Atonement (The Atonement Duet Book 1)

by Selene Chardou

  I sipped from my glass of Guinness again and swirled the black liquid around in my pint glass. “Maybe we could make a pit stop this time. We could always rearrange our schedule. I’ve been to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and France, but I have never been to Scandinavia before. Maybe we can take a week out of our visit to somewhere else after we leave France and fly up to see your grandparents. I would really like that.”

  Colin finished his pint and met my eyes. “You’re serious? You want to meet my grandparents?”

  “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

  He snickered under his breath. “That is a definite first, but I can’t say I am surprised. You’re full of surprises, and that is why I find you so goddamn intriguing.”

  I looked at him slyly and smiled again. “If you like, we can visit them after our first few days in Paris and then fly back in and enjoy the rest of our European vacation. I think that would be great idea.”

  Colin looked down at his watch. Then he pulled out his iPhone and made a call. A person who sounded vaguely older and female answered shortly after the third ring. Colin switched from English to Dutch and spoke animatedly with whom I had to assume was his grandmother.

  The way the language flowed from his tongue, he’d obviously grown up speaking the language. I didn’t know any Dutch, but the language always struck me as an amalgamation of French and German on acid. I looked down at my watch and realized it was eight in the evening here, so it was barely after five in the morning there.

  The feeling of butterflies in my stomach brought a smile to my lips. Colin and I had something special between us yet for so long, I’d fought the feeling we should be anything more than friends.

  Is this how two people fell in love? Was it the slow burn and the ache of not wanting to be apart from another person? I enjoyed his company and was just as comfortable sitting across from him enjoying a beer as I would be if we were doing something more physical.

  The thought of sex brought my mind back to my ultimate deception against him with Liam and what happened between Liam and I the night before. How could I have done that? I told myself that it had been purely physical and the attraction I’d felt for Liam was fleeting and untenable.

  Liam would be—correction, he was—my employer, and the thought something could happen between us was silly and unreasonable. Not because of the whole issue of sexual harassment it brought up. I should know this better than anyone since I would soon be working as a human resources manager for the same company the man I had fucked co-owned. However, the feelings I had for Colin were sincere and true. I wanted to be with him, and my heart skipped a beat just thinking about him possessing me in the same way his brother had two nights ago.

  It didn’t escape me that it all seemed a bit incestuous and a tad gross. What kind of woman did that make me? Sleeping with brothers? How much lower on the scale of “yuck” could I slide down? Did it make a difference I’d only had two lovers before Colin—if we ever became lovers—and one of them just happened to be his brother? My moral compass buzzed in my ear like a bee and warned me I was stepping into very dangerous territory.

  Before I could even contemplate whether I should tell Colin, his phone call ended and he smiled. “My grandmother wants to meet you as soon as possible, so I’ll go ahead and cancel the hotel I got for us for our first few days in Paris. I’ll lose the deposit, but who cares. Are you okay with boarding yet another plane once we get to Charles De Gaulle to Oslo? I mean, it’s a lot of flying in a short amount of time.”

  “Why would I mind? I haven’t left the States in ages, and I am really excited about seeing what Norway looks like, not to mention meeting your grandparents.” I downed the rest of my Guinness and set the pint glass down. “What exactly did you tell them about us?”

  “I told my grandmother she would be meeting my future wife,” he replied without a hint of hesitation.

  I did a double-take. “Um, whoa there, tiger. We haven’t even shared a kiss, and all of a sudden I am your future wife? I refuse to marry a man who works at a coffee shop in the morning and a bar by night. Call me an elitist, but I know you can do better and I won’t be satisfied until you live up to your full potential.”

  “Yes, I know. Which is why you will be very happy to find out I leased an extremely expensive piece of real estate in Pike Place Market. It’s smallish, but the owner had a liquor license that I could have grandfathered in. The lease starts when we get back, and I plan to do what you want me to do to the letter. I will open up a bar that sells food as well. And guess what, I’ll be cooking it. Well, some of it eventually. I will be hiring a chef in the interim while I get the place up and running. Does that make you feel better? Your future husband is an entrepreneur, just like his brother, instead of some bum who works as a barista during the day and a bartender by night.”

  I bit my lip as I realized the severity of what he was telling me. He was willing to invest in a venture that might fail just to please me? This was a tall order.

  “I’m assuming you quit your other two jobs?”

  “Yep, yesterday was my last day at both. O’Shaughnessy was pissed. He said I was his best bartender and he hated I was moving on, but the coffee shop couldn’t care less. They had a replacement before I left my shift. Looks like there are people better qualified to be a barista than I am.”

  I didn’t know exactly what to say to that, but I was saved by the announcement our flight was beginning to board. Colin and I immediately made our way to the gate. Since we were in first class, we were some of the first to board the plane. We quickly found our seats and sat next to one another. Even the seats were luxurious. Instead of the worn fabric of coach, we reclined in leather seats that were large, warm, and welcoming. It felt so strange not to be close enough to touch. However, since I had a window seat, Colin leaned toward me often during the flight. We continued to chat as we looked out the window.

  The weather wasn’t that great. Although it was dark, the sky was overcast and quite typical for this time of year in Seattle. I couldn’t help but think we wouldn’t see anything different until we arrived in the south of France, but who knew when that would be? I don’t know what it was, but something inside me told me we would be spending more than just a few days in Norway.

  Chapter Ten

  Although Colin and I had endured a flight that would have tested the patience of the most seasoned traveler, first class made all the difference. Instead of arriving at Charles De Gaulle feeling bloated and tired, we actually both felt quite energized. It took very little effort for us to claim our luggage and navigate the airport to the SAS desk, where we immediately booked tickets to Oslo.

  They weren’t exactly cheap. Our flight wouldn’t leave for another four and a half hours, and we paid almost four hundred euros per person for economy extra tickets, whatever that meant.

  Colin and I immediately booked our luggage. The young woman at the desk who issued our tickets didn’t mind taking it at all and issued our luggage claim tags before we left the counter to explore the airport. We walked through Charles De Gaulle until we found a food court where we could sit down and have a decent meal.

  Although neither one of us had had slept much on the flight over, we still felt energetic and quite alert. We had spent so much time talking about our childhoods, past relationships, and college in general that we had each maybe gotten a few hours of sleep, tops. It was starting to take its toll, but I opted for a large café au lait—which, ironically, was the size of a tall at Starbucks in the States—and a ham and cheese baguette.

  Colin, as usual, bought a round of Guinness and grabbed a baguette with ham and goat cheese as opposed to my ham and Brie. I tried to turn down my Guinness but after devouring my sandwich and polishing off my coffee, I still drank my ale.

  “You see, I told you I would turn you into an ale drinker after all,” he bragged as we sat in the airport café.

  I couldn’t help but laugh yet again and realized the muscles in my face hurt f
rom smiling and laughing so much. Everything with Colin was so damned easy. Why was it that just a wry smile from him could turn my insides to mush? Hell, why had we just blown almost one thousand euros we hadn’t planned to spend on tickets to see his grandparents?

  Already, I’d began to take the lead in our relationship, mostly because I knew Liam would have never have allowed me to get away with that if I were with him. However, another part of me knew I would have to stop comparing the brothers. If I was going to devote myself to Colin for the long term, I would have to erase Liam and the night we shared completely from my mind. It was the only way I’d manage to stay sane.

  Besides, Colin had a great personality, he was easy on the eyes, and he was everything women claimed they wanted while lusting after sadistic alpha males who rarely gave a damn.

  He was a dream man, and he could imagine spending the rest of his life with me because he decided I was what he wanted. Damn, that felt good. Of course when he grabbed my left hand and held it in his right, I felt even better.

  Colin’s palms were soft and dry. I wanted to hold his hand as much as he wanted to hold mine, and for some reason, we’d both clasped one another’s hand at the same time. The gesture was far from romantic, but there was an intimacy involved I was sure I could handle.

  “Did you really tell your grandparents you hoped to marry me one day?” I asked in a serious tone. “I mean, you wouldn’t play with me like that, would you?”

  “What do you mean?” he responded as he stared into my eyes. “You know that isn’t me. What would I get out of playing you for a fool? I’m almost thirty years old, Deirdre. We aren’t twenty-two-year-old college kids with the rest of our lives ahead of us. If we don’t know what we want out of life by now, then we are seriously screwed.”

  “Yeah, I know, and I didn’t think you were kidding around, but I had to ask. I mean, I have loved Drew for so long and he is the man who has been my rock, my salvation, but…he isn’t meant for me. I know there is a woman out there for him, but she isn’t me. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, a little bit too well.” He bit his lip and played with my fingers. “There was a woman at Harvard—let’s call her ‘Carrie’ because I don’t want her to be hurt when I invite her to our wedding and you regale her with stories I have told you about her. We were very compatible, and she was a lovely human being. We were…perfect.

  “However, something wasn’t right, and there was something in our relationship that was missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it and neither could she. Everything about us was just so damned perfect. Our parents thought we were tailor made for one another, and we never had a disagreement. I suppose you could say our sex life was satisfactory, though it wasn’t anything spectacular.”

  He paused and took a swig of his Guinness before he continued. “Everyone just knew we would graduate and marry, but I wasn’t so sure and to be honest, I loved her but I wasn’t in love with her. So, I did what I thought was the best way to sever our relationship for good. I cheated on her with one of her casual friends and made sure she walked in on it. The whole situation devastated her. She couldn’t believe what I had done because we were just so perfect. She wondered how I could ruin the best thing that would ever happen to me. The problem was I didn’t think she was the best I could do because I felt stifled in every way by what we had. I wasn’t free and happy, I just felt trapped, and what kind of bastard would I be to marry her, convince her I was happy, and still fail her in the end?”

  I laughed. “You were the best kind of bastard because at least you didn’t marry her and leave her in the end with a couple of kids and a bad marriage behind both of you. I think a lot of what we do is so we can maintain a certain image in life. I’ve never wanted to be one of those people who is just in a relationship because it’s better than being alone. Being on your own is definitely underrated, especially if you aren’t happy in your partnership.”

  “Well, I think we can both agree on that one.” He fell silent for a moment before he stared at me again. “Why have you been alone so long? Is it because you didn’t think you would find someone as great as Drew or was it a more of a selfish motivation? Perhaps you thought you would come to your senses and decide he’s the best you could do?”

  “No, it was nothing like that. To be honest, I just didn’t feel like dating. Not after Drew and I broke up. I didn’t want to deal with the headache or the aggravation, and we came to our deal of doing the friends-with-benefits thing and it worked for a long time. Then my dad died, and dating wasn’t even on the radar at that point. I mean, I realized if I had someone—a boyfriend, that is—at least I could share how I was feeling, but then I thought the sex part would get in the way. I haven’t truly felt sexual in a long time. I blamed the anti-depressants. Your father switched me from Zoloft to Wellbutrin, and I noticed a difference but only slightly. Anyway, about a month ago, we re-evaluated my need for anti-depressants and he took me off everything except Xanax for the panic attacks, but that isn’t an anti-depressant. It merely treats anxiety. I have been feeling okay, and I really think I’m ready to take the next steps to form a happy relationship, but you are so freaking me out with this marriage thing. I don’t know…how do you know I’m the one? We barely know one another, and yet…I don’t feel like you’re this strange guy. You seem like a sweet and considerate gentleman, just what the doctor ordered.”

  “You don’t need me to go all alpha male on you?” Colin teased with a twinkle in his crystal blue eyes.

  I smirked. “I’d rather you not. Alpha males are great in romance novels but at this point in my life, I think I prefer a man who will treat me as his equal yet not be afraid to call the shots in the bedroom. Does that make sense?”

  He leaned toward me. “That is certainly doable and the way you describe that, you make it sound sexy as hell.”

  We both laughed again and continued to hold hands. For some reason, it felt right, and I always went with my gut instinct. It had never steered me wrong before.

  ***

  The flight to Oslo in the upgraded economy section wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The plane was almost full, but Colin and I still managed to get great seats. I sat next to the window and he sat beside me. We usually maintained some form of body contact since he was very warm and I was freezing. I hadn’t really planned my wardrobe that well because I’d assumed we would have been in the south of France by this time on our trip, but I still could have used a nice wool sweater. The weather was barely tolerable in a pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeved tee shirt.

  We arrived late evening and quickly navigated ourselves outside, where we picked up a taxi and took it to Colin’s grandparents’ house. I loved the postcard-picture cozy cottage atmosphere immediately. Though they resided in the suburbs, the abundance of trees was gorgeous and overwhelming at the same time. The snow had melted, although the temps were still cold. We arrived to a high of forty degrees that night and the day temps, the usual high of fifty according to the pattern of weather in late May, weren’t much better.

  Colin’s grandparents lived on a property which stood right beside a lake in a very dense and woodsy area. Their cottage, beautifully restored and built with a log cabin design, appeared large and roomy from the outside. Inside, it was more beautiful. There was an open layout which consisted of a sitting room, a study, a large modern kitchen, and a dining room downstairs which also had a half bath for guests..

  Upstairs, there were three large, well-kept bedrooms. The place was amazing, and the furniture suited the house’s rustic look. The property, full of beautiful photographs, overflowed with a sense of love and warmth. There were photos of Colin’s dad, my therapist, plastered throughout the house, along with photos of Liam and Colin.

  Colin introduced me to them using Dutch before they said a few words to him and switched to English.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” his grandmother said warmly. “I am Laurina, and you are free to call me that. There aren’t m
any formalities in this house.”

  She didn’t seem like the grandmotherly type at all with her voluptuous though slender figure, blonde bobbed hair, and pale blue eyes. In fact, she seemed like a slightly older version of Catherine Deneuve and equally well-preserved.

  His grandfather introduced himself next, and he was equally as warm. He had sandy brown hair flecked with gray, his grandson’s crystal blue eyes, and a charming demeanor.

  “You are free to call me Kerstan, my Christian name. Welcome to our family,” he said. He embraced me, his gesture full of sincerity and warmth.

  “Thank you,” I responded to both of them. “Although I should tell you Colin and I haven’t been dating very long, but it really is a pleasure to meet you both.”

  “Well, dinner is on the table and I made a very popular Norwegian dish it has taken me ages to perfect, so I hope you enjoy it,” Laurina explained as we walked toward the dining room together.

  “I am sure I will be more than satisfied with your cuisine, Mrs. van der Meer. I have never been all that picky when it comes to food so it’s no problem, really.”

  Laurina and Kerstan sat at the head of the table, which obviously made sense to me. Colin and I sat across from one another. Laurina had understated how much she’d cooked, as there was a large lidded bowl on the table filled with a popular local specialty, seafood bisque. There was a large carafe of water and a bottle of aquavit.

  “Well, before we dig into this delicious food, Colin, why don’t you pour everyone a helping of aquavit so we can toast? It’s bad luck in our family not to take a drink before dinner is served,” Kerstan explained.