Filed to story: The Lingering Kiss of Farewell Novel
“Your actions not only affected the two women at this table, but those travelling with them as well. It affects their itinerary and will, as I’ve already explained, affect any future book tours that Miss Riddley may attend later on with future books.”
“May attend!”
Lisa grated out.
“Marilyn has already stated she’s not ever going to be attending anymore at all. It took me six months to get her to agree to this one, and now Mr Reeves’ actions towards Marilyn, have seen her refuse any more book tours.
“Which will affect the publishing house, our income, and her income. Book tours help generate interest in her works and bring new readers to her as well. Now she no longer intends to do those at all, because of this man and his psychotic behaviour.
“How is he going to compensate for the lost revenue, for not only Miss Riddley, but the publishing house as well. It could also be seen that other authors won’t sign with us now because we didn’t, or couldn’t protect Miss Riddley when on her first ever book tour.”
Marilyn looked at Mr Reeves and his lawyer. One looked more than ticked off and the other just huffed.
“How much do you want?”
was grated out of Calvin Reeves. His eyes moved towards her, like this was all her fault, when she’d not done anything wrong at all.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,”
she stated. She’d just about had enough of his attitude towards her.
“You were the one that approached me, were rude to me on purpose, then you attacked me. In no way did I approach you, or start anything. I didn’t even know who you were, not even at my book signing.
“The person behind you told me who you were, and I denied knowing you, because I do not know you. So, stop glaring at me… I don’t appreciate it, I’m not the one at fault here, you are.”
She grated out at him.
“Me? You bloody vanished and never came back, and now you pretend you don’t bloody know me.”
Calvin grated right back.
“Enough Calvin,”
his own lawyer stated,
“Leave the room if you can’t be calm and rational about this. Mr. Stevens is right, this meeting is not about who you think Miss Riddley is, and if you do anything out of line, there will only be more backlash for you.”
“She’s”
Calvin yelled.
“Out.”
Wil yelled right back and actually stood up himself and hauled Calvin Reeves from the conference room and closed the door on him. When he turned on his own lawyer, a very angry look on his face.
Wil turned back to face them all.
“My apologies.”
He sighed a little.
“Mr Reeves is eaten away by guilt about his missing ex??ife. He also has emotional trauma where she’s concerned, because he was actually there in Italy and saw the plane, she was supposed to be on crash??anding with his own eyes.”
He walked over and sat back down.
“Looking at women that look like Marrin, effects him deeply. It took two weeks of him personally searching for her when no body could be found, in a grief??tricken state, only to find out she wasn’t actually on the plane, and for him to learn she hadn’t died, was simply just missing. No one knows where she is to this day.
“We’ll do this without him. Let’s talk numbers, and please be reasonable and considerate.
“Everyone, it appears, has trauma of their own to deal with.”
Wil sighed a little.
She sat there and internally sighed, as she listened to William lay it all out, why his client couldn’t see straight with her in the same room. What she’d just heard was also likely to be the very reason, Mr Calvin Reeves was so obsessed with women that looked like his ex??ife. He’d been there to see the plane crash, and thought she’d died, grieved her and now women that looked like her tried to claim they were her.
Five of them from what Lisa had found out, over the past eight years, she was likely, in that man’s eyes, nothing more than just another one of those women trying to get to him just for his money. A part of her she guessed could understand him and his anger with women that looked like Marrin.
She could even understand his need to know if she was his missing ex??ife. But why would he attack her if he thought she was that person? Wouldn’t he just be happy to see her and know she was alright? That part didn’t make sense to her at all, unless he was cruel and had been abusive towards his wife, and that was why she’d disappeared, to escape him.
Calvin
He was stalking about in the hallway outside that conference room, because he was more than annoyed, not only with what was going on inside that room, but with himself as well. He’d told himself just this morning as he’d dressed and then stared at himself in the mirror, that he was going to stay calm and be completely rational, and he’d just lost it to his obsession with Marrin and lost his temper once more.
Marilyn Riddley’s words had been correct, and he’d even heard Wil tell him the very same things. She’d not in any way approached him; not once. It was, in fact, all of his own doing. Even when he’d stated to Wil he’d let it go and wait and see if she came to him like all the other women that looked like Marrin did, he’d gone against his own decision.
His obsession with Marrin and her disappearing act seemed to have turned dark and twisted inside him, and he couldn’t, it appeared, contain himself at all while sitting in a room with her right there. He’d glared at the woman, yelled at her and accused her of leaving him and disappearing, then pretending not to know him. He scrubbed a hand over his face. That woman in there was the spitting image of Marrin, but what had been said by her own lawyer was also valid. Marrin had also claimed to have no family to be an orphan herself, and he knew it to be true, but she’d also claimed to know Marilyn Riddley at Wil’s engagement party all those years ago.
Marrin had gotten her to sign that book for Anabell, so how was it that Marilyn claimed not to know Marrin at all, when Marrin had stated that she’d gone to the same university as Marilyn? There was a connection between the two women, even before she’d disappeared. He sighed now as he thought about those things. Trying to piece the puzzle of the two women together.
Could it be that all those years ago, when he was married to Marrin, she’d kept from him that she had a twin sister? Or was it more plausible that Marrin was in fact Marilyn Riddley herself? Had his wife of three years kept her being and author a secret from him?
Anything was possible, he was only at the house two or three nights a week, and with her knowing there was always a divorce pending, would she have told him everything about herself? He thought about that very thing, as he stood and leaned on the wall out there.
