The Marriage Act(105)

Weeks had passed since she had last spoken to Mitchell. After their initial separation, there had been limited contact through lawyers. And that was primarily to discuss the division of their remaining joint possessions following their house falling into the hands of creditors. The night before he’d remarried, she had, however, received an email from him apologizing for the way he had treated her.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t the man you deserved,’ he’d written. ‘Everything that happened is on me.’

She had felt strangely relieved by the admission, as if a tiny part of her still feared that she had made him that way.

‘Learn from your errors,’ she had replied. ‘Or it will have all been for nothing.’

According to their children, their new stepmother Chantelle was the pushy sort, a widow and mother of two, who kept Mitchell in check. Corrine wondered if the leopard had really changed his spots and for how long he could play second fiddle to a much wealthier spouse. She and Corrine had yet to come face to face, but Corrine was grateful to her for paying for the children’s university fees.

Now and again Corrine found herself thinking about Maisy and how she had been dispatched from Mitchell’s life as quickly as she had reappeared. The last she heard, her former friend was moving to Germany to be with her own DNA Match. Corrine hoped that, despite the pain Maisy had tried to cause her, she had found happiness.

Corrine, too, had found someone she enjoyed spending time with, although as far as they knew, it was not through biological or chemical interference. Gregory was a handful of years younger than her and everything Mitchell wasn’t – good-humoured, spontaneous and kind-hearted. Being in the presence of someone with shared philosophies was refreshing. He was also a member of Freedom for All in the neighbouring county of Bedfordshire and they had met through their campaign work, culminating in today’s rally. Corrine had briefly considered trying to locate her soulmate through her DNA but ultimately decided against it. She had spent too long with Mitchell determining her future to have her genes making decisions for her. Her destiny was going to be her own making.

‘Mum, are you ready?’ came Freya’s voice from the spare room. ‘We should get going.’

Corrine looked at her watch: it was time. ‘I’ve never been readier,’ she replied, and she meant every word of it.





90


Jeffrey




Jeffrey shook his head as he turned off the television. It was making him irritable and he couldn’t watch any longer. For much of the morning, the twenty-four-hour BBC news channel had given voices to political pundits discussing Freedom for All rallies about to take place across the country later that day. Back and forth they bickered, and, even though the channel was supposed to remain impartial following its privatization, there was an obvious anti-Act bias in its reporting. He would defend the Act to the death, regardless of public opinion.

Jeffrey struggled to comprehend how the tide had turned so quickly against such an effective concept. Many blamed him for a sharp downturn in the numbers of new couples signing up for it. The man charged with saving relationships had actually been killing to serve his own needs. The FFA had capitalized on his story, scaremongering the public into believing that if their marriages reached Level Two, they could be placed in the care of someone just like him. They should be so lucky. Yes, he’d made mistakes and sometimes he had behaved inappropriately. But no one was more passionate about relationships than he was.

And to prove it, today, another couple were about to put their faith in the Act – Jeffrey and his bride-to-be. His heart swelled with pride at the thought of that morning’s ceremony in which he’d once again come face to face with his DNA Match. She had changed everything for him.

American-born Kendra Martinez was twenty-three years his senior and a grandmother living in San Antonio, Texas. Jeffrey was on remand and awaiting his first court appearance when he’d sent her an introductory email. He’d cursed the bad timing and was honest about his circumstances, at least his current residence. The rest, he’d venomously denied, laying the blame at the feet of Freedom for All campaigners who were targeting him because of his success rate in exposing and separating those couples who married only for financial benefits; he was paying the price for his determination.

To his surprise, he must have convinced her of his innocence because, two days later, she’d responded, sparking a long-distance relationship. The first time she’d ever left her hometown was to take a flight to Los Angeles then a connection to London’s Heathrow Airport, using a ticket paid for by a man she had never met. And as they’d finally seen each other in person on either side of a Perspex window in the prison visitors’ room, Jeffrey had felt the instant rush of blood to the head he’d only ever read about. It had been an immediate, emotional, biological and chemical attraction; an all-consuming desire for someone that he might never be able to touch. But a physical and sexual connection had never been his priority. A Match meant that, even behind bars, he would never be alone again.

Prior to his arrest, his outgoings had been minimal so he’d amassed much in his savings account. So before his expedited trial, he’d paid for three more of Kendra’s return flights and accommodation at the Hilton Hotel. Then he’d forked out for a short-term rental apartment near London’s Old Bailey courts so that she could attend his four-week court case each day.