Only Love (The Atonement Series) (22 page)

“That isn’t why I was skittish about attending, Caitlyn,” I explained in calm voice. “I’m officially in a relationship with Drake and I don’t want there to be any complications between Colin and I. We had a fight yesterday and although I can act civil around him, I am also hoping he can return the favor.”

“Jeez, you really only care about yourself, don’t you? Everything revolves around your comfort and
your
needs. This is a special day for me and yes, Colin will be here because like me, he only has Liam as his sibling. You two being apart shouldn’t have anything to do with whether or not you decide to come to our engagement party.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be in the same room with two people who should be serving time in prison,” I replied quietly.

My sister sighed in exasperation. “Not
this
subject again. Listen, you and I have talked about this and my mind is made up. I will not allow anything to happen to either one of them…or you for the matter. In case you don’t realize, you could be considered an accessory to the crime because you’ve known about it for some time but when you were so in
love
with Colin, you weren’t willing to turn him in. Now that the relationship has soured, you just look like a vindictive bitch out for revenge. I would think your relationship with Drake would be perfectly satisfying and you would no longer be so angry about something that can’t be changed.”

“He knows,” I murmured, “because I told him. He wanted to place an anonymous call but I talked him out of it.”

Caitlyn laughed. “I doubt it, sister dearest. Liam did a background check on your new beau and we found out some very interesting things about him. He’s been a drug mule for a mafia family for quite some time. All we have to do is place an anonymous call to border patrol the next time you two go down to Mexico and both of you will be in more trouble than you ever dreamed. This game can be played both ways you know.

“The simple fact of the matter is your boyfriend knows it too and that is why we can trust him to keep his mouth shut because he isn’t exactly squeaky clean either. Don’t start throwing stones, sister dearest—unfortunately for you, we all reside in glass houses.”

I couldn’t deny this even if I wanted to and I knew Liam was vindictive enough to do it. He had the brain of a calculator and a heart like ice. He didn’t really care about anyone or anything more than he did himself. Even him marrying my sister was a power play. He thought she was attractive and she fit the bill. I highly doubted he was more than in lust with her and her blonde, virginal-looking beauty.

“Listen, I have to go but yes, Drake and I will be at your engagement party this weekend. See you then.”

“Have a good afternoon, honey.”

“Goodbye, Caitlyn.”

I ended the call and slammed the iPhone down on the counter. The screen cracked by the force of my actions and I rolled my eyes. Fuck it, the next phone I was getting was the Samsung Galaxy Note. I liked it better anyway and this was the second time the screen had cracked on me in two months. The first incident had been the night of my miscarriage. I’d be damned if I paid another three hundred dollars for a new screen when I could get a phone I actually
liked
.

The phone rang again and through the crack, a picture of Drake showed up as Rihanna’s “Diamonds” began to play. That was my ring tone for him. Colin’s had been changed recently to “Stronger” by Kelly Clarkson. After last night, I would be changing it again to Adele’s chart topper, “Rolling in the Deep” but only after I traded this piece of shit iPhone for my Samsung.

I answered the call and said, “Hey, honey. How’s work?”

“Okay. Mikayla isn’t here so the day is going by pretty quick. Are you still stopping by after your shift ends at work?”

“Of course because I have a proposition for you and it would be best discussed in person as opposed to over the phone.”

“It’s nothing…serious, is it?” Drake inquired with sudden worry etching its way into his tone.

“No, nothing like that…just a favor I have to ask and I am hoping to God you say yes.”

“All right. I will see you tonight. Until then, take care of yourself and love you.”

“I love you too,” I responded before I ended the call.

“How sweet. It’s so nice to know young love still exists. I remember when those words flowed so easily out of your mouth when they came to me.”

I looked up, startled by a crimson-faced Colin. He didn’t look well. In fact he looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. There were dark circles under his brilliant blue eyes and his blond hair was mussed. Although he certainly didn’t seem to be in tip top shape, his black stove pipe jeans fit him perfectly and he wore a Thirty Seconds to Mars tee-shirt and a pair of pristine white converse tennis shoes.

“I didn’t know you would be here. I’m sure I checked the schedule and I’m supposed to be closing tonight,” I replied in a cordial manner before I looked at my computer screen again and clicked it from my Gmail account to my Facebook page.

“You were looking at Thursday’s schedule. Today’s Wednesday. I close up this evening so you are free to leave and go be lap dog to your new significant other at Rouge,” he answered in a cold tone of voice.

This made me look up from my personal feed. “I assume there is a reason why you feel you can talk to me any way you want now that we are no longer together but for God’s sake, Colin, we are both adults here. When do you plan to grow up? We’re no longer in college and the insults seem a bit childish. I never once disrespected your skank and we both knew Cassie wasn’t going to last as long as John stayed in the Army. She’s a college student and it’s obvious she has never been in an exciting love affair. I doubt the poor woman knows where her clitoris is or did you help her find it?”

He shrugged though the look in his blue eyes was vacant yet icy. “You’re right of course. She was an awful screw. I had to think about you just to get off each and every time we had sex. Sad, isn’t it?”

“Not really. She’s young and inexperienced. Drake, on the other hand, is a man, and I can assure you I
never
had to think about you to get off with him,” I snapped.

It was a low blow but he’d hurt me worse than he could ever know and it was the only way I knew to make him feel just a semblance of the pain he’d caused me.

“Well, I have decided to move on to bigger and better things. This young woman in question is exquisite and she knows herself and her body. I don’t think I will have any issues picturing her in the throes of lust to come. And I sure as hell won’t be thinking about you,” he said in an angry voice.

I smiled then. “That’s good. Nice to know you found someone who could put the wind back into those sagging sails of yours. I am genuinely happy for you and it makes all of this much less adversarial.” I removed my hands from my laptop and placed them in my lap before I stared at him with a sincere look on my face. “I don’t want to fight with you, Colin. I still love you but I can’t be with you knowing what you and Liam did.”

He opened his mouth to speak but I held up my right hand. “Wait, let me get this out first. It’s not you—it was never you—it was
me
. I shouldn’t have forgiven you the way I did because I was in shock and the implications of what you and Liam had done hadn’t set in yet. All this is my fault.”

I breathed deeply as I continued to look into his eyes. “When the doctor told me the baby was Liam’s in so many words, I knew you, Colin. You didn’t want another man’s kid, even if it was your brother’s. If I am being honest with myself, I didn’t want the baby either when I found out it belonged to him but I couldn’t dare have an abortion and I knew if I just left, with the baby and I on our own, I would learn to love him or her. It would be inevitable.

“I didn’t come here thinking I was going to meet some hot guy who would take me and my child in. I came here to escape and to bury myself in work and anything that would make me stop thinking about what I put you through. I couldn’t marry you and not tell you the truth but at the same time, I didn’t want you to think I was running away from you. I was running from the situation.”

Colin grabbed my hands under the table and held them in his own. His palms were soft and warm against my skin. “Then why couldn’t you just tell me, Deirdre? We would have dealt with it and I admit raising my brother’s kid wouldn’t have been a walk in the park but I would have done anything just to have you by my side.”

The tears fell from his eyes and he didn’t bother to wipe them away. “You broke my heart when you left the way you did. I have never loved another as much as I love you and I never will. Every time I think about you in an intimate way with that prick, I have a panic attack so severe, I can barely breathe. This can’t be the end for us and you know it. You can’t do this to us, baby.”

He had me in tears now and I sobbed quietly. “But that is the point, Colin. Maybe if all of this didn’t happen. If you and Liam hadn’t done what you did…if I hadn’t done what I did…it would have been so different. Unfortunately, it did happen and we can’t just pretend it didn’t happen because we both crave a happy ever after. I can’t live a lie and as much as I love you, I can’t be with you. I’m sorry.”

I snatched my hands from his, slammed my laptop closed, threw my iPhone in my handbag and walked out. I thought I heard him call after me but I couldn’t be sure. I just needed to be somewhere else. More than anything, I needed to breathe and around him, I couldn’t.

I cried all the way to the restaurant because all he did was remind me I hadn’t gotten over a damn thing. All I had done was bury my emotions and that made me feel like shit. Drake deserved someone so much better than the broken and walking disaster that was my psyché and my tortured soul.

Chapter Seventeen

Somehow, I made it to Rouge in one piece and had my car valet parked.

I immediately walked to the bar and ordered a Dirty Martini with an extra olive. I swallowed it before it had rested more than five minutes in front of me and ordered another before Drake walked out of the kitchen and kissed my cheek.

“What’s the matter? Your eyes are red and you look like hell. Let me guess, you ran into Colin and he made you feel a bunch of shit you thought was dead and buried?”

I laughed out loud at this point. “Is it that obvious I’m all fucked up?”

He tipped my chin upwards and made me face those gorgeous pale greenish blue irises. “It’s not like I have never been there before, Deirdre. It’s happened a time or two to me. Always with the same woman: Gisele. She was the love of my life and I didn’t think I would ever love anyone as much as I loved her but you have proven me wrong because I know it here,” he said as he pointed towards his heart, “that I am feeling it again for the very first time in what seems like decades.

“I don’t expect you to forget about Colin or banish the thoughts of him from your memory because what you two had was special. You had something so rare and yet, it still didn’t work out. No one ever said we end up with the people we are in love with and…I can learn to live with you loving me even if you are in love with another.”

The tears came again and I began to cry at the bar. I was more than happy only a few patrons were there and they were seated too far down to see my hysterics in Technicolor.

“That isn’t fair and I can’t ask you to accept being second best to Colin, Drake. The fact is I
can’t
be with him. Even if I am in love with him, I can’t live with what he did to me and my family. I can’t stand to look at him thinking how he and his brother ran over my father and then walked away like it meant nothing. Their crime wasn’t victimless. He was my only surviving biological parent. Caitlyn’s mother adopted me but my real mother died before I can remember and it isn’t just about burying what happened. It’s not as simple as just ‘getting over it’ for me. He broke my heart and shattered it in a million pieces.”