Page 64 of Closer

His brow creases, and he looks both angry and hurt.Good. I want him to hurt. He should hurt. It is Levi’s fault that I am here now. “Get your shit together. I’ll drive us to the airport.”

“Us? There is no us.” I abandon my hasty packing and grab a T-shirt and throw it on. Then I swipe my purse and a light sweater from off the bed and face him. “My father is dead. He’s dead and I wasn’t there. You took that from me.”

His jaw ticks, and I can see him debating whether or not to argue. “I took that from you? Are you fucking kidding me? I didn’t force you to stay. You stayed because of the money, because I paid you to.”

I shake my head. For weeks I’ve been obsessed with this man, smitten, bewitched, but no more. I was crazy to agree to this, madder still to enjoy spending time with him. To begin falling for him. When I turn, Levi is standing in the doorway. His face resigned.

“Brie, don’t go alone, let me come with you.”

“Why? What can you do to help? My father is dead. What can you possibly have to offer me?”

“Me,” he shouts. “Me. That’s it. That’s all I got.”

“I can’t. I have to think of my mother. She is alone now, and—”

“Fuck!” he roars, grabbing my wrist as I try to pass. “What about thinking of you for once? Huh? What’s wrong with putting you first. What do you want?”

“You can’t give me what I want,” I seethe, wrenching my arm from his grasp. “I want the time back that I lost with my father. I wish I’d never taken this job. I wish I’d never played that damn wedding. I wish I’d never met you.”

“Then go.” His lip curls in a sneer. I stalk past. Already I’ve spent too much time arguing with him. “I’ll be sure to wire you the full two hundred thousand euro.”

I swallow hard and turn on my heel, retracing my steps, I slap him across the face. “Vas te faire foutre, fucking pig!”

He laughs humourlessly, grabbing my wrist so I cannot hit him again. “You gotta pay extra for the pleasure of beating me, darlin’.”

I wrench free and walk away. The tears fall freely by the time I reach Margaux in the kitchen and beg her to take me to the airport in Nice.

“Bien sur, mademoiselle.” She grabs the keys from a holder in the pantry. I follow her through the empty house. Levi is nowhere to be seen, but I hear him in the echoes of crashing furniture and splintering wood.

I can’t think about him right now, because my father just died, and instead of being there with him, I wasted those weeks with a drunk, a stranger. I let my body and my heart twist my judgement, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.

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