Filed to story: The Lingering Kiss of Farewell Novel
Wil sighed.
“Normally you’re quite level-headed.”
“This is very different. I didn’t expect to feel this way, at all,”
he muttered and downed that drink.
“Pick me up in the morning.”
He held his card out to the bartender,
“both of us,”
he stated to the bartender. He dressed nicely in the morning but didn’t overdo it, and he let himself into the house at Cliffside, only to find Rin was standing right there in the foyer, a large vase on the table, and she was making a flower arrangement for those flowers. Her eyes moved to him and then Wil
“What can I do for you?”
she asked, and then turned back to placing flowers into the vase.
“I’m just here to pick up a few things from the office, and a couple of suits,”
he told her.
“Alright.”
She shrugged.
“I won’t bother you.”
He looked at her and wanted to ask if she was alright, but he knew she wasn’t, not really. She was normally one to always smile at seeing him. She’d not done so today. He looked at Wil and nodded towards her before walking away. He heard Wil state
“Anabell really liked the gift you got her.”
“I’m glad,”
was all she stated in return, and it didn’t sound like she was interested in making small talk.
“I was curious about how you know Marilyn Riddley. No one seems to know who she is. A pen name is what Anabell told me.”
“I went to college with her. It’s how I have all her books,”
Rin answered him. That surprised Calvin. He’d not known that, that she had all of that author’s books. It seems she had some secrets he didn’t know about. He retrieved a few files from his office. Things he worked on when he was here overnight. Sometimes sleep didn’t happen and he would work while Rin slept. He headed upstairs and looked about and, yes, there on her dressing table were two books that had Marilyn Riddley’s name on them. Nothing else in here had changed, everything was as it had always been, neat and tidy, the bed made and the windows open to let the summer breeze in, something she always did. He knew that was to do with her past. One of the foster homes hadn’t been so good, and she’d been locked up in a room with no windows on more than one occasion, and now couldn’t stand to be in a dark confined space. It was also the reason he’d bought this house. Their bedroom was very large and spacious, and had large windows to let the light in. And all that open space out there behind the house and out to the ocean, she had all the light and space she could ever possibly want. Nothing in this house was dark or claustrophobic in any way. He walked over and pulled out the suits he needed to take with him and lay them on the bed before walking into the bathroom and opening the bathroom cabinet. He picked up her birth control and looked at it. She’d stopped taking it, and by the look of it, the day they’d signed their divorce papers. He smiled a little, he’d thought she would, that would go in his benefit for his plans, as well. Everything was going to be just fine, he reminded himself. She would understand, and he thought tear up a little, hug him, maybe pummel him when she realised what he’d done, but she loved him. He knew that. That love would win out over any anger, and she would be happy, they would be happy, and he could give her that baby she wanted, the right way. They would come home from Italy happy and with a baby on the way he was hoping. He just had to contain himself until that divorce was finalized, and then he could give her everything she wanted. She would understand him. He put it back in the cabinet right where she always kept it, and collected his suits and files and headed back downstairs. He didn’t really need any of these suits, just the files from his office, but collecting them was a good excuse to check her birth control was all. She wasn’t in the foyer, but the flowers were there, a lovely bunch of Calla Lilly’s with Orchids, and he looked at Wil questioningly, and he shrugged and stated
“She finished the flowers and then just left the house, went for a walk. It looked to me like she was heading to the cliff,”
Wil stated. Cal nodded, it was one of her favourite places to be up there. She’d bought that bench seat herself and had it moved up there to sit on, liked the ocean breeze she’d told him once. He glanced in the direction of it as he headed for the car, and she was walking in that direction at a casual stroll.
A Kiss Goodbye
Rin She’d spent those six weeks sorting out a new life for herself away from this place, away from Huston, Texas, where he might see her and realise she’d not done what he wanted, a place where she’d chosen, and a place she’d never have to lay eyes on him or hear about him, just like she wanted, not what he wanted. Calvin might want to send her away overseas to a place he never went, but she wasn’t going to go. She could, however, make him think that she was going to. It wouldn’t even be that hard. He would see her walk into that international airport, could well not even bother to, but she had a feeling that he would watch to make sure she left. He, however, couldn’t go past the security check-in, so once she was past them and was inside the actual airport, what she did with herself was up to her. Rin spent those weeks house hunting for a small quiet cabin in the mountains, not just outside of the city, but away from anywhere that was in his domain of Texas. That encounter in the stairwell, his words, she’d still be his, even after divorcing her. She understood it meant that he could control her always, because he had the money to do so. She didn’t know why he had to be so cruel as to force her away. A simple settlement like he’d stated, when they’d made their agreement would have done it. But no, he was a billionaire and had to be in control of all those around him, including her. She couldn’t stay here, or be anywhere that he was, because he would, she knew, find a way to make her leave, to get what he wanted. Which, in all likelihood, was her well away from the woman he’d found, thought was Mrs Right. She’d already sorted out her change of name, done all the running around and gotten all the proof that was required of her. All she needed to do was file it after her divorce was finalised. She couldn’t do it until then. She’d organised that court hearing for the day she was supposed to leave, just later in the afternoon. Everything was in order and so far there were no problems, to stop her from legally becoming her pen name, Marilyn Riddley, her initials would even be staying the same. Not that it would matter. She could change it to whatever she wanted to. She’d had to make a couple of trips in the past month to her soon-to-be new hometown in Bedford, Virginia to look at the house and land she’d purchased. She’d already put it under Marilyn Riddley, she had a business account under her author’s name and the house was now attached to that. She’d also already transferred all her funds into that account. Rin had driven herself out there and not flown. She didn’t want anyone to know what she was hopping on and off flights, and tell Calvin or ask him why his wife was going somewhere, and she knew she could well run into Calvin himself. He travelled a lot. Though in the years they’d been married, he’d never, to her knowledge, travelled to the state of Virginia. So that was a good place to settle down and disappear just like he wanted of her; only she was going to do it her way. It was a solid two-day drive there, and two days back, but she lived in Cliffside by herself and so it went unnoticed by anyone. She’d gotten to walk around the house she’d put a deposit on. It was on six acres of land, a beautiful white country cabin-style home with just two bedrooms that had a nice flowing creek that snaked by it out the back, and there were nice nature walking trails, in the forest with waterfalls and wildlife about. A quiet out-of-the-way place where she could be someone completely new, and no one would know she was the ex-wife of a billionaire. She would just be Marilyn Riddley, author. She did a fair bit of shopping. Once that money was deposited into her account last week, he’d actually paid the four million and the price tag that the house was worth as well. She probably didn’t have to work anymore if she didn’t want to. She had a whole new wardrobe, and she’d changed her look and style, was changing everything to fit in with her new life, to be a new person. She was in the foyer of the house with her one suitcase when Calvin arrived at the house to pick her up. He was dressed casually today. It seemed he didn’t want anyone to recognise him, just wearing jeans and tee-shirt. She watched him push his sunglasses up on top of his head to sit in his hair.
“Rin.”
He greeted her. Though then his eyes moved over her, she was wearing full make-up and her hair was out and splayed around her shoulders, in big curls, and she stood in heels and was wearing a lovely tee-length flowing dress. It was a soft shade of apricot, with sleeves that had a little ruffle to them. It had large dark apricot-coloured flowers mixed in with soft pink flowers with black and grey blurred leaves. It was elegant, yet casual at the same time.
“Mr Reeves.”
She greeted him, and his eyes shot right to hers. She’d called him Cal when they were married. Calvin once she had signed those divorce papers, and now it was finalized; as of midnight last night, she was officially his ex-wife, so Mr Reeves was appropriate for their now non-existent relationship.
“That’s a bit formal, don’t you think?”
She looked at him. No she did not, she placed the house keys on the foyer table by the empty vase, which would normally be filled with flowers.
“The house keys,”
she stated, and then placed the car keys next to them.
“The garage door opener is in the car as it always is, I had everything in the house laundered, and the car detailed for you.”
she told him
“The gardener will be here the day after tomorrow, I’ve prepaid him, and then you have to manage it yourself. I’ve left a list of things on the dining room table that will need your attention within two weeks. To keep the house maintained.”
She reached for her suitcase and his hand landed on it.
“I can get that.”
He muttered,
“You know Rin, you don’t need to do all of this.”
“I’m simply returning to you, all the things you gave me in the same condition, a common curtesy now that we’re divorced. That is all.”
