Page 43 of Closer

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DOCTOR DONG

BRIELLE

Icome in from thepool, not bothering to put on my cover up because I plan on heading straight for the shower. As I approach the ballroom, I hear voices, and neither of them are Margaux’s.

“Stop wriggling,” an American woman says. I stiffen and attempt to just keep walking because it is none of my business what the rock star does in his own house, but I find myself huddled behind the wall, listening to their conversation.

Levi groans. A low, erotic sound that makes my core tighten. My stomach clenches, and not in a good way. “I’m trying. It’s not exactly comfortable. It’s sticky and cold.”

Sticky? What could possibly be ... Oh my God.Really? In the room we ... the room that I play in? I have half a mind to storm in there and slap him across the face, and then I realise that it’s me who is out of line, because I am nothing to him, and he is nothing to me. Why should I care if he’s having sex with some strange woman in his house? I am a guest here. Non. I am being paid to be here. To provide a service.Like the maid.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Margaux says from behind, and I jump and almost knock over her tray containing an unopened bottle of expensive whisky and four glasses.

“Er ... bonjour.” I give a startled laugh, and try to back away, but then Levi calls to me as Margaux enters the ballroom.

“Brie, is that you lurking out in the hall?”

I sigh and close my eyes, because there’s no point in refuting it, but that doesn’t mean I want to see him fucking someone else. I have no desire to see that, and why is Margaux coming in and out of the room during all of this?

“You know you don’t have to hang out in the hall like a creeper.”

“We don’t bite,” the American woman says, and then I hear laughter coming from more voices. All male, and none of them Levi’s.

“Speak for yourself.” Levi chuckles. “My little Angry French Girl could use a mauling or two.”

I can’t help it. I can no longer hold my curiosity at bay, and I stalk into the room, hell-bent on giving him a piece of my mind. “I am not your little anything, and I would not allow your mouth to come anywhere near my body.”

He grins. It’s obnoxious and salacious, and completely unwarranted. I hate the way my stomach flips when I lower my gaze and find him naked with a woman sitting on the floor at his feet. She’s holding some kind of big clear plastic pipe with a thick pink substance in it, and it appears that his ample penis is shoved inside. I glance at the woman, who is cute in an American hipster kind of way, and then at the men standing nearby. One is heavily tattooed, fully clothed—thank God—with a bald head and forearms bigger than my thighs the whole way around. He appears to be covered in some kind of pink plaster dust. The other is also fully clothed, and holds a camera on his shoulder, filming whatever it is that’s going on here.

“Brie, this is Celia, Doc, and Chuck.”

Doc tilts his head to the side and appraises me as if I’m a piece of meat. “What do we have here?”

“No!” Levi points at Doc, and accepts the glass that Margaux holds out to him. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, and it’s a big fuck N.O.”

“What?” Doc shrugs as if he is unafraid of Levi’s status. I’d be willing to bet that is not something this rock star is used to—people not doing everything he tells them to. “I can’t ask?”

“Not if you want me to pull out of this cast and out of this deal, then fuck no. You can’t ask.” Levi’s eyes are all challenge now. “Frankly, I’m fucking insulted.”

Celia rolls her eyes and twists her head to see me better. “Hi, I’m Celia. I’d shake your hand, but I kinda have them full.”

Levi smiles at her. “Occupational hazard?”

I do not like this woman.

“You’d be surprised at how unfunny that joke is after your thousandth casting,” she says as if she’s made of unicorn sprinkles and candy, but her cheery voice is completely passive aggressive.

Then again, maybe she and I could be best friends. I’m certainly in the market for one after Piaf sold me out with this job knowing full well how I felt about the arrogant rock star.

“Do I even want to know what is going on here?” I say, and turn to Doc, who is circling me as if I’m prey. “And why is this big, bald animal staring at my arse?”

“Doc, I mean it,” Levi snaps, downing the rest of his whisky.

“Forgive me—Brie, is it?”

“Non, Brie is what this bastard calls me.” I point to Levi. “It’s Mademoiselle Kagawa to you.”

---