(Sybil’s POV)Panicking, I grabbed my phone right away and called Mark. After what seemed like an eternity, I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard his voice. “Mark,” I said after we got the usual greetings out of the way, “John has a fever. I just checked, and he’s really hot to the touch. What should I do?”His voice was calm and comforting. “It sounds to me like he has a minor infection. The best thing to do is to give him something to control his fever, like aspirin, and put a cool, wet cloth on his forehead. Keep him hydrated, of course. I’m sure he’ll be fine after sleeping it off. If not, call me back.”“Thanks, I’ll do all of that.” After we said our goodbyes and hung up, I set about gathering all of the things that Mark had told me would help bring down John’s fever.John took the pills when I handed them to him. As I sat down on the side of the bed to place a cold compress on his forehead, he reached up with his good hand and lightly brushed my fingers. “Come and lie down b
(John’s POV)The fact that there weren’t any usable condoms should have stopped us before we ended up going too far, but I wanted her so badly that I was prepared to risk it. I still felt a bit hot, even though it wasn’t nearly as bad as the night before, and I knew that feeling her cool skin against me would help a lot.It was obvious that she wanted me just as much, if not more. Unfortunately, because of my injured arm, I had to be careful of the way that I moved. Sybil was aware of this, and took control but very gently. She knew exactly what I liked. Her hands and mouth were roaming all over my body. Once I was inside her, she moved slowly at first, then progressively faster and faster, until we both climaxed.Afterwards, she was laying on top of me, both of us breathing heavily. I couldn’t help but think about the last time we had done this. That, of course, had ended badly. I knew now that it had been wrong of me to accuse her of poking holes in all of the condoms. She wasn’t th
(Sybil’s POV)When I woke up next to John, I scolded myself for getting carried away once again. It had seemed like the right thing to do in the heat of the moment, but now that I was able to think clearly, I knew that I had made a mistake.I looked at John, who was sleeping soundly beside me. He had a satisfied smile on his face, I noticed. He obviously didn’t think that this was a mistake, which infuriated me. This wasn’t getting us any closer to a divorce.I got up and put some clothes on. It was still early in the day, but I desperately needed a drink, so I decided to go to Darcy’s. I knew that I would be able to find something to drink in the house, but I was also hoping to talk to Emma. By going to Darcy’s, I would be able to do both.When I got there, I was surprised to find Mark sitting in one of the booths. “Hi, Mark,” I said, waving to him, “what brings you here?”He looked at me and gave me a small smile. “I’m day-drinking,” he said, raising his glass.Emma walked over to u
(Sybil’s POV)I was beyond nervous as I sat in a chair at Othello Magazine’s headquarters later that day, waiting to meet the chief editor. Emma had made this happen, and I would forever be grateful to her for telling her friend about me, but I was suddenly filled with a feeling of self-doubt. What if the chief editor ended up not liking me, or didn’t like my story after she’d had more time to think about it? I knew how harmful it was to think these things, but I couldn’t keep those thoughts out of my head.The last time that I was nervous to this extent was when I took all of those pregnancy tests. That situation had worked out to my advantage, I reminded myself. Maybe this one would as well.I looked around, and saw a man walking by. He looked so familiar, and it took me a minute to place him. Liam had been a teacher’s assistant with Willa’s class when she was pretending to study creative writing at university. I had met him a few times back then, when I had to hand in Willa’s assi
(Alex’s POV)I drove up to the headquarters of Othello Magazine, wondering how Sybil’s interview went. I hoped that she could get her story published. That could be the start of a great career for her. After parking the car, I got out to see if she was outside. She wasn’t there yet, so I leaned against the car and waited.After a couple of minutes, I saw her walk out of the building, but she wasn’t alone. She was deep in conversation with this guy, looking like she was enjoying his company. I took a closer look at the guy. He definitely looked familiar, but where had I seen him before? I racked my brain, trying to think of who this guy could be. It bugged me that I couldn’t figure it out.I guessed that he was a publisher of some sort. I mean, why else would he be in that building? As I watched him talk to Sybil, flashing her a bright smile with his perfectly straight white teeth, I realized that my annoyance wasn’t just due to the fact that I couldn’t seem to identify him, even thoug
(Sybil’s POV)As Alex and I got into his car, I saw that he wasn’t as talkative as he usually was. “Is something wrong?” I asked him.“Nothing’s wrong,” he said quickly, as if my question had startled him, “I was just thinking about that guy I saw you with just now. I feel as though I’ve seen him before, but I can’t think of where.”“Oh, that’s Liam. He was a teacher’s assistant in the creative writing program when we were at university. I met him a few times when I handed in the assignments that Willa was passing off as her own.” I then remembered that Alex didn’t know about any of that. “You know the story I told you about earlier, that might be published in the magazine? It’s something that I wrote in high school. Willa saw it at the time, and claimed that she was the one who wrote it.”Alex smirked. “Of course she would do something like that.”“That’s not the end of it. She somehow thought that she should study creative writing, so that’s what she did at university. Like I said,
(Sybil’s POV)After a while, Mrs. Rutherford stood up from her chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few things to do before dinner. You two continue what you’re doing.” She smiled at both me and Amelia, then left the room. I still wasn’t sure why she was trying to be nice to me, but whatever.After a few minutes, Amelia looked up from the game that we were playing. “Are you and John getting back together?” she asked innocently. “I know he’s here. He came up to see me earlier.”I reached over to take her hand. “No, honey, we’re still going to get a divorce.” I smiled at her. “You and I will still see each other, though, just like we’re doing right now. You never have to worry about that.”“Does this have something to do with Willa?” She looked at me intently.I didn’t know how much she understood about the situation with Willa, or even whether she knew about any of it. I decided not to go into that, at least not until I knew how much of it she was aware of. I would probably just end u
(Sybil’s POV)There was a lot of tension in the air during dinner, even though there were much fewer people than last time. It was just me, John, Alex, John’s parents and his grandparents.As the main course was being served, I looked across the table at John and noticed that he was looking at his plate with frustration. I didn’t understand it at first, because I knew how much he liked steak. Was there something wrong with it, or with the broccoli or boiled potatoes that accompanied it? I looked at my own plate, but everything looked delicious.I made eye contact with him and raised my eyebrows, silently asking him what the problem was.He looked at the plate, then back at me. His gaze shifted to his left arm, and it finally dawned on me. He obviously hadn’t told anybody about his injury. If he had, the kitchen staff would have definitely cut up his food before it was brought out to him. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t seem to want anybody to know what had happened to him.I nodde
Sorry it’s been a while! You may think that this story has been abandoned, but fear not! You can still follow the adventures of Sybil, John and the others in the sequel–Hidden Heiress: My Ex is Addicted to Me. The story will start a few months later for our characters but the drama is even more intense! I am still working on it but don’t worry, it will come.
(Sybil’s POV)I walked into the hospital, going over what I would say when face to face with Charlie. I had known the truth for over twelve hours now, but it wasn’t any less of a shock. The Worthingtons had been so supportive the night before, promising to give me space until I was mentally and emotionally ready to deal with the fact that I was their biological daughter. I didn’t blame them for anything, because as they had told me, they’d only just found this out themselves a few days ago. They had also been shocked, which was why they had kept it to themselves until now.I wondered if Willa knew about any of this. She had always accused me of wanting to be her, ever since she got her hands on the story that I wrote. Now it turned out that, if things had turned out differently, I actually would be living a similar life to what she was living now. I would have grown up in a loving household, with parents who loved me.Unfortunately, thinking about Willa reminded me of when I had hea
(Sybil’s POV)The next afternoon I decided that I should turn my phone back on, just in case someone was trying to reach me for reasons other than the scandal or John. I didn’t want to miss anything concerning Charlie, for example.I saw that I had a message from the Worthingtons, so I phoned them back. It did me so much good to hear Mrs. Worthington’s voice, especially now. She had always been a comforting presence, and ever since I was a child, I enjoyed spending time with both her and Mr. Worthington.“Hi, Sybil. We just wanted to see how you were holding up. Whoever wrote that nasty article doesn’t know you at all!”“I’m still in shock, but just talking to you makes me feel better.” I smiled. “I’m sorry it took a while to get back to you. My phone was turned off for much of yesterday, because I just needed to take a break.”“That’s understandable. Would you like to come over for dinner tonight?”“That sounds wonderful!” I grinned. “I could use good company.”***A few hours later,
(Sybil’s POV)The day after the meeting with John and our lawyers, I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone or go anywhere. Emma had taken me to Darcy’s as promised yesterday, which was a nice distraction, but I knew that it was only temporary and that I couldn’t run away from my problems forever.I couldn’t stop thinking about the way that John had looked at me at the meeting. His eyes had been full of hatred. I knew that he was hurt by what he assumed to be true. I couldn’t blame him for feeling that way, but if he had just given me a chance to explain that what the article said about me wasn’t true, maybe we could have talked things through. Then he wouldn’t have signed the divorce papers impulsively.Or would he still have refused to believe me? Probably, knowing him. He could be very stubborn at times, not willing to change his way of thinking, even when there was actual proof that he was wrong.Still, I would have liked an opportunity to at least try to clear up the misun
(John’s POV)After signing the divorce papers, I just had to get out of that room. I’d had just about all I could take of Sybil sitting there pretending that she hadn’t paid that guy to take pictures of us. Just recently, she’d acted horrified when I told her about the indecent photos of us. She’d claimed not to know about any of that, and she was so convincing that I actually believed her and felt awful for telling her everything. I was such an idiot! How could I let myself be fooled like that?I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I woke up on her sofa and decided to check my phone to see what was going on in the world. I went on a news website, and there was one of the photos. At first, before I read the article, I was afraid that the photos had resurfaced for some reason, despite my family’s efforts to keep that from happening.I wasn’t really afraid for myself, because I was used to being in the spotlight for both negative and positive reasons. Because of who my family
(Sybil’s POV)I was extremely grateful that Emma had shown up when she did. I really didn’t want to deal with all of this on my own. Now that I knew, or at least suspected, that John had read the lies that were being spread about me and the reason for our marriage, I had a sinking feeling that he wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain that none of it was true. I didn’t know what I would do the next time I had to face him.After a while, I knew that I should get ready for my meeting with Jane. “Sorry to cut this short,” I said to Emma, “but I should get dressed and go see my lawyer.”“I can drive you, if you want.” She gave me a supportive smile.“Would you?” I looked at her. “That would be great. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to sit in on all the legal stuff. Believe me, there are times when I wish that I didn’t have to listen to all those complicated terms.”She laughed. “I completely understand that! I actually have a book in the car that I’m in the middle of reading. I’ll be able
(Sybil’s POV)I woke up the next morning, my head still spinning from both all the drinking I had done and the excitement of knowing that my story would soon be published. There was a sense of optimism that I still wasn’t quite used to, but I finally felt as though my life was heading in the right direction.I got out of bed and left the room to go and see John. He had promised me that he would spend the night on my sofa and be there when I woke up, and I had no reason to doubt that he would keep his promise.When I went into the living room, however, he wasn’t there. I wasn’t too concerned, because I knew that things came up sometimes, like an emergency meeting or some other reason for him to have to leave right away. If I was still asleep whenever he had to go somewhere, he was always careful not to wake me. He was considerate that way. Also, I knew that he would usually explain everything later, when he had time.I’d be lying, though, if I said that I wasn’t a little disappointed t
(Alex’s POV)I phoned Willa as soon as I stepped out of Darcy’s, looking behind me to make sure that nobody from our group was following me. I didn’t want Sybil to know what I was up to. “You were able to get the photographer to change his story? How did you manage that?”“Yes, it’s all taken care of,” she replied, “I had my private investigator track him down. It was fairly easy to find the guy, apparently. I was able to talk to him and persuade him to paint Sybil in a more negative light. Can we meet somewhere to talk about this? Somewhere where we wouldn’t run the risk of bumping into anyone we know?”“Sure,” I said, “where did you have in mind?”“We’re not going to a bar.” She sounded annoyed when she said this, which brought a grin to my face, remembering how pissed off she had seemed the night before when I’d ordered a drink in front of her. I stifled a laugh as I thought of the look on her face before she had left.”“Okay, fine.” I had just had enough to drink anyway, with Sybi
(John’s POV)Sybil didn’t seem to mind me accompanying her to her apartment. In fact, she smiled at me gratefully when I helped her out of the car and put my arm around her to steady her as we walked into her building. She leaned against me, putting her head on my shoulder.When we went into her apartment, she gave me a small smile. “Thanks for bringing me home, John. I think I had a tiny bit too much to drink.”“Just a bit,” I chuckled, “but it was no trouble at all. You know that I would do anything for you.”She looked at me with slight skepticism. “Would you?”“Of course I would.” I smiled and held her a bit tighter. “Why would you think otherwise?”She didn’t answer, but she didn’t try to get out of my grasp either. I could tell that she was softening toward me. It seemed lately like our conversations would usually end in an argument, and sometimes with her threatening yet again to divorce me, but she was behaving differently right now. Of course, it could have just been the fac