Atonement (The Atonement Series) (32 page)

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Authors: Elle Chardou

BOOK: Atonement (The Atonement Series)

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Every now and then I would touch my non-existent belly. It was amazing there was an actual life growing inside there and no one was more surprised than me. I hadn’t suffered from much morning sickness except for a handful times but other than that, I could still wear my old clothes for now and the only part of my lifestyle that had changed was I had to quit smoking cold turkey which wasn’t as hard as it had been several times before and I never had more than a half a glass of red wine—usually Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir—if I drank at all.

Most of what I consumed was now a steady excess of water and caffeine-free tea. The caffeine withdrawals were definitely ten times worse than anything I faced with nicotine but I figured I would try to rid all the toxins from my body while I was at it.

I closed my HP Envy laptop and set it on the glass coffee table as Colin walked in wearing nothing but a black terry cloth robe which set off his alabaster skin. The slight tan he’d brought back from Europe had faded and we were both back to normal in terms of adjusting to both Seattle weather and the effects it caused on one’s mood.

Colin sat next to me and held me in his arms for a moment. “I’m going to get a beer. You want half a glass of Pinot Noir?”

“Sure. I have been getting the worse caffeine withdrawal headaches so why not?” I remarked as I watched him stand and walk to the kitchen.

Sometimes my life still felt like a dream. Was it true? Were we a real couple who were expecting a baby though we couldn’t be bothered to set a wedding date? Hell, he hadn’t proposed to me yet because he wanted us to go ring shopping together while I wanted him to take Caitlyn. I wasn’t comfortable picking out my own engagement ring.

He walked out of the kitchen carrying my half glass of exactly four ounces of red wine while he held a Newcastle in his other hand. I didn’t understand how he could stand the ale. It tasted foul and actually made Guinness taste pretty good but he loved it.

Colin sat next to me. He looked tired and worn out but I knew from the look on his face what ever he wanted to talk about was important to him. I sipped from my Pinot Noir before I set the wine glass on the coffee table.

“What’s going on? I know that look so why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

He swigged from his Newcastle before he set it next to my wine. “That night neither Liam nor I want to talk about is what’s up. He told me if I told you I was just being selfish. I was only thinking about myself and not you at all but I have never been good with secrets. Even when we were kids and we did something wrong, I was the one who always revealed what happened to our parents. Liam would be fit to be tied but I always felt better but maybe he’s right. This isn’t about you, it is about me but if I don’t tell you then I can’t ask you to marry me and we can’t begin a real life together.”

I slipped his hands within mine and held them tightly. “You know you can tell me anything and I will admit, for a moment, I might not be the nicest person but I promise I will try to understand.”

Colin broke down before he said a word. “That night…the one Liam doesn’t want you to know about…he hit someone and kept going. I screamed at him to stop and we should call Seattle PD and an ambulance but all he cared about was the company and his reputation. He said it was different for me because I didn’t have anything to lose but he had everything to lose and he couldn’t risk it…not over some homeless guy.”

All the sudden, I knew what was coming and my heart thudded in my chest with an intensity I hadn’t experienced since I’d had my first panic attack. It was the same feeling I’d had when I found out my father was dead.

Please God, don’t be this cruel to me. You have to be better than that…

I knew I might as well be yelling down an empty telephone but I had to beg regardless. That night had nothing to do with me…with us.

“The next morning after the whole incident happened, neither one of us thought much about it. We thought perhaps we’d dreamed it up until we found out a distinguished gentleman had met his death the night before in a drunken hit and run. We weren’t drunk, we were high on those fucking Bath Salts and neither one of us should have been in a car. Liam shouldn’t have been driving and if we’d called a taxi, your father would still be alive and perhaps we might never have met one another.”

Colin finally stared at me with reddened eyes and tears that seemed endless in their intensity. “I’m so very sorry, Deirdre. It’s our fault your father is dead. Liam ran him over and I did nothing so I am just as culpable as him. We parked the car in a rough neighborhood and it was stolen by a couple of thugs who took it on a joy ride. They totaled it and it was the only reason we were never questioned. Liam reported the car stolen the night we got back to his condo to cover his ass because we left the keys in the ignition and the doors open. Who wouldn’t have stolen it?

“We met the cab driver several blocks from where we parked the car and claimed we got into a fight with our designated driver and he dumped us off on that side of town. The cabbie took pity on us and made sure we got back here safe and sound. Liam gave him a one hundred dollar tip and I passed out in his guest bedroom.

“Over the months, the whole picture has slowly come back to me and I promised I would do what ever it took to keep you safe. I stole the one person who could keep his daughter safe and I thought it was the best I could do. How did I know I would fall in love with you and feel like you not being in my life would be worse than if it had been me out there that night? I would have rather been run over and murdered than what we did to your father. And to just leave him there…I hate myself for what I allowed to happen.”

I had no idea when I started crying but my face was also wet with tears and I embraced him without thinking.

What he did was unforgivable and I should get up and walk out of his life at that very moment but I couldn’t imagine Colin not being in my life. No one ever said this journey we lived made sense. Hell, no one mentioned God had a hell of a sense of humor or that I would fall in love with the man who was directly responsible for the death of my father. However, I was and to walk away wasn’t quite that easy.

I pulled away and held his face in my hands. His crystal blue eyes were bloodshot and the tears continued to fall. “Listen to me: we’ll take this one day at a time. I want to hate you—God knows I want you to know Liam was right and I would have rather never known—but I also know why you told me. I can’t forget what you told me but you can do something better than that.”

“What’s that?” he inquired in a quiet voice.

“You can forgive yourself and promise never to break my heart. It’s already been broken but somehow I can’t fault you or Liam. It happened and all we can do is go from here. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“And listen to me, you won’t tell anyone about this. This will be left between Liam, you and I, you got that? You are stronger than that and you will make a wonderful father our unborn child and a terrific husband to me.”

We separated and he stumbled to the kitchen counter where he grabbed several Kleenex and cleaned his face. His nose and cheeks were red with emotion and his eyes were bloodshot but he looked human.

“
Oui, c'est mal, si mal, mais je pardon toi,
” I said in a low voice before I embraced him.

Yes, it’s bad, very bad but I forgive you.

“It can’t be that easy, Deirdre. He was your father and Caitlyn’s too. He was also your mother’s husband.”

“My mother has been dead for a very long time, Colin,” I replied in a cold tone.

The aftermath would be something we would have to face in the future but at that moment, I needed to live for the now and remember to breathe. This incident had changed our destiny but it was something that would have to be dealt with another day. Until then, we had the here and now, and each other.

The story of Deirdre and Colin concludes in

Only Love

COMING FEBRUARY 2013!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elle Chardou is a world traveler and author of several different series.

Ms. Chardou is the author of
The Ties That Bind Trilogy
,
The Atonement Series
,
The Hart Family Saga
,
The Vamp Saga
,
The Supernaturals
,
Beginnings: Book I
(
The Plague)
series.

She is currently working on
Killing Me Softly
,
Only Love
,
Jenna & the City of Light
, and several novellas for her paranormal series.

Ms. Chardou has lived abroad in Stockholm (Sweden), Manchester (England), Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland. She currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Contact & Resources

If you have enjoyed this novelette, please feel free to follow my live blog:

The Beautiful People: A Writer’s Journey
located
http://thebeautifulpeopleawritersjourney.blogspot.com
.

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Series by Elle Chardou

The Ties That Bind Trilogy

Killing Time

Killing Heartache: A Novelette (Book 1.5)