Tainted: The Complete Enemies-to-Lovers Rock Star Romance Box Set

by Carmen Jenner

  Ash gives a startled laugh, my head comes screeching back to the present. A present without her in it. I can see the wheels turning in his head. “This is fucking brilliant. You want her to play with us.” It isn’t a question, but I answer anyway.

  “Wanted.”

  He frowns. “As in past tense?”

  “What does it matter? She’s gone. She isn’t coming back, and those songs aren’t shit without her.”

  “Bullshit. You’re good at this. Really fucking good, why haven’t you been writing for us the entire time?”

  “And offend Coop’s delicate sensibilities?” I set my pipe down in the ashtray. “No thanks.”

  “Jesus.” He shakes his head and pats my dog, who seems to have commandeered his lap. “You two used to like each other once upon a time.”

  “Like is a strong word.” I grin, and he closes the Mac and hands it back to me.

  “You have to bring this to practise next week.” His brow pinches. “You do remember practise, don’t you? Your two months are up, Quinn. We need you.”

  I bury my head in my hands. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Can what?”

  “I don’t know if I can come back.”

  His throat bobs as he swallows, and for a beat his eyes are too dark, hollow. It’s like a stranger stares back at me. “To the band, or at all?”

  “To my life.”

  “You’re fucking kidding, right?” Ash gets up, unseating Dog in the process. He paces. Like a fucking idiot, Dog follows him, back and forth. The two of them make me dizzy. “You can’t just quit your life because shit gets hard. It’s always gonna be fucking hard. But you’re family, man. I don’t know how you and Coop work this out. I don’t know how you’re supposed to move on from Ali or this cellist chick, but you belong with us.”

  Do I? I don’t know where the fuck I belong anymore. I know even less about who I am now than I did when I found this place. And I have no fucking clue where that leaves me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  FORGET FRANCE

  LEVI

  I stare up at the ceiling with the crumbling face of the woman who looks like my ex-lover. I turn my head and inspect the clock on my bedside. It’s early. Too early to be awake and sober, but here I am. I get up, take a piss, and head into the kitchen. Margaux is already in there accompanied by Dog. She’s making bread and other pastries that likely won’t be eaten. “Morning, monsieur.”

  “Morning,” I say.

  “You wish to eat this morning?” Margaux’s been more and more terse with me since Brie and Ash left. As if it was my fault that Ash had to go home to the band, and Brie went because she’s mourning the loss of her father. As if I’m the one who drove her away. Maybe I did? Maybe I’m destined to be alone forever because I’m unlovable. Is that it though? I mean, women seem to fall in love with me just fine, but no one ever wants to stay. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe I have more mummy issues than I first thought.

  “Actually, I think I’m just going to eat on the plane. I’m going home.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here, M. Rehearsals are due to start in a few days. It’ll take me that long to get home.”

  “But, monsieur. The chateau? Dog?”

  “Listen, I don’t wanna sell this house, but I can’t be in two places at once. Until I figure out my next move, I’ll need someone here to look after it.”

  “Oh, monsieur, my heart weeps.”

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s not pretend you’re not ecstatic right now. This big old house alone with Dog? No one to interrupt your soap operas?”

  “But what about Mademoiselle Kagawa?”

  I sigh. “What about Mademoiselle Kagawa?”

  “Levi—”

  “She left me. Remember?”

  “Yes, but the heart does strange things when confronted by grief.”

  “If she wanted to come back, she would have already. She would have picked up the phone or showed up on my doorstep. Her father died, and she blames me for missing out on the last few weeks of his time on earth. I can’t do anything to make that right, because it isn’t right.”

  “You know, she didn’t have to stay,” she says quietly, kneading the dough on the counter. “You didn’t twist her arm.”

  “She stayed for the money. Anything we had was tainted by that. Story of my life, right? I’m always chasing women, but none of them are ever chasing me.”

  “Well, even though you’re often drunk and foolish, make me forty years younger and you couldn’t keep me away.”

  “I knew you wanted me, you saucy little cougar.” I wrap my arm around her waist and draw her closer. She’s so short that her head rests under my armpit, and I squeeze her tighter as she struggles and curses me in French. When I set her back on her feet, she straightens her apron and glances up at me with tears in her eyes. “I’ll be back. It’s not forever.”

  “What about Dog?”

  “Margaux, I know he’s your dog.”

  “What?” Her eyes are round with surprise. “What are you talking about?”

  “Can’t bullshit a bullshitter, remember? I figured it out a month ago, what I didn’t know was why?”

  She slaps the dough down on the counter and wipes the flour from her hands on her apron. “I was afraid master would send him away.”

  “Nah, he may be a mangy mutt, but he’s the only thing that got me through the hell of being alone.”

  “You weren’t alone, monsieur, not really.”

  I smile, because it sure as hell felt like it—feels like it. I’m right back where I started. Different pussy, same scenario. At least Brie isn’t marrying one of my other bandmates. So, I guess, that’s progress. “You wanna find me a flight and drop me at the airport?”

  “Of course, monsieur.”

  “I’m gonna miss you, Margaux.”

  “I’ll miss you too, boy.”

  I bend and pat Dog on the head, and then I climb the stairs, and walk the hall back to my room where I throw a few basics into a duffle bag. All my shit is still in my Sydney apartment, and if it’s not, then I’ll just start again. There’s nothing there worth anything. I have the shirt on my back, and a bank account brimming with cash—that’s all I need.

  Forget women.

  Forget France.

  Forget everything that isn’t music, because she’s the only mistress who’s always been there for me when no one else was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  POSITIVELY BEASTLY

  BRIELLE

  I sit in the living room with my mother and Piaf. I hate being back here in this apartment with the empty bed in the room my father used to occupy, its door still firmly closed. I hate that every time I pass it, I feel a pang of guilt because I wasn’t here in his last few weeks. I didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye. I hate living here, but it didn’t make much sense struggling to pay the rent on my apartment and hers.

  Monsieur Chat doesn’t love it here either, but he’s adjusting. I sip my coffee and set the cup down. It’s already cold and is virtually untouched. I miss Margaux’s coffee. I miss that house with its big winding staircases and rooms so big you could get lost in them, and as loathe as I am to admit it, I miss the drunk rock star who wandered the halls like a madman and left my body tingling from his touch. I miss the way he felt against me, the heaviness of him in my hands. The way he’d close his eyes and listen to me play, lost in the melodies as if he were under my spell. Tears fill my eyes and I wipe them away before my mother can see.

  I dart a quick glance at Piaf—whom I still have not forgiven for tricking me into taking that job in the first place—she gives me a sad smile, and I pick up my coffee cup again just for something to keep my hands busy.

  “Brielle, do you remember when you were little, and you used to hold my hand to cross the road?”

  “Oui, Maman.”

  “And do you remember when you were eight years old and you stopped holding my hand because you
could do it on your own?”

  “Oui.” I chuckle.

  “It’s time to stop holding my hand.” Her fingers squeeze mine as she says this, and I glance down, confused.

  “What?”

  “You love this man, oui?”

  “Not this again,” I say.

  At the same time Piaf shouts, “She does, she loves him. I’ve never seen her this pathetic, not even after Bastien—”

  “Stop talking, Piaf,” I warn, because my mother doesn’t know that I once fell for my conductor, a married man. She doesn’t need to know. I told her and mon père that I’d been let go because of budget restraints, not because my conductor was a lying, cheating arsehole.

  Maman cocks her head, confused, but turns her attention back to me. “Go to him.”

  I shake my head and give her a wistful smile. “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not as simple as all that.”

  “How could it be any simpler? You love him, he loves you.” She tucks my hair behind my ear, the way she used to when I was a small child. “Go to him, make love to him. Show him why he couldn’t possibly live without you, and that he’s been a fool for trying.”

  “I blamed him for father’s death.”

  “That’s strange, that a man who never met your father should be responsible for his death, non?” She purses her lips. I hate it when she tries to be cute.

  “I didn’t blame him for father’s death. I blamed him for keeping me there with him when Père was dying. I told him I regretted spending that time with him.”

  “Then go to him now, you beautiful, stupid girl, and show him why you can’t live without him.”

  “Brielle, you have to,” Piaf interjects. She was there at my apartment when a courier delivered the things I’d left behind at the chateau—including my new cello. He should have just thrown them outside and lit a big bonfire in the yard because having my belongings delivered that way, with no note, no phone call, was the equivalent of a slap in the face. And the worse part is, I don’t even blame him. I said some terrible things, words fuelled by anger and grief, words I didn’t mean.

  “It’s not that easy.” I set my cup down and rake my hand through my hair, because the two of them are giving me a headache.

  “Life and love are never easy, ma jolie fille.” She cups my cheek. “But I gave life to you, so you could live it.”

  “I messed things up. I pushed him away. What if he doesn’t want me anymore?”

  “Darling, have you turned into a hideous beast since you left?”

  I glance at Piaf, because I have been a lot harder to deal with since I returned. I am sad, and angry, and I cry a lot. A lot. “Non.”

  My best friend smiles smugly, and I think it is a shame that she was not invited to Levi’s chateau to play for him instead because the two of them would get on famously.

  “Has your heart become ugly and unsure?” Maman asks.

  “Non.” I sigh.

  “Then I assure you he still loves you, he still wants and desires you, and you need to go to him.”

  For the first time in days I smile, and Piaf bounces out of her chair, her wild dark blue pixie cut bouncing with her as she dives onto the couch between me and Maman, squealing like a little piglet.

  “I knew you’d fall head over heels in love with him, and I set you up.” She claps her hands excitedly. “I expect my own room at this chateau. You have to introduce me to the whole band, and when you have children, I want the first girl named after me.”

  I HASTILY THROW AN overnight bag together. I don’t worry about taking my cello. It’s not as if I won’t be back, and I just need to see him. I need to tell him that I made a mistake, and that I was wrong, and that he is smarter than me, because he knew. All that time he knew, and I was the idiot. I was too stupid to see that he was playing his way into my heart and head from the second I met him. And I thought I was so aloof and so clever.

  Piaf drives me and Maman to the airport. Piaf should never have been given a license, and several times on the way I am convinced we are going to die. I buy a plane ticket with the money from Levi that I swore I would never touch, but I figure it doesn’t count if I’m using it just to get back to him.

  I kiss my mother and my best friend goodbye at the terminal, and board the plane with jittery nerves and legs like jelly. It’s another thirty minutes before we take off, but as I wait, I write melodies in my head. Sonnets to the memory of his skin on mine, caprices and concertos to the way he moved inside me, and the way I fit in his arms. My cheeks flush with heat from my salacious thoughts. I cannot wait to see him.

  The flight to Nice takes little more than an hour, but it feels entirely too long, and when it lands, my back hurts, my heart aches and my fingers long to touch him. Finding an Uber at this time proves difficult, but eventually one arrives, and when I pull up to the chateau I almost forget my bag in my haste to get to Levi. I go back for it, and then hurry towards the house, pounding my fist on the door. “Levi! Levi open up.”

  There’s a dim glow from somewhere inside the house. It flickers. Likely the TV. He’s probably watching porn. Kinky bastard. I pound again on the door and a dishevelled Margaux answers in her nightgown.

  “Margaux, did I wake you? I’m so sorry,” I say, as I draw the woman in for a hug. She looks a little shocked, and it takes a beat for her to wrap her arms around me and hug me back. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I was hoping the idiot rock star would come answer the door, but it seems he’s as lazy as ever, right?”

  I slip by her and walk through the foyer, towards the lounge. “Levi? Did he fall asleep again at the piano?” He’s not there. Dog is though. he’s chowing down on a discarded bowl of popcorn, but he runs over and nudges my leg with his muzzle. “Hello, little dog, where is your master?”

  “He’s not here,” Margaux says from behind me.

  “What?”

  “He left the country a week ago.”

  All the blood drains from my face and I turn woozy, the blood rushing in my ears. I sit down hard on the sofa, not caring that I’m sitting on the remote and flicking a million different channels. “He left?”

  “He went home to Australia.”

  “But Dog ... and this house? What about me?”

  “Oh, mon trésor.” She takes my hands in hers and squeezes gently. “He didn’t think you were coming back.”

  I sigh. This is my fault. I should have told him I loved him, that it wasn’t his fault that I didn’t get those last few weeks with my father; it was mine. I didn’t stay for the money. I told myself that because I didn’t want to fall in love with him. I didn’t want it to be true. He might have paid me to stay, but my heart had been the deciding factor. My heart wouldn’t let me leave, until that horrible day where I accused him of costing me time with my father. Where I told him he didn’t matter.

  “We’ll call him. I have his number in Sydney. We’ll let him know you’re here, that you’ve come back, and he’ll return. He loves you. He was heartbroken when you left.”

  “Non,” I say, and even I hear how my voice quakes with tears. “Don’t call. He’s probably right where he needs to be, back with his family, with his band.”

  “Mademoiselle, he belongs with you.”

  I give a humourless laugh. “Non, he belongs to the world. I’m just a distraction. A muse for a short time. I know better than any that falling in love with a muse only works as long as you’re willing to be miserable, as long as your willing to allow your misery to engulf you and take over your life, and then she’s gone. Taking all your creativity with her.”

  “Brielle—”

  “If it’s okay with you, can I stay the night? I don’t think I can deal with the airport right now.”

  “Of course,” Margaux smiles. “I’ll make up your room.”

  “Actually, can I sleep in his?”

  Her brow arcs as if I am mad. And I may well be, because that whole wing of the house is completely structurally unsound
, but I have no good memories of Levi in my old room. Only ones filled with hate, and angry words, and betrayal because that is where I told him I didn’t care. “Are you sure?”

  I nod. “It will be nice to be surrounded by my memories of him in there, even if only for one night. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a hit song out of it too.”

  “I’ll make up the bed.”

  “Merci.”

  I pat Dog’s head and fight back the tears that long to spill from my eyes. Not yet. When I’m alone, then I’ll allow the tears to come, but until that time, I’ll be stoic in my misery. I’ll shove it down until I can climb into his bed and cry.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  HUG IT OUT

  LEVI

  I stand outside the studio housing our rehearsal space. I’ve been avoiding calls from everyone since I touched down in Sydney. I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do. I still don’t know. I have a demo with seven songs in my hand. Who those seven songs belong to, I have no fucking clue. I could shop them out, plenty of up and coming bands don’t write their own shit. Hell, plenty of established bands don’t write their own music either. I could cut a deal with Guidelli, collaborate with some other artist, and make a dick-tonne of money, but they were written for Taint. And as unsure as I am about my future with this band, they’re my family. They helped contribute to this pain, so it’s only fair they should get first dibs.

  I push inside the studio, and I’m met with a peachy receptionist with huge tits squeezed into a top that’s two sizes too small—at least. I think I fucked her once.

  “Levi,” she says in a saccharine voice. Her eyes roll over me from head to toe and rest on my dick. Yep, definitely fucked her. “The others are waiting for you in Studio Five, only the best for our boys.”

  “Thanks,” I say. She starts to rise from her chair, no doubt hoping to lead me down the hall and miraculously take a wrong turn somewhere. Not interested. “Don’t get up. I know the way.”