Atonement (The Atonement Series) (4 page)

And then my sister appeared with a chipper, “Hiya!” and the mood was broken.

Chapter Three

THE LEAST DESCRIBED
adjective for my father was prejudiced as his choice of wives proved he was in fact very versatile.

My mother had been beautiful and exotic, her family from the bayous of St. Tammany Parish in Louisiana. Caitlyn’s mother had been the exact opposite. Gorgeous, blonde and WASPy, Jeanette was English as a bag of crisps and had only lived in America for the length of time she and my father had been married. Her family, like most English families, was a hodgepodge of English, Welsh and Scottish with some French Huguenot as well.

Caitlyn had taken her coloring from both our parents and possessed an impossibly clear peaches and cream complexion, my father’s gorgeous blue-gray eyes and her mother’s natural honey-blonde hair. She didn’t play up her color with highlights but she was still beautiful. Tall and thin, she and I were more or less the same height but where as I had some hips and ass, she was boyish and athletic with the exception of her chest which was natural and complimentary. I was jealous and would have given anything for her 32-D breasts as opposed to my barely there 34-B breasts.

Her chipper personality and her good looks never kept her short of men but she wasn’t a slut and like me, preferred to keep it safe. She and Drew had been playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse for years but it had yet to lead anywhere. In the time being, she dated and we conversed over too many cups of coffee and glasses of wine the perils of being a young single woman in the twenty-first century.

She still wore her work clothes which consisted of a smart black pencil skirt and a white silk blouse with a pair of four-inch Chanel heels she’d bought from the mall the former week.

“Hey you,” I responded before she leaned over to hug me. “You haven’t been smoking have you?”

“No but I put out Drew’s so that’s probably why you smell it on me.”

She smiled brightly and displayed perfectly white teeth. “Good.” Caitlyn’s smile and eyes drifted toward Colin. “You must be Drew’s friend? I’m Caitlyn, Deirdre’s baby sister.”

Colin smiled back at her and shook her hand though there was none of heat in his gaze as there was when he looked at me. “Nice to meet you.”

Drew finally put in an appearance with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for Caitlyn as she hated dark wines, a bottle of Pinot Noir for us, another Beck’s for Colin and three clean wine glasses. I stood hurriedly and helped him out, handing Colin another Beck’s, pouring wine for my sister and refilling my empty wine glass.

We all sat cozily and comfy, deciding to hold off on dinner for another half an hour or so. Conversation flowed freely until my sister brought up the big question: “So, Colin, what do you do?”

He smiled at her again in a good-natured way and I realized I enjoyed the back and forth banter between them. “Well, what do you do, Caitlyn?”

My sister smiled as her blue-gray eyes warmed with pride. “Well, let’s see, I attended the University of Washington here in Seattle despite getting accepted into Stanford University, finished school in three years and have worked for Amazon since I graduated. I’ve managed to work my way up and I’m now a junior executive in the burgeoning and very successful division of KDP.”

“What’s that exactly?” Colin inquired.

“It’s their Kindle Direct Publishing division. You know, for people who want to self-publish books,” I responded before I took a healthy swig from my wine.

Colin raised curious eyebrows. “Oh, wow. And what exactly do you do in KDP?”

“Report to the executives. There are a lot of numerous programs we have going on and they all generate freakin’ reports so it is my job to wade through all these reports and make sure the problems are passed on to the right sector. Then I have to report to the executives how we’re doing and what the bottom line looks like for the current month,” she explained.

“Wow, sounds like a lot of responsibility.”

Caitlyn shrugged apathetic shoulders. “It is. I worked my ass off just to get where I am now and that is why it is such a disappointment when I find my sister surrounds herself around nothing but professional slackers whose grand plan is to stay in college for the rest of their lives piling up degrees.”

“Oh, wow.” Colin finished his Beck’s and opened the second one. “I guess you can count me as one of those professional slackers. I have an MBA from Harvard but after my mom died, I realized how short life was. I don’t want to work in some office until I’m of retirement age and not get to see my kids grow up or enjoy time at home with my future wife. Mainly, I work right now at the Common Bean during the day and O’Shaughnessy’s at night.”

I watched as my sister’s eyes darkened. “Oh, I get it now. You are one of those ingratiating trust fund kids who works minimum wage jobs because you actually think you are doing society a
favor
. Come on, rich boy, how much are you worth?”

“Caitlyn, don’t be rude,” I responded as I slapped her right hand playfully. “We don’t exactly come from a family that is hurting for money, either, you know.”

“Yes, I do but Rich Boy here is loaded with a capital ‘L’. So spill it.”

Colin laughed and snuck a look at Drew who shrugged his shoulders. “Fine. I’m worth just short of one hundred million dollars…in liquid wealth. There are some stocks, bonds and shit but I don’t handle that. My financial advisor does.”

“Right, so you really don’t need to actually get a job and since you weren’t smart enough to say, start Facebook or Klout or some other silly social networking site, you do nothing at all except live off what your family worked so hard to achieve.”

Colin’s face grew hard at this comment. “I don’t think my family worked hard to achieve
anything
. My dad came from
nothing
. He was a working-class Dutch student who worked his way from the bottom and met my mother at Harvard, their Alma Mater, and fell in love. As for my grandfather, he made a shitload of money in coal and you know how he did it? He paid his workers peanuts, refused to believe coal caused pollution or black lung for the matter and didn’t believe in paying for overtime.

“When he died, the company was worth more than two hundred million plus but I sold it and tracked down every family that ever had a loved one who worked there. They all had financial and health problems. I arranged it with the lawyers that every family would be given fifty thousand dollars in compensation. I know it doesn’t seem like much but we are talking about West Virginia here where they made
peanuts
working in my grandfather’s coal mine. So excuse fucking me if I don’t think I should be down at Amazon or Microsoft or Apple or Google living the ‘good’ life and earning fat paychecks because that isn’t how I want to live my life, ever.”

I was shocked as Caitlyn stared from him to me and for the first time she had nothing to say. Colin stood and walked out. Moments later, I followed him. It was pure instinct I grabbed my handbag and ran out of the door behind him. I made it just as he pressed the keyless entry and unlocked a silver, late-model Chevy Tahoe.

“Hey!” I yelled out and he stopped and turned toward me. “You want some company?”

“What about dinner?” he inquired sheepishly. “I kinda made a horse’s ass out of myself back there and I don’t think I’ll be able to look at your sister without feeling a bit shamed for a while.”

“It’s not the end of the world. Drew and Caitlyn will be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Okay but do you mind if we go back to my place?”

I shook my head.

“Well, come on then,” he motioned and I quickly caught up and slid into the passenger seat.

It was weird riding in a truck since I owned a late-model pale cream Mini Cooper but I liked the feeling of being able to see everything as we drove.

Colin lived barely fifteen minutes from where we were located in the prestigious area above the Pike Place Market. The art-deco “eye sore” known as Fifteen Twenty-One and Second Avenue was the building he called home and his condo was conveniently located on the thirty-fifth floor.

“I bought this place while I was still renting because I knew I wanted to be here in the center of all the action,” he explained excitedly as we rode the elevator up to his floor.

“Isn’t this a bit much? I mean for one person?” I questioned and swallowed the slight anxiety I was feeling. I had never been crazy about heights and here I was about to get off the elevator and would be a long way from the ground floor.

“It is but I love it. It’s so beautiful and the layout is awesome. When we get inside, I’ll give you a tour.”

We stepped off the elevator and walked directly to his apartment. The place was so clean and crisp and new. Nothing seemed to be touched at all and the surfaces shined everywhere I looked.

As we stepped inside his place, it looked like a goddamn showroom, and I whistled in appreciation. I slipped out of my flats and walked around with him as he gave me an exclusive tour.

“I thought I’m going to be thirty soon so why not act like an adult and own something? To say my dad wasn’t pleased would be the understatement of the year. He thought I was being frivolous, spending so much money on a condo but just
look
at this place! I went all out. Hired an interior designer and all the furniture is imported. It goes great with the layout, don’t you think?”

“It does,” I agreed though I also could understand where his father was coming from in terms of his son’s attitude and relationship with vast sums of money. The place was a show palace and it was obvious he would be staying there for sometime, even after wife and a kid.

“There are two bedrooms so if we get too drunk then you are free to take the guest bedroom. No one has ever used it but this…this is the
pièce de résistance
.” He walked me to the kitchen and instead of a traditional patio, it was an outside area that was completely enclosed in glass.

There was a glass door and we stepped inside where there was a beautiful dark wooden table, matching comfortable chairs and a fireplace with huge candles decorating the mantelpiece. The whole city was spread before us and it was absolutely beautiful especially when he had a waterfront view that took my breath away.

“What do you think?”

“I must reluctantly agree this place is worth the two million dollars you dropped on it,” I blurted out without thinking.

“I bought in early so I didn’t pay quite that much but yes, it was definitely north of over a million dollars. Why not? It’s an investment.”

“That is an understandable attitude.” I sat down and admired the view as Colin walked over to a mini fridge he kept in the corner. “I am afraid I am not as sophisticated as you and Drew. I only have beer—is that okay?”

“That works for me,” I responded as he handed me a Beck’s after he’d uncapped it. I took a long satisfying swig from my drink and realized I was happier and calmer than I’d been in a while.

I could have easily blamed it on Colin’s good looks, laid back attitude and a refreshing change from the constant “mothering” Drew had a habit of doing. He treated me more like a wayward child he had to look after than an equal roomie and most of the time, I found that behavior to be okay. I didn’t mind because I felt so lost and if it wasn’t for him keeping me constantly grounded, I might have found myself down a path I would rather have not gone down.