Blackmail Turned Good

Kelly turned to him, she had a sad face on too, and tears in her eyes, she wasn't afraid to show him her emotion. "Marty, I am going to have a hard time leaving you on Monday, but I have to, will you understand?" she asked him tearfully. He knew how she felt, because he was feeling a million times worse already.

"Yes Kelly, I do and I will, but I love you, I will always love you, and I'll have this weekend for the rest of my life to keep you in here," he said, pointing at his heart. She burst into proper tears then, she crushed herself against him, she was falling in love too, with a man thirteen years her junior, but there was nothing she could do to prevent it. He was the nicest, most loving, and considerate man she had ever met.

They made continuous love for the rest of the weekend, in the house, the garden, the garage, even in the babbling brook as it washed over them. By the time Monday lunch time arrived she was in love with him, and she knew it, she would never love her husband again. But she loved her children, so that put everything in its place; nothing could stop her from being their mother.

"I will call you in five years Marty, and that's a promise, I have no idea what the future has in store for me or for you. But in five years we can meet and talk?" She said, as he pulled up outside of her house. "And," she said softly, "I love you with all my heart," tears fell down her cheeks, she grabbed her bag and ran into the house.

Marty watched in shocked silence as she ran away from him, his heart broke, he wept. He sat there for some minutes, then drove away. Her and her husband never got over the incident that the weekend brought. He didn't know Kelly was pregnant and neither did she, not yet. But when she did, her husband ordered her to have an abortion. "I'm not bringing that bastards bastard up in my house," he roared.

Kelly flatly refused to murder Marty's child, and went ahead with the pregnancy, and she had a beautiful, in her eyes, baby boy. Geoff never ever looked at him, and refused to have anything to do with him. It killed their marriage. But Kelly soldiered on for her children's sake. They were old enough o know 'mom, and dad' weren't getting on any more, and the fact that they didn't share bedrooms anymore either.

They urged their mom to either leave, or make dad leave, they were basically on her side and wanted only the best for her. Then fifteen months after the weekend Geoff came home and announced that the company had received a hostile bid for a takeover. And it was certain to succeed, she could see he was worried, guessed why, and asked.

"Are you worried because of the money you stole?" He looked at her and she knew she was right. "You had better put it back then hadn't you?" Thinking it would be easy, it wasn't. And what she didn't know was, he had been greedy enough, and stupid enough beyond belief to have carried on after Marty had exposed him. He had embezzled another 240.000 USD.

Kelly got a call one morning from his office asking her where Geoff was, he hadn't been in since the previous Thursday. Thinking quickly, she told them he was sick with a virus and she had forgotten to call, and saying that she thought she had done so, she apologised profusely. She went to his bedroom; it was a place she had never gone into from the night he first went in.

There was a letter on the table to her.

'Kelly, I have sent in a letter of resignation to my office, they should get it by Tuesday, this is Thursday, I am leaving, you know where to. I have cleared everything, the house and everything we have is yours. Go to your lover, I've had enough, Goodbye.'

Kelly almost fell down, she had no idea he was preparing this, but then again, they didn't speak unless they had to. A feeling of utter relief spread through her, as if a great weight had suddenly been lifted from her shoulders, the weight of the world was gone.

There were letters to each of his two children, bulky ones, she never opened them, but when they came home she sat them down and explained as best as she could that daddy had gone away, and was probably never coming back, but she didn't know for certain. The letters told them how much he loved them, he was sorry, but things were not the way they were, and it would be better all round if he left, he promised one day to return but didn't know when. And also in the letters were documents of trust funds he had set up for them.

A month later, Kelly called Marty. "Hi Marty it's me Kelly, can you talk?" she heard the gasp at the other end. She heard him splutter, and stammer. "I'm sorry you must be busy, I'll call you later," she said.

"NO!" she heard him shout, "I'm here, please don't ring off Kelly."

"Oh Marty it's so nice to hear your voice again, how are you?" "Kelly, this is wonderful but five years you told me, what's wrong, has something happened?" he said breathlessly.

"A lot has happened Marty, can we meet, have a talk, maybe this weekend?"

"Yes Kelly, where and when, I'll be there," he gasped again. She suggested and he agreed.

"Ten o clock then Saturday morning." He said, "And Kelly," he whispered, "I still love you." Kelly smiled to herself, "Ten o clock," she told him and shut her phone off. They met as agreed, sharing a loving hug, Kelly wasn't bothered who saw them, she was free.

She told him everything, but not about his son, not yet. Marty had told her there had been no need to do it, no reason to leave. Because he had personally deleted everything, there was no trace of missing money anywhere, so why? He wondered. Then he clicked his fingers, "I know why," he said, "I can't believe it, Kelly," he said, gripping her hands, "he's kept on doing it, he's carried on taking money, why else would he have done a runner, because that's what he has done, he's run away before the takeover!"

Kelly was stunned, she hadn't thought of that, but what Marty said made more than sense. She asked him about him, did he have a girlfriend, she checked his finger for a ring. His answer was as concise as it could have been. "I'll never love anyone but you Kelly, never." Then he told her about his grandmother who had died at the age of seventy two, and it had been very sudden. He cried as he told her, he had loved her with his heart.

Kelly's heart broke for him, then she told him about Kenneth Mathew, "he is your son Marty, we have a little boy, you and I, and I want you to meet him." Marty sat back, he couldn't speak, his heart was breaking into tiny pieces, tears streamed down his face. "I love you Marty, I want to be with you, please say you love me the same way?" her voice was small and pleading.

Then he jumped up and started running around like a mad man, shouting "yippee, yippee, yipeeeeeeee!" People stopped and stared, Kelly blushed furiously, but happily, her man still loved her. She took him home to meet his son; the boy took to him straight away.

She introduced her older children to Marty as a new friend she had met; she would get around later to telling them that he was Matty's father. Soon he was a part of the Tyler household, he told them he wanted to marry their mom, and asked if he could. They conferred seriously, then told him solemnly that he could but had better take care of her.

A year later the happy family moved into Marty's home, the one his grandmother had left him, and where Kelly and Marty's love had been born.