CLOSER (Taint Book 2)

by Carmen Jenner

  I open my eyes a crack and glare up at her. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Her shoulders sag in defeat. “You hit your head pretty hard. Been asleep for too many days. The agent will be by with your paperwork soon, best to shower and shave. I’ve pressed and laid out your clothes.”

  My brows knit together, and it hurts. I have the world’s worst hangover. “What?”

  “You do not remember? You crashed your car, bought this house, asked me to work for you. I take care of your dog.”

  “Dog? I don’t have a dog.” Just then a mangy mutt jumps up on the bed and licks my face. He smells like shit. I shove him away, and he sits back on his haunches at the base of the bed staring at the strange woman as if awaiting his next command. Oh fuck! The car. I sit bolt upright. “Where’s the car?”

  “It has been towed.”

  “What the fuck?” That’s a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car. “Where has it been towed to? Where am I? Who are you, and what the fuck is this about me buying a house?”

  “Not just any house, monsieur. This house,” she says proudly.

  I shake my head. “I don’t need a house in the middle of ...” I pause and glance at the furniture around me. “Where are we?”

  “La Colle-sur-Loup.”

  “And where is my car?”

  “In the village, Monsieur.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “The village?”

  Fuck me.

  “Oui.”

  “I need that car back.”

  She nods. “Car will be fixed, monsieur. Good as new.”

  “No, no, no. Not good as new. It’s a rental.”

  “But they have already begun the work—”

  “No! Get it back. No work. Tell them to stop work. No work.”

  “Pas de travail?”

  “Oui, pas de travail.” I exhale loudly. I am so fucking screwed.

  “Mais monsieur, you said I work for you. Si je ne travaille pas pour vous, I don't know what I do if you leave. I will be homeless. La banque y veillera.” She rings her hands and rushes towards the bed. “I'm hard worker. I get you anything you need. S'il vous plaît, monsieur? Je vous en prie!”

  The dog backs up her pleas with a whine of his own.

  “Look, lady. I’d love to be able to help you, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.”

  She begins muttering in French again. The dog and I watch her pace. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I have no idea what to say to this woman, so I ask the only thing that makes sense right now. “Is there coffee?”

  “Oui.”

  “Cigarettes?”

  She frowns, and I’m pretty sure what follows is a lecture on smoking, but I don’t have a fucking clue what she’s saying. She leaves the room and I flop back on the bed. The dog stares at me. I stare back, wondering if I somehow got my hands on a bad trip and am still high as a fucking kite.

  Before long she returns with a carafe of coffee, bread and jam, and an old pipe, along with a tin of tobacco. I study the apparatus, sniff it once and load the chamber before putting the lip in my mouth. I lift the pack of matches from the tray and light the tobacco. Thick puffs of smoke rise from the tobacco, and the woman sighs and snatches the pipe from my mouth, picking up more tobacco and packing it tightly into the holder. She hands it back to me, and I place it between my lips. She strikes another match and holds it to the tobacco suggesting that I should puff like a fish out of water.

  Rich smoke fills my lungs and I cough and inhale, settling back against the headboard. She prepares my coffee, not bothering to ask if I take milk and sugar. I do, but she loads it up with milk and doesn’t bother with the sugar at all. I take a sip, because I need it before I’m able to sort out what the fuck I’m doing here, and how I get back home. Not to mention the three-hundred-thousand-dollar car I just totalled.

  “I washed your clothing, but I found this in your pocket.” I take the tiny square of cardboard from her hand and glance at the fine gold script written on thick, embossed paper.

  Brielle Kagawa.

  Cellist.

  I run my thumb over the lettering and flip it over. There’s a number listed. Nothing else is written on it. Flashbacks of a splintered cello and a hot brunette beating me with her bow slam into me, and I sigh. Shit. Seems my car and my reputation weren’t the only things I totalled that night. I set the card on the nightstand. The second I find my phone. I’ll call.

  “My phone? Have you seen it?”

  “We have a phone, sir.”

  “No, my mobile phone. Cell phone. You know? Handheld.” I gesture to my pocket. Then I remember I’m not wearing pants and I glance down at the sheet. My dick’s hard, but when is it not? The woman gulps and then her sharp intake of breath and the horrified expression lets me know I’ve insulted her. “No, not my dick. My phone.” Like an idiot, I gesture again to my pocket and pretend I’m dialling my hand.

  “Phone.” I point to my chest. “My phone.”

  She shakes her head. “No phone, only dog.”

  I frown. “What?”

  “Only dog in car. Dog and monsieur.”

  “Christ,” I mutter. “I don’t own a dog, lady. I’m from Australia. I don’t live in France, so I couldn’t possibly own this dog.” The mangy mutt in question gives a sharp bark as if he’s tattling on me. “He isn’t my dog. I don’t have time for a dog. I’m a rock star.”

  “Oui. Monsieur very famous. Buy big house to escape paparazzi.”

  “No, I just lost the only girl I ever loved to another man and crashed my car into your front gate the night of her wedding.”

  She nods. “Your front gate now.”

  “No, lady ... what’s your name?”

  “Je m'appelle Margaux.”

  “Margaux?”

  “Oui.”

  “ Je m'appelle Levi.”

  “Ah, Levi.” Her smile is huge, and I can’t tell if it’s because I’m attempting to speak French, or if she’s just some psychotic creeper who smiles a lot. Then again, maybe she’s a fan.

  “Look, I don’t know what I told you, but I was drunk ... and possibly concussed. I can’t buy this house.”

  “But monsieur, papers already drawn up. Where will Levi, Margaux, and dog go?”

  Jesus Christ, it’s like talking to a toddler. “Margaux, that’s not my dog, and I can’t buy a house in the South of France. I can’t have you come work for me.”

  “Why ever not, monsieur?”

  “Because I’m in a rock band. I live on the road.”

  “What road?”

  I shake my head. Growing more and more frustrated with every word that leaves Margaux’s lips. “I live on a bus, a tour bus.” I mimic strumming my guitar. “I play an instrument.”

  “Now monsieur lives here, plays instrument here, oui?”

  “No, not oui. Definitely not oui.” I sigh. “You know what ... can you just ... can you bring me a phone?” I make the symbol for call me and plead with my eyes.

  “Oui, téléphone.” She hurries away, and I have no idea if she’s going to get me a phone or not. I glare at the dog on the end of my bed. He barks. Punk. The dog whines and crawls closer on his belly, paws outstretched, tail wagging.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know how the fuck I got here, but I’m out of this shithole the second I find my pants, and no, you cannot come with me. Absolutely fucking not.”

  I climb from the bed and stretch my arms above my head. I ache all over and I’m covered in bruises, and completely fucking naked. It’s as if I woke up inside Dude, Where’s My Car. Only when I think about what I’m missing, it’s a lot more than a fucking car.

  Ali in her wedding dress begging me not to leave, not to drive drunk. I ruined her wedding, essentially called her a slut in front of seventy of their closest friends and family, and I broke their cellist’s instrument. Ali’s gonna fucking kill me when I see her, but then I realise I won’t see her. Not for several months, maybe more. She’s off on her honeymo
on with Coop, and then she’ll return to Australia, to her job managing the record store, and fuck knows when I’ll see her.

  When they throw a housewarming party? A baby shower?

  Jesus. My blood turns cold and my stomach knots up. I don’t want to think about that shit, but this is my reality now. This is what I get for wanting to be selfless, for wanting Ali to be happy with him ...without me. I roam around the room. My clothes are folded over a nearby chair. I pick up the suit pants and dress shirt. I’m pretty sure it was stained with blood, which reminds me. I walk over to the mirror and inspect my face. Still pretty at least. Though there’s a large gash over my brow and a little swelling, a couple of grazes. The wound looks like it’s been sutured, and not hurriedly either, the sutures are neat and clean. Either Margaux called a doctor who makes house calls or she used to be a nurse before she became a maid to a dead man and an unwilling rock star.

  Why the fuck didn’t she call the cops? I should be rotting in some cell right now in a French prison answering to a very large hairy man called Boris. I mean, I crashed my fucking car into her gate and walked inside like I owned the place, and passed out. Any sane woman would have called the cops, which begs the question—who the fuck did this woman work for?

  The responding gasp alerts me to her presence. “Mon Dieu!”

  Oh shit. I forgot I’m buck naked. “Shit, sorry.” I cover my junk—never any easy feat when your cock is the size of a footlong—and side scuttle to my folded-up clothes on the armchair. Margaux turns and gives me her back, but she waits patiently as I pull on my clothes. Only once my legs are in the pants, I realise these are not my clothes at all. The tags are still on them, so is the hefty price tag of several thousand dollars and a nice black little Armani label. “Margaux, where did you get these?”

  “I purchased with monsieur’s card.”

  Oh fuck.

  “Huh, and where exactly did you get my card?”

  “From monsieur’s wallet.” She smiles as if I’m simple. “I also paid for medical supplies, more clothing, toiletries and monsieur’s dog’s vet check.”

  I take a long slow breath in through my nose and release it slowly, but all that comes out is, “That’s not my dog.”

  “It is now,” she counters, and I guess that’s that. Grown impatient—it seems—with my unhurriedness, Margaux enters the room and lifts the shirt from the armchair. She shakes it out and holds it open for me to slip my arms through the holes. Then she moves around to my front and buttons me up, yanks the tie off the chair, and whips it around my neck so fast I get whiplash.

  I shake my head. “No tie.”

  “Si,” she gives me a no-nonsense face, “la cravate.”

  “No, I don’t do ties. I hate the fucking tie.”

  “Hate the tie after your meeting. For now monsieur wears the tie.”

  “Margaux. I’m not attending a meeting. I can’t buy this house. I need to get back to my life.”

  “Your house on the road?”

  “Yes.” I nod. Only, I don’t have to get back to that house because we’re not on the road right now. We’re having another month off, so Coop can fuck his new bride, and then we head into the studio to write for the next album.

  What if I didn’t go back to Australia just yet? I mean, I can’t very well buy this house. I don’t even know what the hell it’s worth. Taint has done extremely well, and the dong deal just saw me making more than any of my bandmates, but I’m pretty sure not even I can afford a house in the French ... “Where are we? Like on a map, where is this place exactly?”

  She shakes her head as if she doesn’t understand.

  “Where in France?”

  “Ah, La Colle-sur-Loup.”

  “Yes, but where is La Colle-sur-Loup?”

  “Oui. Here.”

  Jesus. I need Google Translate just to have a conversation with this woman. I glance at the phone she brought in. It’s handheld, but it’s a landline, not a mobile. Christ. What century did I step into? “Do you have the Internet?”

  “Non, Monsieur Durand forbade it. Said it was the devil’s work.”

  “Shit.”

  The doorbell rings and Margaux’s face lights up. She steps away and runs for the door, but she turns and points to my tie. “Tie stays. Don’t hate the tie.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She nods and leaves. Sweat prickles down my spine. I tug at my collar and swallow hard. What the fuck am I still doing here? I should slip out the back while I have the chance. I glance at the dog, who looks like he knows exactly what I’m thinking and guilts me with those weird heterochromatic puppy eyes. “I told you not to look at me like that.”

  I head across the room, drink the cold coffee and put on my new shoes—that Margaux also picked out. I console myself with the fact that there’s no price tag attached, so I can’t tell how much they cost. I pack the pipe again and light it up, and then I leave the room and walk the hall with its imposing portraits. I don’t have a big family like this. I don’t have any family at all save for my bandmates. My mum was kind of a shit parent. She was more interested in drinking and whoring herself out to our local biker club than she was in the child that came from her loins. Once I turned eighteen, I was out of there. I moved to the city and let the government pay for half my school tuition to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

  The rest, I worked my arse off for. And now? Now I’d give anything to walk away clean. I don’t want to give up my music, it’s all I have, but I don’t want to resort to a life of porn either because I can’t stand the sight of my lead vocalist.

  I push into the room at the end of the hall. It’s huge and empty save for the piano and the ratty looking stool beneath it. I enter and stare up at the ceiling. It’s a ballroom, with parquetry floors, gilt ceilings and paintings on the walls and roof. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of beauty in my short career. I cross the vast room and sit at the stool. I press my fingers to the ivory, play a dissonant, teeth-achingly uncomfortable chord, the kind that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

  The kind that makes my dick hard.

  I tinkle my fingers over the keys, and then I play. I haven’t done this, created something from nothing like this, in far too long. Sure, I wrote that song for Ali on her wedding day, but it was fuelled by love. This music is created from misery. It’s gut-wrenching, poetic, and fucking torturous all at once. I play so hard my fingers ache, and I stop only to loosen my tie. My hair is wet with sweat and falls in my face, but I ignore it and just play. When I’m done, I feel someone else in the room. I turn and glance at Margaux, and a man in a sharp suit claps, slowly. Arsehole.

  “Very nice, Mr Quinn.” His accent is thick, his pomade too, but his smile is thin and watery. See-through.

  “It’s Levi.”

  He nods. “Levi. I am Monsieur Rousseau. I’ve drawn up your paperwork, however, Mademoiselle Arnaud here tells me you’re having second thoughts.”

  I glance from Margaux to Rousseau, and finally to that stupid mutt—who are all apparently unfazed that I’m having a moment and bleeding all over the keys. “No second thoughts. I’ll take it.”

  “You will?” he says, surprised.

  “Yeah.”

  Margaux shrieks and runs towards me, pulling me up by my hands and drawing me into her ample bust. I’m surprised by her strength. “Monsieur, monsieur. You and dog will be very happy here, you will see.”

  I don’t know about that. This woman is off her rocker, but at least I made an old lady happy. Which, I can honestly say, is a first for me. Rousseau thrusts the paperwork up under my nose. I glance it over; it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than what I expected. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Wrong, monsieur?” He looks down his nose at me.

  “The price? What the hell is wrong with it?”

  His brow furrows. “There’s some structural damage.”

  “Where?”

  “The west wing of the house.” Rousseau gla
nces at Margaux, and then back at me. “You have not seen it yet?”

  “Show me.”

  I let him lead me out through the hall and down a flight of stairs at the opposite end from where I slept. There are cracks in the stone staircase and more damage to the murals painted on the walls, but when he opens the door on a musty, crumbling old room, I brush past so I can be the first to step inside.

  “Do be careful, please monsieur.”

  I edge my way around the furniture and wonder what’s so structurally unsound about it. Sure, the floor feels as if it’s sinking in parts, and there are fissures in the wall, but the ceiling just like the ballroom upstairs is hand painted with another masterpiece. Venus. Obviously not painted by Botticelli, but still beautiful. She’s red-haired and small, with curves in all the right places, curves you could grab hold of as you fuck, just like Ali. And just like her, I love everything about this room. New melodies flirt with my mind and beg to be written as I stare at her.

  I throw the sheet back off the bed and flop down on the mattress.

  “I’ll take it.”

  “You’re sure?” Rousseau looks dubious. “There’s a full report of the structural damage, and the costs to fix it included in your paperwork there.”

  “I’m not fixing it.”

  “But, monsieur—”

  “It’s perfect as it is.”

  He raises a brow and then thrusts his pen at me. I take it and pocket it. “You don’t mind if I have my lawyer look over this, do you?”

  “But of course.”

  “I don’t speak French, so it would be kind of stupid of me just to sign without another pair of eyes.”

  “Understood.”

  “Great, well then. Why don’t you leave me your card, and I’ll have these couriered to your office?”

  “Very well.” He clears his throat, probably allergic to the dust. Pussy. “And where does monsieur plan on staying in the meantime?”

  I spread my arms wide. “Here. Gotta get a feel for the place before I buy, you know how it is?”

  “But—”

  “Okay, I show you out,” Margaux says, ushering the agent to the door, and up the stairs. I chuckle. I could kiss that woman.