Only Love (The Atonement Series) (25 page)

Drake kissed the top of my head. “So it’s settled then? We’ll think about moving back here?”

I was silent for a few stolen moments before I nuzzled his chest. “Yes, I will agree to consider the option and before the end of the engagement party, I will give you an answer.”

We both stared into one another’s eyes before we kissed each other good night, stood and walked back to the bedroom. I didn’t think it would be easy for me to fall asleep but once I was in the safety of his arms, all was right with the world. I closed my eyes and before I knew it, sleep had taken me to another realm, time and place.

Chapter Eighteen

Colin

Despite all the preparation he had done for the day, Colin still wasn’t ready to face Deirdre. He’d woken in another woman’s arms though it wasn’t Cassie. That affair had ended before he left La Jolla when he told a little white lie that he would be going home for a while and they wouldn’t see much of one another. He wasn’t a believer in long distance relationships and thought they were better as friends.

Cassie took the news a lot better than he thought but then again, he had also given her ten thousand dollars in guilt money since Deirdre refused to hire her back as an employee.

Colin had met Mikayla the same day he’d given Cassie the kiss off and much to his surprise, they’d immediately hit it off. She was a wild one and not easily tamed with her long, bleached blonde hair, most of it extensions, wild talon-length nails and blue eyes but he’d fallen in lust with her almost immediately.

She was about as opposite to Deirdre as one could get. They spoke for a while before he told her about his plan to get his former fiancée back. Mikayla had then told him about how much she missed Drake and perhaps if the relationship between the two ended, she could be a shoulder to cry on and maybe he would think about giving their former relationship another chance.

“I’m not promising anything,” she’d said before she lit a Marlboro Red and blew the smoke in the opposite direction. “I don’t know what went down between you and Deirdre but what ever she and Drake have isn’t a play thing. Believe me, I would know. I have seen the man go through women like tissue paper but this one is different.”

Mikayla’s revelation didn’t exactly please Colin but he smiled and replied, “There is an engagement party in Seattle and I would like you to accompany me. I don’t have a date and my brother has told me Deirdre is bringing Drake. It gives us a chance to at least test our plan out.”

She looked into his eyes intently and had instantly agreed on the plan.

Less than thirty-six hours later, they were inside his high-rise condo and Mikayla fit comfortably indeed within his arms. Not only was she more than met the eye but she was the first woman he’d slept with that he didn’t have to picture Deirdre in order to have an orgasm.

The force of nature known as Mikayla was a complete and utter sexual minx between the sheets and she knew all the tricks of the trade. He loved the way she could just milk orgasms from him like it wasn’t a huge deal and more than that, she wasn’t clingy and that was a definite plus.

Mikayla was a thoroughly modern woman who did what ever she pleased and never had any apologies about the life she lived.

They lay side-by-side in a post-coital bliss while she lazily smoked a cigarette in bed. Although Colin didn’t usually allow smoking in his home, he made an exception for her. Kayla’s father was a powerful criminal after all and he had no wish to wake up in the middle of the night with a bloody horse head in
his
bed.

“So, you loved Drake and he meant everything to you…why did you cheat?” Colin inquired as he leaned toward her and lay on his side.

Mikayla turned his way and smiled. Her teeth were capped and whiter-than-white. “Simply because the opportunity presented itself to me and I wanted to get off. Drake wasn’t there…he had a run to do in Mexico for my father and I was horny. I went out dancing with some friends, had a few drinks, a few snorts of coke and I wanted to fuck. His best friend from Le Cordon Bleu was there and he came over to say ‘hello’…we kinda studied one another and decided what the hell not? I mean, what Drake doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right? I go for it and he turns out to be as great in bed as he looked on the dance floor.”

She dragged from her cigarette. “I wasn’t expecting him until the following evening. Drake said he would be too tired from the trip and would spend the night at home and we would see each other the next day. He decided to surprise me and when he crawled in bed nude and caressed his best friend’s nut sack instead of my snatch, well, neither he nor his best friend were exactly amused the situation. He basically told me it was over that night and we could continue to be business partners but he could no longer trust me and without trust, there couldn’t be a relationship between us.”

“That sucks but it is pretty much true,” he replied.

She dragged from her cigarette again before she put it out in the ashtray and set it on the bedside table next to her. “That’s bullshit. It was a mistake and it happened—so what? I wasn’t naïve enough to think he kept it in his pants on
every
trip to Mexico when Papa was sending him there with some of the most beautiful and expensive call girls in the world. I would have
expected
him to cheat on me from time to time—what man wouldn’t?

“Besides, I truly believe it is the way he was brought up. That ultra WASPish world where there is a certain sense of decorum and women are supposed to follow rules and regulations. He knew I could never be that kind of person because of the family I come from. I literally grew up with ‘death for breakfast’—Papa murdered our mother after all for being unfaithful. He didn’t raise my brothers and I like that though, unlike Mama, who should have known better because she was from the old country. He always told us, as children, that we could do what ever we wanted and be anyone we wanted to be. I really wanted to be Mrs. Drake O’Connell and I still think it is possible as long as I am in his life.”

Colin breathed hard before he turned to lay flat on his back and tucked his arms beneath his head. “I don’t know whether I would have a chance with Deirdre or not and Drake has little—if anything—to do with it. Even if she was alone, she didn’t set out to find someone new. She just wanted to get away from me and that speaks volumes. I will do everything in my power to convince her we belong together but…that doesn’t mean she’s going to buy what I am selling, know what I mean?”

Mikayla sat up and stretched, the sheet falling away from her perfect, tanned breasts with subtle saline implants. “Well don’t expect any sympathy from
me
. It’s your own fault—you and your damned conscience. Why would you tell her a secret so explosive anyway? You should have just kept it to yourself and you two could still be happy.”

“Not when she was pregnant with my brother’s baby. I wouldn’t have wanted to raise that bastard’s kid.”

“Well, you could have slipped something in her beverage to make her miscarry once you found out. Google is your friend you know. That is something so small and insignificant to you telling her you and your brother murdered her father. You’re lucky you weren’t dealing with me because I would have dealt you the very same fate as you’d dealt my father. And that brother of yours wouldn’t be upright and breathing either.”

Colin scooted closer to her in bed and touched the side of her breast nearest to him gently with a few selected fingers. “I have no doubt about that. However…I’m not Liam and I don’t have a heart made of stone. I couldn’t live with Deirdre and not tell her the truth because that is not the kind of person I am. Honesty is always the best policy with me and unfortunately, it has cost me the love of my life.”

Mikayla leaned toward him before her lips found his and they kissed passionately. The faint taste of cigarette smoke on her tongue made her appear more dangerous and much more seductive.

“All isn’t lost yet and we still have the engagement party. You have more than enough time to work your magic and believe me, I can keep Drake pre-occupied. All I have to do is start talking about expansion and how I would want him to be head chef here. He’ll be thinking about dollar signs when you are able to get your little tulip alone.”

His hands caressed her breasts fully as he kissed her neck. “But what if it doesn’t work? What makes you think he would even want to settle here and what about his monthly drug runs to Mexico?”

“The arrangement had to end sometime and besides, the only way he can continue to be around is if he agrees to marry me. Papa has disclosed to me that otherwise, he must go. He knows too much about our family and you will never see a Shevchenko locked in an American prison cell.”

Colin’s lips paused in mid-kiss and he pulled away from her. “What do you mean get rid of him? Your father is going to have him murdered?”

Mikayla glared at him with dead blue eyes. “Yes, Einstein, right here in Seattle. If he gets a call from me that Drake won’t go through with the deal and we can’t get back together again then he already has hit men in place. He won’t ever see La Jolla again.”

Her words weren’t what spooked him but the matter of fact way she said them and Colin had never felt so out of his depth before. This was a situation that was quickly beginning to spiral out of control; he could think of nothing to rectify this unfortunate consequence of getting involved with a woman as volatile and unpredictable as Mikayla.

Colin and Mikayla were fashionably late to the engagement party. They’d been too busy devouring each other in bed and later in the shower. He hated to admit it but he would actually miss her and her unrelenting sexual prowess. She was the female equivalent of his brother and that wasn’t a bad thing at all as far as he was concerned.

He always thought women like the Samantha character on
Sex & the City
were a myth but Mikayla Shevchenko was one in the flesh and he loved every moment he spent with her.

Although his love life was great, he couldn’t deny that nagging feeling gnawing at his stomach. Could he sit by and watch another innocent man die without at least warning said guy what was going on? The situation would be that much simpler if Drake wasn’t fucking Deirdre. With him out of the way, he could pursue her again and she would be too heartbroken to resist his charms.

Colin tried to avoid running into her although he knew eventually it would happen. Liam and Caitlyn had decided to hold the engagement party at one of the partner’s opulent homes since Liam had an expensive bachelor pad, but had yet to buy an elaborate house in the Seattle suburban area.

The place was immaculate and although the weather was less than ideal, the home was big enough for their relatively small engagement party which consisted of less than fifty of their closest friends and family.