Filed To Story: The Lingering Kiss of Farewell Novel
he asked politely, smiling at her.
She nodded slowly and stuttered
“Y… Yes.”
Recognising who he was, and from all the chatter going on, he was certain she understood why he was here. No one yelled angrily about it, they all knew who he was in this city, and they all knew this woman looked like Marrin.
He stood there waiting just watching this author go about her thing. It was his intent to stand and watch her before stepping over there. She smiled at the woman before her, asked her name and thanked her for coming. and the next in line was waved over to the table.
This woman smiled just like Marrin did. This was the best lookalike he’d ever seen to date, and a part of him didn’t think she was a lookalike, when he heard her chuckle softly, and she sounded just like Marrin as well. His turn came, and he stepped right up to the table, but he could hear the people around him whispering ‘Oh my God, does he really think she’s Marrin?’
‘Is he here to see for himself?’ And he could hear them snapping photos of him, standing right there with the woman in front of him. They all also likely knew what he did to women that posed themselves as Marrin, though this woman had not done that to his knowledge. Was here as Marilyn Riddley, not stating she was Marrin Reeves. Not even Marrin Huxley.
He stepped right to the table, and he could smell her perfume, Pure Luxury. Her eyes he’d caught were blue, and she took a sip of water before greeting him. It was all too convenient for his liking, even the tilt of her head to drink from that bottle was Marrin: This woman was Marrin. He freaking knew it. That woman was back here as someone else to shove her existence in his face.
He snapped that book on the table with a loud c***k in an effort to get her to look up at him and confirm she was Marrin. She, however, other than flinching, didn’t look at him. Her eyes moved to the crowd behind him as the chatter Increased.
He wanted her to look at him for that moment of recognition to hit her. She, however, just stated
“Name to his demand.
He gave it using the name he called her by for those three years, Rin, not Marrin, then spelled it for her to make sure she understood what he was doing. He didn’t move off when it was signed and slid back to him, stood there and waited, knowing his presence towering over her would eventually make the woman look right up at him, and he wasn’t leaving until she did.
Her light blue eyes finally moved to look at him, and there was no recognition in them at all, as she stared right back at him. He was trying to invoke a reaction from her. She, however, sat staring unknowingly up at him, like she didn’t know what he wanted.
He wasn’t ready to leave and those behind him could bloody wait. They all knew why he was here, and they were all getting to see it first hand. He leaned all the way down on the desk and got a really good look at her, the shape of her face, the curve of her mouth, her eyes, everything about her; it was the same.
His eyes were hard on her as she sat staring up at him. She was a hell of an actress to be able to sit there. that close to him and still pretend she didn’t know who he was. To hold his gaze the way she did with a mixture of uncertainty that was starting to evolve into worry, and then she just pushed her chair back and away from him. It was what he wanted, though she didn’t, however, stand up, and he wanted that. He knew. how tall Marrin was, barefooted and in heels.
The clothes she wore weren’t top of the line or by a fancy designer, they were nice, though not a luxury brand he recognised. And she was wearing a long??leeved cream blouse and simple black slacks. Different to Marrin, who had always favoured pastel??oloured clothing.
Her make??p, he noted, was darker in style, not as natural as Marrin would have worn, the mascara was thicker and the lipstick a darker shade. Her hair was styled differently as well. It had been straightened, whereas Marrin preferred to have it slightly curled at the ends and usually up for functions.
This woman’s hair was out, only held back from her face on the right side, with a simple clip. And she had long pieces that framed her face to her chin. Marrin never had those, it however, suited the woman before him and made her look softer.
The blue of her eyes was the same soft periwinkle blue that he knew could twinkle when she was amused by in need of him. They turned to a shade of violet something, or turned on in their marital bed, and she was when she was full of desire and passion, or full of tears and sadness. Like his own eyes, which became more green with emotions, hers were more violet when filled with emotions.
Finally, he stood up and left the book/store. She wasn’t going to give herself away, just like at the airport, she could keep up the charade when face to face with him. He tossed a hundred dollar bill at the lady at the register and stated
“That should cover it.”
Yet again, she was making him shell out money for her.
He’d just paid for her bloody book, and all because he wanted to look at her, needed her to sign a book so he could see what that woman’s handwriting looked like. He knew Marrin’s handwriting and as he walked away from the store he opened that book and read the words she’d written. They were of no consequence to him, but it was Marrin’s handwriting.
No, two people could have the same handwriting. The woman was torturing him. She had to know why he was right there in front of her, to confront her after all these years, and yet she’d signed that book without hesitation, addressed it to herself and not batted a bloody eyelid.
She had just written the name he’d always called her and slid it back across the table to him, like she’d not faked her death and read all the news stories about him out there searching desperately for her.
She would likely have seen the funeral notice and laughed about it even. She was right now sitting back there in that book store, likely fully amused at getting away with everything she’d done to him. Was now rubbing it in his face, just by being here and portraying herself as someone else.
But he knew it was her, and he was going to have her out herself. He was going to break her facade and make her admit it, and then he was going to toss her ass in jail, like all the others that tried to trick him. She was going to rue the day she’d decided to deceive him.
He didn’t leave the area, he would wait for her to finish that book signing and confront her. He wasn’t going to cause a scene, that would draw attention to him, it was likely just what she wanted him to do. No, he would wait until she came out of that store and all her fans were gone, and then he would confront her.
Calvin
He stood leaning on his car the entire time that signing took place after he left the book store, waiting for it to end. The crowd had finally dwindled away, and he watched the store close up. He was now just watching her through the store window. She was in there leaning on the table, had taken a drink, and was chatting with those around her, and then she was just on her phone.
He’d watched her stand up and stretch out, roll her shoulders and c***k her fingers, just like Marrin did after sitting programming for hours. Like he himself did after working for hours. It was definitely her and the longer he had to wait for her to come out of that store, the more his anger notched up at her response to seeing him after all these years, her uncaring, dismissive attitude.
She’d not even gone out of her way to dress up in nice clothes while she was here, had toned it down, he thought, and he wondered briefly if she’d possibly tried to go unnoticed by him. Then he dismissed it. She would have seen the schedule and if she didn’t want him to know who she was, she could simply have declined to come here for a book signing. So she’d come here on purpose. He just knew it.
He watched her agent, he now knew to be Lisa Stevens, go and take that picture down from the wind display, she rolled it up and popped it into a tube, and it dawned on him, she’d not even changed her initials, they were still the same as when she was married to him, It was just another dig at him
Those two women walked from the store talking or Lisa was, and they were headed off down the street, away from him.
“Rin?”
he stated loudly enough for her to have heard him, yet neither of those women turned and looked about for him, and it notched up his anger that little bit more, that even now without a crowd around she would ignore him.
“Marrin?”
he called out angrily, wanting her to turn and look at him, to know he understood exactly who she was. Yet again, she didn’t turn and look at him. It wasn’t like her name was so common that she would hear it being called on the street all the time.
It had been common back in the 2000s but no one used it now. It was considered unpopular and rare even. Just something else he’d liked about the woman he’d married, that her name wasn’t heard all the time in passing. If he did hear it, it usually meant they were talking about his wife, or she was right there.
He shoved off his car after a minute, not liking the disrespect she was showing towards him, and he stalked down the street watching the two women. He heard Lisa state she’d get her a cup of coffee, and heard how Rin’s voice was a little on the hoarse side, likely from talking non??top for the past few hours.
Wil was already mad and annoyed with him as his friend, but even more as his lawyer, the current trending topic was now a photo of him staring down at Marilyn Riddley. It showed him with his hands on the table glaring at her and her upturned face. The tag line read ‘Calvin Reeves, Houston Billionaire face to face with his deceased wife’s doppelg?nger/He looked very angry in that photo, and she looked very uncertain and a little scared, he thought.
There were other threads now going on, about was his wife actually dead? They all knew that no body had been found. There were comments from people in the bookstore saying he’d been angry had slammed that book down on the desk and made demands of her to sign it, his wife’s name even. They all thought he was angry just because she looked like his wife.
Wil had called him and ranted about the publicity he’d gotten for himself, had told him he knew he was still there waiting for that woman to come out of the store, and had told him to walk the hell away, it wasn’t her. But Calvin knew it was Rin, because he knew every detail of her face, every curve of her body, what she smelled like, her mannerisms. This woman he was now stalking towards was Rin. There was no doubt in his mind, he just had to prove it. Get her to slip up, and then he could punish her.
He watched her agent put that tube in a car and told her to stay there. She would go and get them coffee, then she had laughed
“I’d better get cake for the boys too.”
“They’ll love you for that.”
Rin chuckled as Lisa walked away.
He walked right over to her without hesitation and stepped right in front of her, her head whipped up as he entered her personal space.
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.