Atonement (The Atonement Series)

Atonement, A Novel

The Atonement Series

Copyright © 2012 Elle Chardou

All Rights Reserved.

Cover Artist:
Tamra Westberry

Photographs: Monkey Business
(
Copyright © 2012
www.depositphotos.com
)

ISBN:
978-1-3018-5598-8

Publisher: Midnight Engel Press

License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Publisher’s Note:

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Dedication
/
Acknowledgments
/
Prologue
/
Part One: It’s All Over But The Crying
/
Chapter One
/
Chapter Two
/
Chapter Three
/
Chapter Four
/
Chapter Five
/
Chapter Six
/
Chapter Seven
/
Chapter Eight
/
Part Two: The World Is Not Enough
/
Chapter Nine
/
Chapter Ten
/
Chapter Eleven
/
Chapter Twelve
/
Chapter Thirteen
/
Chapter Fourteen
/
Chapter Fifteen
/
Chapter Sixteen
/
Chapter Seventeen
/
Chapter Eighteen
/
Chapter Nineteen
/
Chapter Twenty
/
About the Author
/
Contact & Resources
/
Current & Upcoming Books

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to the usual suspects: my daughters, my sister and my friends (both in the writing community and those who aren’t involved in this crazy world). Love you to death and enjoy!

Acknowledgments

There are so many people who helped me on this fabulous and fascinating journey so I will try to start at the top. My FB Groups, Indie Insiders (shh) The Secret Society of Indie Writers, Indie Writers Unite; my friends: Jessica Meigs, Stephanie Abbott, and Laura Yirak – thank you for taking the time to read this and advising me because you made this book so much better than I could have ever made it by myself.

Laura, for all your advice (she knows what I am talking about), Nikki (for being such a supportive sister), Jess (for just hearing me bitch and moan all the time); others who I will be eternally grateful for include Tamra Westberry, for your kick ass covers and putting up with me when I know you just wanted to press the delete button on yet another email from me. Thank you for all your help, love and support anyway.

Prologue

“
DRINK UP BECAUSE
class is over!”

I looked down at the perfectly made dirty martini before I glanced at Drew and rolled my eyes. “Yes, it is over for Thanksgiving weekend only. I can only stay for a little while though because I promised my mother I would make it in time for Thanksgiving dinner; thanks to you and this stupid party, I’m not leaving until seven in the morning.”

The ever perfect Drew pouted in my direction which, on him, looked pretty pathetic. “You are such a girl. Why can’t you just stay here with me and avoid your parents altogether? We are PhD students after all. What’s so special about going home for Thanksgiving anyway?” he chided in a sarcastic tone.

I downed the martini in one go before I walked back to my vanity mirror and tried to concentrate on flat-ironing my hair but Drew wasn’t the type who could easily be ignored.

An unabashedly and vivacious character, he was also my best friend and ex-lover. Although his bisexuality had nothing to do with us parting ways, his infidelity did but I loved him so much as a human being, I couldn’t dare shut him out of my life.

We were both last year PhD students and at twenty-eight, we were damn near ancient. I could have taken a very cushioned position in my father’s corporation but after the whole economy collapsed in the late naughts, I decided to go back to school and get a PhD in Political Economy and Government. Drew happened to be majoring in the same subject and since we ran into one another more often than not, somehow, we managed to make it work.

It made sense for him to want his PhD in our subject of choice as his father was a Senator for Massachusetts and always assumed once his son finished sowing his wild oats, he would join him in government. As for me, I was just lost and hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do with my life. I would probably end up an academic as my writing was dismal and I didn’t really have the patience to be an author.

My Android phone began to play “Right Round” by Flo Rida—a ring tone I had specifically chosen for my mother—as I set down my flat iron and picked it up.

“Hello, Mother, how are you?” I sing-songed happily.

She sniffled a bit before she continued, “Deirdre, sweetheart, when were you planning to come back?”

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

“It’s your father…” she trailed off before I heard a wail in the background from my younger sister, Caitlyn.

My heart began to hammer in my chest as I tried to stop the flow of emotions from taking over my whole body. “What about him?”

“It’s my fault, really. I needed an ingredient for the organic apple pie I was planning to make for dessert. You know I never cook and I threw Marguerite out of the kitchen and told her to rest her feet. She’s spent so much time making the perfect Thanksgiving meal but I just had to make my organic apple pie—”

“Mom, what’s going on?” I interrupted. Something was definitely not right because my mother never babbled unless she was nervous or frightened.

“He…a drunk driver…he was run over and left there! The bastard didn’t bother to stick around and check if he was breathing let alone okay. There wasn’t a single witness—can you believe that? I mean, who goes out the day before Thanksgiving and gets run over yet there isn’t a single
fucking
witness?” Her voice had reached a high-pitched shrill by the end and I didn’t know what to say because none of her words told me whether my poor father was dead or alive.

“What’s his condition? Surely someone eventually called the police and he was taken to the hospital?”

My mother sniffled again on the other line. “It was too late, honey. They did all they could do and he fought like a son of a bitch until the end but…there was nothing they
could
do. You and Caitlyn have lost your father and I’ve lost my husband…”

My heart slowed to a crawl and all the sudden, my phone dropped from my hand and I collapsed to the floor. The world couldn’t spin fast enough as far as I was concerned. Anything to make the fucking pain end was good enough for me.

How could Drew have been so right? School was definitely over for me now indefinitely.

Part One

It’s All Over But The Crying