Atonement (The Atonement Duet Book 1)

by Selene Chardou

  “Hey,” Colin whispered. “Did I wake you? We can talk in the morning if you like.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m okay. Sorry, I haven’t been sleeping very well and I assure you my bed at home is just as soft and comfortable. I’m glad you insisted I stay, though, because if we’re going to Europe together, then we have to set some ground rules.”

  Colin smirked and scooted closer to me in bed. “Ground rules, huh? Why can’t you stop being such a controlling chick for a moment and go with the flow? Why can’t we take this at a relaxing pace? We aren’t doing National Lampoon’s European Vacation, and there is absolutely no rush. I’m more than happy just exploring city centers and walking into museums or parks that take our fancy. I thought you might like that too.”

  I raced my hands through my thick, silky hair and breathed deeply. “Listen, I like to be as impromptu as the next person, but I also like to have a plan written down just in case. No one said we can’t deviate from the plan a bit, but I’d like to know what you expect out of a vacation?”

  Colin glared at me. He laid on his stomach beside me and sighed. “Fine, plans and ground rules. Me, personally, I usually just go with the flow and I have always been that way. Probably why I used to get into all kinds of trouble with a big brother like Liam.”

  I laughed. “Liam used to get you in trouble? First off, who is the professional who has the world by the balls and who is the loser brother wasting a perfectly good MBA from Harvard? You can try to hide all you want, but working at a coffee shop and a bar doesn’t make up for what that thieving grandfather of yours did to his workers or how your family earned their wealth. So you gave away a bunch of money to assuage your conscience? Do you ever plan to use that degree, or is it just something you have to decorate the walls of this amazingly expensive condo?”

  “Wow, you’re one to talk. You and I—we’re not that different, and you know it. So you volunteer at a soup kitchen slash halfway house for abused women? Why don’t you become a counselor and, you know, get paid for what you do? It’s not like you’re hurting for money either. What’s your excuse for not moving on from your father’s death and living like a young, productive adult?”

  He had me there. Nothing at all was stopping me physically from moving on, and perhaps that’s what made my situation so very frustrating to me, my sister, and my mother. We all knew I had to be suffering some sort of deep-seated inertia. I was afraid of moving on because if I did then I would eventually forget my father the same way I’d forgotten my real mom, and then what would I have? Nothing except the present. No past, no real family except my half-sister, but could I see myself in a relationship, which could lead to a husband and children?

  It was a scary proposition because I didn’t feel grounded. How could I possibly be a good mother when I was an emotional mess? My life was a disaster. Yes, I was educated and wealthy. I was better off than most people my age, so did I even have a legitimate reason to complain? Not like some of the women I met in the halfway house who had nothing, and yet they were slowly picking up the pieces of their ruined lives.

  Woe is me lived again, and tears began to fall from my eyes. I knew Colin would misinterpret them, and he did. He thought he’d caused me to cry and immediately, he sat up and took me in his arms. His embrace was warm and he smelled delicious, like a mixture of a freshly washed body wash, expensive cologne, and just a hint of something smoky. It wasn’t cigarette smoke. For someone who indulged, I had yet to sniff the reek of stale smoke on his skin or his clothing.

  “Hey, come on, don’t cry. I’m sorry. I can be a real dick sometimes. It’s my past rearing its ugly head from when I was the king of one night stands and treated women like shit. I’m not proud of my behavior and although I was a total misogynist, I still loved and respected my mother. I couldn’t quite understand how some women had so little regard for their bodies that they would give it up so willingly for a little spending cash and maybe a trinket or two.”

  He breathed deeply against my neck, and I wondered if he was trying to smell my perfume or inhale a part of me. For some reason, I felt comfortable in his arms despite my lack of clothing.

  Above all, he made me feel safe, and I hadn’t felt that with another man other than Drew.

  “I knew you were different from the moment we met but…I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries. I know about the relationship you have with Drew, and he loves you…a lot. Too much. I would hazard to say if he could, he’d make you his again in a heartbeat,” Colin whispered in my ear.

  We separated reluctantly, and I wiped my tears away with the palms of my hands. “That’s not gonna happen. I guess a part of me is in love with Drew too, but we’re not meant to be together. I love him because he was my first love and the first and only man I have ever shared my body with completely. Sure, I’ve fooled around with other guys, but he’s the only man I have ever had sexual intercourse with. He and I…it can’t happen. There is someone out there for him, but I can assure you that person isn’t me.”

  Colin gave me a look that made those gorgeous eyes of his sparkle. “Have you told him your grand plan? Personally, if I may insert my two cents, the man is in love with you, Deirdre. Not just a friendly kind of love but a deeply, madly, passionate love that allows him to bide his time until he can make you his. There is still a part of him that wants you two to get married and have a couple of kiddies.”

  “I don’t even know if I want kids, and he knows that. We’ve just been best friends for a really long time and God knows if I could change his feelings for me, I would but…” I trailed off as my Android phone began to dissipate the awkward silence with the very raunchy “S&M” by Rihanna.

  Shit, it was Aubrey, and I needed to hear from her like I needed an extra fucking head. I quickly leaned over, grabbed my phone, and answered before the chorus was over with a curt, “Hello?”

  “Hey, sweets. How are you?” she asked.

  There was a slight slur to her speech so I knew she was drunk, which wasn’t anything new.

  “Nothing much. What is it?”

  “I’m kinda stranded at the Last Supper Club, and I was really hopin’ you could pick me up?”

  “Wait a minute. If you’re stranded, does that mean you don’t have a place to stay?”

  “Um, duh?”

  “What about Stacy?”

  “That fucking bitch! You know I caught her and Brandon in bed together. Not that I was paying my rent anyway, but do you think if your supposed ‘loaded’ boyfriend is taking care of the rent, it gives him first dibs to screw your roommate too?” she ranted.

  “I wouldn’t know, as I am still living with Drew and we each pay our own rent,” I replied in a crisp tone.

  “Yeah, I know. How is Drew, by the way? Is he looking for a girlfriend?”

  “I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, he mentioned some hot guy at work he is dying to get to know a little bit better. Colin, I think his name is.”

  Colin’s eyes widened to saucers before he slapped my left thigh playfully. It didn’t hurt the least bit, but the heat it sent through the silk sheet wasn’t a good thing. His swat had been a little too near my aching sex, which hadn’t seen any action in over three months, and I was totally feeling the absence.

  “That’s cool. Listen, I just need a place to crash for a while. If you can talk to Drew…”

  “Listen, we’ll be there in about twenty minutes. Can you please wait outside? I don’t want to have to troll that fucking club looking for your ass.”

  Aubrey sighed in annoyance. “Sure, fine. I am in a dress that hits me just below my ass, and it isn’t exactly one hundred degrees outside. Just phone me when you get here and I’ll make my way down, okay?”

  “Fine.” I ended the call and threw my phone down on the bed. Then I held my hair out of my face with frustration.

  Every time it looked like I was about to get a handle on my life, my life seemed to throw a curveball, which always seemed to jostle me. Do people ever grow up
? Of course they don’t. We, as a species, didn’t grow up. We just got older, and no one was a better example of this phenomenon than Aubrey Gault.

  Chapter Five

  “So, do you wanna tell me what’s going on here?”

  I glanced at Colin’s profile. A part of me wanted to smile, but he looked a bit pissed off that we’d had yet another interruption, so I decided to play it safe and just give him the details he needed to know.

  “Aubrey is my cousin on my mother’s side of the family—my real mother. Her father and my mother were siblings. They came from a fairly decent family. Hardworking Creole Louisianans who provided a good life for their children, children who grew up to become responsible adults. Unfortunately, my uncle fell hard for an exchange student at Louisiana State University. She was from Montreal and it was love at first sight, or so I’ve heard. The woman is a total basket case. She left Louisiana State University their mid-sophomore year and went back to Canada. My uncle didn’t even know he had a daughter by this woman, Sandrine, until Aubrey was ten. She’d been in and out of the system because her mother is a paranoid schizophrenic with an alcohol and drug problem. Anyway, she’d always been street smart and incredibly intelligent. Aubrey looked my uncle up on the internet. By this time, my uncle had moved on with his life. He was married, had two sons and a wife who is a complete and utter sweetheart. They decided the decent and humane thing to do would be to take in Aubrey but she caused nothing but issues. She doesn’t want to go to school, she suffers from severe emotional problems, and she’s been sexually abused. Seriously, name it and my cousin has been through it. I mean, she’s only twenty-six but her life is completely out of control, and she kind of goes from man to man.”

  I finally stopped talking long enough to take a moment to breathe.

  “How did Aubrey manage to get here to Seattle?”

  “Um, after a stint at some brothel in Nevada, she decided to look me up and she’s been here since January. I had enough issues with my dad dying, so I just threw some money at her and hoped for the best, like maybe she would get bored and go home or something, but that didn’t happen. She’s sexy and has a knack for meeting people she can easily manipulate. She’s quite popular at Bare—you know, the strip club for all the wealthy clientele in the city—and she manages to turn up on time and do her job, but she can’t seem to keep anything else.”

  “So, what do you think we should do? With your cousin and her current situation?” Colin asked after a long silence.

  “We? She’s my problem, not yours,” I replied quietly.

  “Is she? I mean, we’re leaving on this trip soon…?”

  “How about next week?”

  “Yeah, that’ll work. She can take my room, and I’ll butter up Drew to let her stay because I can’t have her out on the street. I mean, my uncle would kill me, and he’d have a point. There is plenty of room at my place, but the thought of sharing a room with that chick—”

  “Why don’t you just take my guest room, then? I mean, until we leave? That way you get privacy and your cousin can take your room. We have a lot of planning to do and my work schedule is, unfortunately, pretty hectic next week. We can agree to meet up at O’Shaughnessy’s or talk when I get home from work? Might as well get used to one another’s company now since we’ll be seeing a lot of one another soon,” he explained.

  It was a great idea, but the thought of spending more time within the presence of this guy who would be sex on a stick to most women was enough to make my heart beat double time.

  “Or…I can ask your cousin if she’d like to stay with me?”

  God no!

  “I don’t mind staying in your overpriced condo,” I responded nonchalantly. “I mean, you bring up a good point and besides, I don’t need my trip ruined because you decide to fuck Aubrey and she does something you would blame me for, so it just works out better this way.” I stood as he started to walk out of the bedroom. “Let me get dressed, and we can get ready to leave.”

  “I’ll meet you in the living room.”

  He shut the door behind me, and I slid back into my clothes in no time. I met Colin in the living room and we took the elevator down to the garage and hopped in his SUV. I put my seatbelt on and tried not to act so nervous about him, the situation, or my cousin, but it was no use. Everything had me on edge tonight.

  Colin turned toward me as we sat at a red light. “And you’re not worried about Drew?”

  “No, because she’s tried that act on him and he turned her down so fast he made the Airbus seem slow. Seriously, he is so not interested in Aubrey like that.”

  He snickered, and I tried to concentrate until we pulled up to the club. I’d called Aubrey moments earlier, and she walked out of the Last Supper Club like she owned the place. As usual, she was dressed to the nines, tonight in scarlet Alexander Wang leather and a knit sleeveless dress which contained a high neckline. Her medium-sized natural breasts were perky enough to warrant attention, her nipples proudly on display. Her long legs, the perfect shade of pale olive, were smooth and gorgeous. Her feet were encased in a pair of silver and gold Tribute sandals.

  Despite perpetual homelessness and the inability to spend money in any way considered responsible whatsoever, my cousin was never seen in anything other than Tributes in all shapes, colors, and designs. Apparently, she kept a storage unit in the city for her shoes and clothes, as they were worth a fortune alone.

  Everything Aubrey wore had to be high-end fashion, from La Perla lingerie to dresses, jeans, skirts, sweaters, and blouses by all the major fashion houses. She didn’t own a pair of shoes that hadn’t cost her at least seven hundred dollars. Like the fictional Sex and the City character Carrie Bradshaw, my cousin could live without a lot of things but designer clothes and shoes weren’t on that list she kept in her head.

  Despite a lifestyle of hardcore partying, smoking, and drinking, she had the most gorgeous raven locks a woman could ask for. Slightly wavy with the perfect tousled look, her hair reached just past immaculate shoulders and appeared bright and healthy. Her dark hair complemented her fair olive skin, and she had the most gorgeous blue eyes with a strange violet-tinged ring around her pupils that of course not only mesmerized men but pretty much guaranteed her pert nose, high cheekbones, and luscious full lips were in stunningly good company.

  Next to Aubrey, I was just a normal looking chick who could pass for attractive. My cousin was a gorgeous and captivating woman men wanted to possess and women desperately wanted to emulate. She’d lucked out in the looks and body department even if she had obviously suffered in other parts of her turbulent life.

  “Stop drooling, Colin,” I murmured as she ran toward us in her pre-requisite Yves Saint Laurent Tribute heels.

  “Thanks, Deirdre. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t picked up your phone,” she said before she leaned over the seat and kissed my cheek.

  “You would have managed somehow,” I replied, not quite keeping the sarcasm out of my tone. “Listen, this is Colin, a friend of Drew’s. Colin, this is my cousin, Aubrey.”

  She leaned over the console and studied his profile before she gave him a kiss on the cheek too. “Thanks for being my hero tonight…stud.”

  I briefly turned toward Colin in time to see his face flush a deep shade of crimson. “No problem,” he managed to squeak out.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Aubrey said calmly as she dug through her small handbag, reached for a cigarette, and lit it. “You’re not the first person in the male species who’s wanted to fuck me the moment they laid eyes on me, so I’m pretty used to the attention. Anyway, what’s on the agenda tonight? I’m beat.”

  “Nothing,” I answered. “Listen, Colin is driving us back to my place because I have to convince Drew it’s okay for you to stay with us. Speaking of, how long do you think it will be this time?”

  She was quiet for a moment as she continued to drag on her cigarette and blow lazy smoke rings out of the half-opened window. “I don’t kn
ow. It’s not like I planned to catch my ex and my roomie in action, you know what I mean? I have a full schedule coming up at Bare, so perhaps a few weeks at the most. I am sure I can either find another dancer to stay with or I’ll improvise or something.”

  I turned fully in my seat. “Or something? Listen, Colin and I will be going away for a while—”

  “Oh, cool. Where ya headed off to?”

  “We’re doing a trip through France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.”

  “Awesome. Can I come too?”

  “You don’t even have your freakin’ Canadian passport let alone your American one and we are leaving next week, so that would definitely be a no.”

  Aubrey let out a long, exaggerated sigh of discontent. “Jeez, you are such a party pooper.”

  “Listen, that is the least of your worries. You better hope Drew is as generous as me and agrees to let you stay.”

  ***

  “Absolutely fucking no!”

  The speaker was Drew, and we sat next to one another in his bedroom on his elaborate California King bed.

  I stood up and began to pace, something I did often when I was nervous or upset. I was more of the former than the latter. “Goddamn it, Drew, she’s my cousin. What am I supposed to do? Have her stay at a halfway house? My uncle would chew off my ass. Colin has agreed I can stay at his place until we leave so she can have my bedroom. I’ll leave my portion of the bill money with you. You get to call all the shots and the first time she messes up, you get to kick her out.”

  Drew leaned back on his bed, his slim-fitting tee riding up to reveal a toned, tanned stomach with a thatch of light brown pubic hair leading down past his jeans.

  “We both know how she is, Deirdre. I don’t need a walking nympho in my residence. I get enough action from the male and female population at work. This is my sanctuary. We have always had an arrangement, and it’s worked out great. I know what to expect from you, and I like living with you. I was hoping we could spend your last week here together. I won’t see you for a while after that,” he explained.