in her mind’s eye.
It hadn’t gone unnoticed by the twins either, and the first time she’d actively stated it that way, they’d both looked at her as if they were in trouble, and she’d had to wave it off, though that had made her realise she only used their full names when they were being roused upon. Something they themselves understood. She’d had to wave it off.
Though they also knew the name of her stalker was Calvin, and Callum had stood staring at her just a week ago after they’d gotten home, and she’d stated without much thought,
“Cal, Vin. When addressing them, and he’d seen that shiver run through her and her shake her head, and huff a little, as she tried not to picture Calvin Reeves in her minds eye, and Callum had stated himself
“You know mum our two names together are his first name. Did you know that?”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.