by Hazel Parker
The venom of this woman...I had somehow underestimated the effect I had had on her.
“My dearest Layla,” I said.
I was going for something resembling calm and cool. The arched eyebrow suggested that I needed to put a halt to any and all even half-attempts at flirtation.
“I understand that you do not wish to see me, and that is a wish that I can certainly understand. For the last five years, however, I have yearned for this moment—”
“Really? Because I have fucking not,” she interrupted. “I have made every attempt to keep my time in France to a minimum and to avoid going out whenever possible. What happened five years ago should have been the best weekend of my life, and instead, it made it impossible for me to ever love again.”
Should have been the best weekend of my life.
So maybe there is a place in her heart that yearns for that connection again. Or at least the belief it was real.
It was real. It was just…
“Please, at least allow me the cab ride back to the hotel to explain myself,” I said. “After all, our two previous encounters, however brief they may have been, however fleeting the feelings were, would suggest that we are staying in the same hotel.”
Although I was still maintaining my cool, I made a promise to myself that if Layla asked me to get out of the car right then, I would. I had made my point, both from a logical standpoint and an emotional one. I had not apologized, nor had I shown my true self yet, but that was not out of manipulation, but frankly, fear. Fear that she would not believe what I said.
Fear that she would laugh at my pain, just as she might have presumed—wrongly, but nevertheless presumed—that I had laughed at hers.
She scowled at me for several seconds. The hatred in her eyes...it was terrifying. But in a strange way, it was the same energy that, when directed in a different direction, had made me so attracted to her. Few people in life had any sort of zest, and even fewer had a great deal of it. Layla had the kind of zest that suggested a determination to do all things, a fire that made her great—and very seductive.
I had somehow managed to sense it when we were in that hotel lobby five years ago. It had taken me all of my wit and all of my focus to court her, but I was determined to give her my best effort. It had paid off well...until I realized I had put myself in a position that I was not equipped to handle.
And now, that rash decision, that youthful—ironic, considering I was thirty-five—desire to bed a woman as beautiful as her might very well prevent me from ever getting a full apology.
“Mademoiselle?” the driver asked.
Layla looked to the front and looked back at me. Her eyes had softened just a tad, but that was not the same as saying that she had become empathetic or even neutral. She still burned with rage and disgust at my presence; it was just not to the same degree as seconds before. Her emotions were trending in the right direction, but I was still very much in her hell.
“Drive,” she said curtly.
The driver nodded. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. I would have my chance—but I had no time to relax. The cab ride back to the hotel would last but a couple of minutes.
“Thank you, Layla,” I said.
“Don’t fucking say my name,” she said, her anger wavering with emotion for a split second. “Don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t think you’re getting anything out of this. You’re only getting a ride because we’re somehow at the same stupid fucking hotel.”
I nodded, looked away, and smiled so she could not see. No, I did not think I was getting anything out of this tonight.
But the very fact I even had this opportunity to speak and explain myself was something that I was incredibly grateful for.
Chapter 7: Layla
I could see that asshole smugly smiling after I spoke to him, as if he thought this was all just a game with the prize being my naked body.
He still, after all this time, thought this was just a big fucking joke, didn’t he? Pierre Perocheau, billionaire playboy and owner of multiple wineries, thinking that he could just have his way with me because his name was Pierre Perocheau. Thinking he could just hop in the car with me like the ass that he was.
And yet, he could have had any number of women in that club, and he comes for you. Why?
Because he’s a shithead sociopath.
Would he not go for the path of least resistance? For some other woman that he can court and seduce?
He’s a shithead sociopath.
Is he, though?
Yes, yes, he was, if for no other reason than I got into this fucking cab by myself and he had the fucking gall to get into the fucking cab with me and fucking pretend it was OK!
I had to close my eyes and tilt my head back. I’d had one glass of champagne, and this cab ride was already making me feel like I was going to throw up. Except, no, it wasn’t the fault of the champagne or the fault of the cab driver, who was actually driving very smoothly and slowly. This was an anxiety attack.
Brought about by one man. Pierre.
Why, exactly, had I let him into this car again? Why had I agreed to let him ride with me back to the hotel? Was it really because it was the path of least resistance? Or was there somehow, sickeningly, a part of me that wanted more, a part of me that felt what we had gone through was somehow incomplete? Was there a part of me that actually wanted to see the full side of Pierre brought to life?
Well, if there was that part of me, I was determined not to let it become anything more than allowing him to ride along with me.
“How are you doing?”
Really? He had to fucking ask that question? Did he not see how I ran away, how I was having an anxiety attack, how I was trying to avoid him at all costs? Did he really want to ask that?
“How did you enjoy the nightclub?”
My God, did he think after five years I wanted to talk to him about small bullshit like how the nightclub was or how I was feeling? After all the pain and suffering and torment...he wanted me to talk about a nightclub?
Just as I had the first question, I chose to say nothing. It was as polite a response as I could muster; if I opened my mouth, I risked saying something so cruel and so savage even I would feel guilty about it. And that was saying something, because I didn’t have a lot of feelings of guilt associated with Pierre.
“How has your trip to Paris been so far?”
God, every question...every accented word of his...it was like scratching a wound that I had deluded myself into believing had healed. Maybe it had, but it apparently had healed very poorly, because it did not take much work on Pierre’s part to cause me to feel pain again.
“Where are we going once we get back?”
“We?” I finally snapped.
Of all the questions, one presuming that “we” were going to join forces somewhere and meet up was perhaps the most insulting of all. I could ignore small talk, I could ignore stupid questions, but I could not ignore arrogant, crass assumptions.
“We are not going anywhere,” I said. “I, me, Layla Ferrari, alone—get that in your head—I am going to my hotel room and I am going to my bed. Alone. Not with you. Never with you. If there is something you want to say beyond just stupid fucking questions about my trip, you better get them out now, because in probably five minutes or so, you will never see me again. Or, perhaps better said since you seem to be stalking me this entire fucking trip, you will never talk to me again.”
God, this cab ride could not end soon enough. I felt like I was being choked by the situation, under a pile of pressure I could not even begin to consider shaking. There was no getting out from under it, no wriggling my way free. He would have a chokehold on me until I could safely open the door and walk out. And even then, his grip on me would continue until I left France.
Or would it ever?
Or am I going to let it stay that way?
“I understand your frustration,” Pierre said, the kind of cliché and gab remark that almost made me punch h
im and try to throw him out of the cab. “I just think it would be a shame after all this time, after all these years, if we could not even continue this dialogue.”
I was too angry to say anything else. Time had not changed Pierre. It felt like it was the classic case of someone apologizing not for the act that they had committed, but for being caught in the act. I didn’t sense anything in Pierre that suggested he was a changed man.
The only thing I would say in fairness to him was that I was making it quite difficult on myself for me to sense anything from him, that my own filters allowed nothing but anger and rage to reach me. But that should have been on Pierre, then, to realize how I was feeling and to know how to approach it.
I just looked out the window and refused to look at him. Pierre, perhaps finally understanding that there was nothing more to say, went silent. It was a seemingly appropriate end to how things went. Pierre said something charming, and now I’d be the one to say nothing, to end my presence in the conversation without a trace.
As the driver made the last turn to the hotel, Pierre made it obvious he was going to pay. I supposed the gesture was appreciated, but there was nothing that he could do with the cabbie that would make me think he’d changed with me. Even if he had offered to pay the driver’s kids’ college tuition or something insane, it would have had a clear agenda, one designed to get me back. I was not going to play that game.
The driver stopped. I got out of the car immediately. Pierre paid quickly and got out, walking by my side. I kept my eyes straight ahead, wanting this leash off of me. You can take it off at any time, you know.
We reached the elevator. I pressed the up button. But then I thought about him knowing what floor I was on…
“Do I at least get the honor of wishing you farewell?”
The honor?
The fucking honor?
“Are you fucking kidding?” I said, so disgusted I could scarcely contain my rage to him. “The honor? What fucking honor do you have, Pierre? You ruined my life. No man has ever been more memorable than you, and I do not mean that as a compliment. You want to know how you’ve fucked me over?”
The gloves were off. The ref had vanished. The savagery that was about to come was hopefully enough to not just get Pierre to leave me alone, but maybe to feel some of the pain that I’d felt the last five years.
“I have severe social anxiety now whenever a man approaches me, thinking that he’s going to leave me bleeding on the ground by leaving me. I cannot date anymore because I’m so quick to judge that the good ones have the sense to leave, and the bad ones challenge me. I can keep it together in family settings, but when I see my brothers get married and my older relatives ask when I’m getting married, I want to break a table in half. And maybe I was like this to a small extent before I met you, but it was never crippling. And now? Now, Pierre, you are the worst thing in my life.”
I finally looked like I was breaking through his façade. Too bad I wasn’t done.
“You want to know what it’s like?” I said. “Imagine the woman you love. Imagine that you and her have taken a vacation somewhere, and you are having the best weekend of your life. Incredible passion, incredible lust, the stuff dreams are made of. And then, and fucking then, while you’re in the shower, she disappears. No word. No trace. No note. No text. Nothing. It makes you doubt their existence. It makes you doubt that you were ever loved. It makes you feel toyed with, if not by her than by your own mind. And that’s only a trace of what I felt. I spent the next month crying, fearing that I might be pregnant, and if so, how would I handle it? And boy, I cried so much more after that.”
I shook my head.
“So if you want the honor of wishing me farewell? Well, I hope you consider this honor, because this is what you fucking get. This is my goodbye to you, Pierre.”
I folded my arms, waiting. I wanted to see the pretty demeanor from his face drop. I wanted to see the agony of hurt on his face. No one had probably ever challenged him like so, had ever dared to speak so honestly and so savagely to him. No one had ever told him no like this. I wanted to see him suffer.
He bit his lip and bowed his head. He shook it a couple of times, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He was struggling to keep it together. Good. I wanted to see him weak. I wanted to see him in pain. Maybe then, he’d have a glimmer of understanding.
“I had my reasons.”
He said the words so softly that I almost didn’t hear them. And he said them with far more emotion than he ever had before. If I was in a more generous mood, I might have seen those words as a confession of some sort.
But instead, right now, it just sounded like a lame excuse, like someone who had been beaten down and could only often a cliché of an answer. How fucking pathetic. How fucking lame. How fucking...sad.
“Well, now you have my reasons for being a bitch to you. And here are my final words to you, Pierre. I can’t trust anyone other than family because of you. I hate myself because of you. I will never love because of you. So whatever your reasons are, I really don’t give a fuck. Fuck off and never look at me again.”
With that, I whirled around, ignored the elevator, and took the stairs, letting the door slam behind me. Every step up was like a chance to stomp Pierre’s face into the ground; yes, I had that much anger inside of me. The elevator would have been too peaceful.
Pierre made perhaps the only wise choice in his life to not follow me at that moment, probably aware I would kick him in the face with my heels if he followed me. But it did little to calm the tempest running through my mind. It was a full-blown storm, the kind of thing that no meditating, no serenity, no staring at the stars or listening to nature could heal. It had to run its course, and right now, that looked like me screaming outside my window for all of Paris to hear.
How dare he act cool and like things were no big deal. How dare he just give a trite answer about how he had his reasons. How...how he had actually sounded emotional...probably a fucking ploy to get me to feel sorry...and yet…
Whose fucking fault, exactly, was it that five years later, I was still feeling this way?
I opened the door to the third floor with my shoulder, but my eyes were down as I walked, making it hard to see if I was going in the right direction. I was consumed instead by the realization that maybe I was using Pierre as an excuse.
Five weeks after everything had happened? His fault. Five months later? For how terrible a thing he’d done, sure.
But five years later?
Could I really blame having all of these issues on Pierre still? Could I really say that the reason I could no longer trust anyone outside of my family was because of Pierre? Or was it because of something deeper, some perfectionist tendency that got highlighted by Pierre and enabled me to use his departure as an excuse?
I bit my lip. I could not cry out here. Not with potential clients nearby. Fortunately, my room popped up almost immediately, and I again leaned into the door to open it.
As soon as the door shut, I sobbed. I cried out loud. And I slumped against the wall, burying my face in my hands as the tears and cries came loudly and freely.
I could have chosen at any point in the last five years to let go of my anger. I wasn’t sure that that was the same as forgiveness per se, but I could have chosen to just not let it affect me. I could have fucking accepted myself, moved on, and maybe even found someone to love. And instead, I had wasted all of these years, all of this time…
Doing what? Being mad at a man that was not a part of my life for more than a couple of days?
Here was what I knew I had done since Pierre left me. I had used “bluntness” and “savagery” as masks to cover up my insecurities. In the company of some men, it was off-putting. In the presence of my brothers, it was funny. In the presence of myself, it was a shield.
I had used my relative youth as an excuse to not commit. That wasn’t to say I’d made myself a nun, but it made it a lot easier to keep people at arm’s length.
I had
used the attention on first Nick and then Brett as a good cover for why I wasn’t dating anyone seriously. As fucked up as it was to say, Grandma’s death also gave me a bit of a reprieve from the familial pressure to marry; it was hard for Grandpa to get on my case when he kept looking at pictures of Grandma in his downtime.
All of that sounded...not great, but justifiable, perhaps, in the moment. Make Brett laugh with some jabs? Of course! Push away a guy that wanted a serious relationship? Hey, I was only in my mid-twenties; there was no rush. Let Grandpa mourn the death of his wife of several decades? Appropriate.
But taken in conjunction with the larger picture, it was easy to see that I had simply shirked the hard questions, had avoided facing the challenges within myself, and had used easy excuses as stepping stones to the next excuse, all the while never looking down toward my soul boiling with self-loathing and anger.
Thunder rumbled outside. I pulled myself to bed. With any luck, the thunder could serve as white noise as I tried to pass out.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to trying to sleep with roiling noise and anger in the background.
Chapter 8: Pierre
No one had ever spoken to me like that.
And I deserved every single word of it.
I deserved to hear everything that Layla said. I deserved to know just how deep my actions had cut her. I deserved to be condemned in as public a setting as that hotel lobby had been. I had to admit that the degree to which she was angry had caught me off guard, but…
Why should it have caught me off guard? I knew what I had done was treating her poorly. I knew that I had hurt her. I had no right to pretend that she wouldn’t hate my guts. Maybe if I hadn’t spent so much time beating myself up, maybe if I’d taken a minute to think about how bad her pain was, I could have handled my approach better.
Fuck me. I had one shot, and it was gone. My one shot to try to at least make peace had only made things worse. The fire had not been put out so much as it had found no fuel. And it was all my fault.