Her eyes shimmered with a bright expectancy, and Curtis gently tapped his forehead against hers. Leanne blinked, her lashes softly grazing his jawline like feathers.
Curtis drawled, "Doesn't look like it's on this side. Why don't you check the other side?"
Turning her head, Leanne indeed spotted her photo on the nightstand across the bed. Just over three years, yet, looking at her younger self, she sensed a certain naivety.
After gazing at the photo for a while, she put it back in its place.
An arm snaked around her waist as Curtis hugged her from behind. They stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of their high-rise, overlooking the dazzling night view of Starlake. The two years they had missed each other finally converged at this moment.
Leanne wrote on the glass, leaving no trace or fog, as Curtis watched her every move until she dotted the last letter.
He kissed her, leading her to the bed, where they embraced and possessed each other passionately across the ocean, pouring out all their love at that moment. The afternoon sun shone down on Stonebridge.
As they disembarked from the plane, Joy, who had eagerly come to pick them up, jumped and waved, shouting, "I'm here! Welcome home, baby!"
Leanne's phone buzzed with messages, but she hardly had time to look. They squeezed her into a car, sandwiching her between them, chattering all the way.
"Sandra in your hospital or whatever got her license revoked, and your chief got fired too."
"My dad said the ethics committee is investigating that corrupt hospital director. He embezzled over fifty million and misappropriated another eighty million. Twenty years in prison wouldn't be surprising." Leanne hadn't even left the hospital's group chat which was buzzing with news of a medical anti-corruption storm sweeping through Stonebridge.
In another car.
The peak of summer had arrived in Stonebridge. Curtis held Leanne's sunhat, setting it aside to check his phone for messages accumulated over time.
Caleb reported from the passenger seat about the investigation over the past month.
"The orphanage where your wife stayed has been closed for a while, all records lost. But I found annual donations in Mr. Joseph's name, almost covering the orphanage's expenses."
Joseph had passed away, otherwise, Leanne wouldn't have ended up in the orphanage.
Who would donate in his name?
Curtis, with a thoughtful tap of his finger on his knee, asked, "What about the article? Did you find anything?"
"The newspaper closed down seven years ago due to financial issues. The reporter who wrote it has since emigrated, but she admitted to being commissioned to visit the orphanage and write the story about the heroic sacrifice of the Castillo family."
"It was Mary's doing, wasn't it?" Curtis seemed unsurprised.
"Yes," Caleb confirmed, "She played a significant role, using public opinion to pressure your parents to adopt Leanne."
Curtis was right in guessing that Mary had a big hand in all this.
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