Legacy
Rachel Robinson
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
The Salvation Society
Acknowledgments
Books by International Bestselling Author, Rachel Robinson
Copyright © 2020 Rachel Robinson
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above author of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Cover by Tattered Quill Designs
Cover photo by Tatum Kathleen Photography
Editing by My Brother’s Editor
Editing by J. Wells
For Blair
Lean into the impossible. You’re strong enough to catch yourself.
Chapter One
Aarabelle
Broken hearts are a dime a dozen. There’s nothing special about the searing pain, the hollow place in your chest, or even the way the scent of a former lover’s cologne brings you back to the last uncomfortable embrace. Almost everyone has tasted heartbreak and can recognize it, yet the rarity of watching your heart shatter in real time, on the evening news, is something else completely. It’s a bit of an out-of-body experience that I relive every time I turn on the television or glimpse his perfectly chiseled jawline on the rag mag covers in the check-out line. A line in which I’m currently standing. There it is. The jaw that would make me weak in the knees when I watched him perform, because out of all the women screaming his name, I would get to go home with him. My hands pressing on the sides of his face, my lips against his. My naked body under his. That’s the past.
My best friend Marissa flips over the magazine I’m staring at, and pushes me forward to put the two bottles of wine down on the conveyor belt. “We have wine to drink, Aarabelle. Let’s get out of here. Stop dragging your feet.”
He is everywhere. It’s easier said than done. I swallow hard and close my eyes. Henry Durnin and Aurora Ball Make Their Love Official. I read the headline before she turned the magazine around. Reaching into my purse, I pull out a scrunched-up ball of cash and hand it to the teenaged boy behind the cash register. Marissa takes the wad out of his hand, smooths the bills, and gives him the proper amount. She slides the extra back into my bag. A bag that Henry gave me as a luxurious gift mere weeks ago. Now I know it was a guilt gift. It still smells like new leather and unspoken lies. I have wanted a designer bag my entire life and I refuse to get rid of this one despite the demon from which it came.
“Their love must not have been official enough when he was making out with her at Vichy two weeks ago,” I clip. “Or when he put his hands up her dress outside of the club. Or when he took off the dress and fucked her on his penthouse garden for the whole world to see.” He never brought me out there to do anything remotely intimate. Then again, my face isn’t famous. I’m just a regular woman who got caught up with a superstar in the most random of ways. I wasn’t glamoured by him and he thought that was novel. “He had to know they had drones up there taking videos and photos.” Or she did. Aurora knew, my subconscious rational hisses at me. Aurora Ball. Born into fame and money with parents who own half of the world in a smattering of business acquisitions. She has dated everyone who is anyone, and the twisted thing is, I almost can’t blame Henry. She’s a hall pass kind of woman—a beauty so blinding she doesn’t even seem real. Aurora’s face looks as if she wants to suck a cock, or be rescued by a male at any given time of the day. Sometimes both of those things at the same time. I get it, but still. Her Instagram feed is filled with perfection. Always snaps that show her body, or her face, or her two hundredth vacation this year. “Why would he do this to me?”
My best friend nudges me aside. “I’m sorry about that,” she says, looking at me, and then taking the receipt from the wide-eyed employee. “She just went through a bad breakup. Still upset. You know how that goes?”
He nods once and I wonder if he’s tasted it yet and promptly decide he hasn’t. Not the real kind of painful heartbreak that he has on his schedule for some time within the next few years. When a woman shreds his heart and feeds it to her new lover for breakfast. “With Henry? You were the regular citizen who was crushed by Aurora Ball?” he asks, quoting the headline from last week’s magazine distribution. A mask of shock slides across his features as he looks at me more closely, clad in sweaty gym clothes, with black mascara blotching my face, my long dark hair piled on my head haphazardly.
Marissa clears her throat and pulls me away, the wine in her hand before I can fall apart in front of the kid—losing more dignity. I don’t think I have much left. Once we’re outside the store and safely ensconced in her car, I open the screw top bottle of chardonnay and take a long swig and wince.
“Marissa, is it really that unbelievable that a man like Henry would want a woman like me?”
Sighing out a long breath, she rests her head on her steering wheel. In a tired voice she says, “I’m your best friend, so I’m supposed to tell you he’s crazy, right? That of course you guys looked amazing together, but this isn’t a normal guy we’re talking about.” Marissa meets my eyes. “He’s a superstar rock god now and you know how famous people operate. They have weird morals, no rules, and become unhinged at the sight of anything new and shiny. Aurora is shimmering, and I hate to say it, but this was bound to happen. You had to take a gap year, you saw the U.K., and it was amazing.”
I melt even farther into my seat as I recall my former self. A fresh-faced Naval Academy Graduate walking into the real world for the first time as an adult. I wanted to see it all and do it all. While I was trapped behind the walls of stringent military life studying my ass off, I missed out on so many things. When they couldn’t sort my assignment in time, they sent me on leave for a year.
“The gap year is over. It’s time to face reality. The reality is Henry Durnin never would have been faithful to you while you serve our country. Really think about that for a second, Aara. Deployments. Training trips. Long periods of time stretching into months or years where you wouldn’t see each other.” I swallow down a lump. She’s fact checking me so hard. “Aren’t you supposed to hear about your duty station soon?”
“You’re right. Maybe it’s better this way.” Digging in my bag, I pull out my phone to check the date. That’s how messed up I’ve been. Sleep, eat, gym, curse men, repeat. “They have until tomorrow to notify me. Talk about down to the wire.” The thought makes my head swim. I sniffle—a perpetual state from being upset near constant—for days.
“Get excited about that, and screw Durnin. It’s better this way. He did do you wrong. Very wrong. He is a dreadful human without concern for others. I’m just pointing out th
at it would have ended anyway. He did the dirty work for you early on.” Marissa leans back and pushes the button to start her car. I take another swig and try to keep my emotions in check. While my phone is in my hand, I open Instagram and pull up Aurora. She groans. “Aurora will do him dirty. Karma will be epic for a user like Durnin. Watch and see.”
I hope she whittles him down and turns him into dust with the point of her million-dollar heel spike. Blowing out a long breath, I buckle my seatbelt. “I’m so tired, Marissa. So tired.”
Pulling onto the street, she turns the radio on low. “You’ve been in the gym constantly. Even if you didn’t go through a bad breakup, you’d be tired. I don’t know how you do it.”
I shrug. Even having my heart shattered wasn’t a good excuse to let my workout regimen slip. There’s too much on the line. Marissa is already active duty Navy. She secured a position as a Naval Intelligence Specialist in Coronado. We’ve been thick as thieves since Annapolis. We were roommates for the final three years of school and went through the ups and downs of military school life together. You’d think being surrounded by men for four years of college would have me better prepared to deal with this, but Henry reached inside of me and coaxed out the soft part. Then he turned it to sand in the palm of his hand. Or maybe it was his dick that did that, I’m not quite sure.
Aarabelle Dempsey, daughter of a war hero, has very few soft parts, and that’s why this hurts so badly. Against my parents’ wishes, I took off for London after graduation. I’d never been, and I didn’t want photos to be my only references. Once my career in the Navy begins, sure, I’ll see the world. Not the picturesque, fun parts, and not on my terms. So, traveling by myself, I blustered into the first English tavern I came across. I wore my Navy issued backpack, and like usual, had on workout clothes. Also of importance, I held zero expectations about what, or rather who, I was about to stumble into.
I ordered a pint and was on the third sip, I remember this because the foam was still cold on my lip, when Henry Durnin sauntered across the worn-out stage. He carried his guitar like a weapon, close to his body, and he oozed something I wasn’t sure I understood. Different from the military men that encased me for four years of regimented schooling. He was self-assured, but not rigid in the way he regarded the women surrounding the front of the stage. A lackadaisical, casual quality encompassed him. It was accompanied by bewitching good looks, obvious musical talent, and some indescribable quality. The musician thing, I decided. That had to be it.
I licked my lips, finished the beer, and decided I needed a closer look. I’m a practical woman, for the most part. My goals are lofty, and my desire to change the world outweighs any sensible ambitions. Like finding a man to settle down with. Or even dating at all. That’s an empty checkbox on my life’s resume I assumed I’d get to later on. What I felt, when his eyes met mine, was anything but practical. He sang while looking at me. Just me. My body was buzzing, and by the end of the song, which I think had something to do with snorting blow and running from a pissed off hooker, I was done for. He made it sound like a soul deep confession made by Lord Darcy.
When he swaggered up to me after his set and offered to buy me a round, he called me love. I think that was the moment I was done for. Or maybe it was when I realized the heated, angry stares from the other women in the bar were directed at me. Because I felt special. He’d picked me out of a crowd. I’m used to blending in. Never anything special, or different from my peers. A midshipman with the same uniform as everyone else, the same morals, and honestly, similar goals. Henry Durnin. Who was this creature? Why was I intrigued?
Turns out, after a whirlwind year of completely falling for his jawline, sloppy grooming habits, and absolute shit cooking, I figured out exactly what the intrigue was. Henry has the ability to make every woman feel like the one. The only woman. The special one. I missed it at the starting gate because he steamrolled me with a carefree take on life and that is absolutely a foreign entity to me. Opposites attract and all that. Aurora Ball was just the first time I caught him. I later found out he had a phone filled with special women.
I’ve returned to San Diego, ready for my future. Ready for something else. Not dating. Not anything that could stab me in a soft spot. Only things that give me life and move me further ahead. Goals that check all the damn boxes I’m chasing. Henry is tucked safely back in London where I don’t have to worry about running into him. I close out of Instagram after I see a close-up photo of Aurora kissing abs. Abs I recognize. “Social media cleanse,” I announce and swig the wine. “No more alcohol after tonight either. Cold turkey. My engine needs to be running like Colombo V12 and I have to stop mucking it up with poison.”
Marissa groans. “That has to be a car engine, right? At least we’re moving on from philandering rock stars to your perfect body.”
Not without cost, I think to myself. She pulls into her condo complex and puts the car in park. I hand her the wine bottle and she tilts it to guzzle some.
“It’s a powerful car engine that doesn’t fuck up. A true, perfectly engineered beast.”
She swallows some wine and opens her car door. I follow her up the stairs to her unit. As she opens the door for me she says, “You didn’t fuck up. He did. I don’t want to get drunk with you if this is going to be another pity party. This is supposed to be fun drunk. To get your mind off everything and to reset before your life changes forever.”
I slump into her sofa and set the oversized bag on the coffee table. It thuds. I groan. Ignoring her sentiment, I say, “I need to buy a car now. Something super shitty because I can’t afford what I really want and mediocrity is life’s biggest opponent.” At least I don’t have college debt to contend with. It could always be worse. I just owe the military five years of service for my degree. And because it was the Navy’s fault that they couldn’t sort my position quick enough, I’ve been paid the entire first year I’ve been separated.
Marissa grabs two stemmed glasses from a kitchen cabinet adjacent to the living room, pours wine in each and offers me one. “There’s nothing wrong with a mediocre vehicle, Aara. It might be the difference between exploding and killing you, or, you know, like actually working and getting you where you need to go. You’re not a shitty vehicle sort of woman.”
“Or you can drive me around for the rest of my life?” Just like she did in college. After freshman year, midshipmen are allowed to have cars on campus. I never got one. Most likely because Marissa had one and she let me borrow it.
She gives me a stern, bitch face. “No. We’re not college kids anymore. This is real life.”
“Fine. I didn’t need one at the Academy and didn’t in London. It’s just a lot to sort out all at once on top of the life storm happening right now. We were never normal college kids, either. In case you forgot.” Most everything was in walking distance in England and on a rare occasion when the distance was farther, I would Uber.
“It’s a car. It’s not a lot to sort out. Plus, you’ve basically been on paid vacation for a year. Why don’t you have shit sorted already? You can’t live here with me forever. Time to leave the nest.”
I’ve stayed with her since I returned from London. Not because my parents wouldn’t have me, mostly so I didn’t have to see their ‘I told you so’ expressions at mealtimes or when I passed them in the hall. I knew better than to go off and fall for a boy all willy-nilly-no-holds-barred. Marissa drains her glass of wine and flips on the television to an anime show—her favorite.
“Wanna binge?”
Sighing, I agree, “Yes. I’ll look for a car and my own place this weekend. Thanks for letting me crash here, Marissa. I can always count on you.” There’s something about best friends that put you at ease. They are the only people who can tell you ugly truths and get away with it.
She’s giving me a patronizing speech on becoming the person she always knew I’d be when my handbag starts vibrating. The alert for a new email. I pull it out and slink back to recline next to my friend, bendin
g my knees so I’m not on top of her. I read the email three times in a bubble of disbelief, mostly because I thought my heart rate might calm down if I kept my eyes occupied. It didn’t.
“I got it. I’m in.” Even though everyone said it would happen, part of me didn’t think it would come to fruition, that my goals were too big for the world I was born into. It took a solid year for this process. Twelve months of decisions, and going back on decisions, and ups and downs so wild they gave me whiplash. They tried to push me in different directions, but I stayed steadfast. “Oh, my God. It’s finally happening.”
My friend sits up straighter and looks over at me. “You got the assignment email? Right now? Sitting in my house on my couch?” Marissa squeals, stands and claps her hands wildly. Her laughter is contagious and a smile slides across my face replacing the slack-jawed shock. “I can’t believe it. This is amazing. Epic. Ground breaking! I can’t believe it,” she hisses once more.
Neither can I. Not because I don’t think I’m capable of what is being asked of me, but because no one has done it before. This puts my stupid breakup in jarring perspective. It puts the whole entire world into a new, more progressive perspective. I like to think I inherited it from my dad, Liam, the desire to save the world from a coveted spot in the shadows. Or it could be in my blood, Aaron, my biological father also chose this path. Maybe it’s just who I am. Who I’m going to be. Who I decided to form myself into and hold tight to my resolve to never settle for anything less.
Legacy: A Salvation Society Novel Page 1