Prologue
Naomi
* * *
“You told me you quit.” The words fly out of my mouth before I can even fully comprehend what I’m seeing. Florian’s deep brown eyes lined with a twinge of annoyance glide slowly up to mine. The partially filled syringe is still poised at the ready in his right hand, his left foot propped up on his opposite knee, his bare toes patiently waiting.
He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t move. He just sits there, on the edge of the king-size hotel room bed, staring at me as if I’m the ultimate buzzkill, which in this case, I suppose I am. His aggravated expression makes me want to strangle him. He doesn’t even look upset that I just caught him about to shoot up when he promised me he was done with that shit. No, the son of a bitch looks like he wants to shove me out the door and get back to business.
“Flor?”
He lets out a weighty sigh, his head dropping before his shoulders raise in a shrug. “Nai, this doesn’t have to be a thing, okay?”
“No. It’s not okay.” I walk over to him, lowering myself to my knees and placing my hands on his legs while doing my best to ignore the drugs in his hand. “You need help, baby.”
His eyes narrow, instantly hardening, and for a half second, it scares me. He scares me. Because at this moment, this is not the man I’ve been in love with for the last four years. Not the man I thought I knew better than anyone. Better than I know myself even.
No, this man is a stranger to me. A full-blown junkie who cares more about the high than anything else.
I know this look intimately.
It’s broken my heart more times than I can count.
“Don’t start that shit with me again,” he snaps, practically shoving me off him. “I don’t have a problem. You know I don’t. I’m not an addict,” he sneers the word. “I only use it when I need to mellow out for a bit. You don’t know what it’s like for me right now. The stress I’m under.”
Now it’s my turn to narrow my eyes. I fall back onto my haunches, folding my arms over my chest. “Oh, I don’t?” He blusters out a loud growl at my accusation. “Because all of this” —I wave my hand around our hotel suite— “isn’t my life too?”
He lets out a sardonic laugh, rolling his head around on his neck like I’m stressing him out. Like I’m the last thing he needs or wants to deal with. Like I’m being overly dramatic about the fact that he’s about to shoot poison into his veins, seeking a high that will never be enough.
Well, fuck him.
“You handle this shit better than I do and you know it,” he says in that barking tone of his. The one he famously used when I was too weak and too fragile and needed the strong force of him to guide me through. “You don’t have a band you have to answer to. I’m the lead singer. I’m the frontman. I’m it. The image of the band and sometimes it’s too much. Sometimes I just need to escape, too mellow out for a bit without the world and the people who surround me, hounding me asking for something. Can’t you understand that? It doesn’t have to be the big deal you’re making it out to be.”
“The people who surround you? Meaning me, right?”
He growls. “So much drama. Still so much a teenager.”
I ignore the dig as my eyes burn into his. “Flor, I can’t sit around and turn a blind eye to you shooting heroin into your body. It will kill you. Do you not see that?”
He rolls his eyes dismissively at me. “I’m not your dad.” My breaths lodges in my chest, my hand flying up to rub that burn away. It’s useless. That pain is there for life. “He couldn’t control it. I can.”
“Do you really believe that?” I’m incredulous. He can’t actually be that naïve.
“Nai, Claw By Night is number fucking one. Our album is number one. Our song, yours and mine” —he waves his finger back and forth between us— “is number one. And goddamn Robert Snow is already hounding me about the next album. It doesn’t end, babe. There is no pause to this, and right now, I need there to be one.” He’s begging, and part of me bleeds for him. I get it. This is my life too. It is exhausting. Mentally and physically draining. Emotionally taxing. All of it is and yeah, it takes its toll.
The constant hounding. The road. The travel and lack of your own personal space. The negative reviews and trolls. The haters. Even the lovers and obsessed fans.
But…
“Heroin isn’t the answer. It doesn’t solve or fix anything. We’ll take a break.” I reach up, cupping his stubble jaw. I love his face. I need his face. I need him. “We’ll go on vacation. Somewhere exotic and private. Just you and me. Screw the wedding, we can do a pre-honeymoon, honeymoon.”
He smiles at me, his eyes softening. It’s the same smile he gave me before he got down on one knee and proposed. It was just the two of us, a beach and the sunset. It was perfect. We’re perfect. Florian loves me. I love him. That’s all we need—just us.
God, doesn’t he know how much I need him?
He’ll stop for me. He promised me he would.
Please, I need him to stop.
I can’t watch someone else I love die. Especially not from that stuff. I just… I just can’t.
“That sounds amazing. It does. But you know it’s not a reality. I have another album to get going on and the Grammys in two months. Maybe after that. I don’t know.”
“That’s precisely why you don’t need this stuff. Why you should stop.”
“No, it’s why I do need it.”
“Florian, please let me check you into rehab.”
“Rehab!” he belts out. “Are you insane? Did you not just hear all the shit I have to do. I don’t have time for rehab. I barely have time for myself. For you.”
I shake my head. “You need to stop,” I plead, reaching a breaking point with the back and forth.
“And what if I don’t?” he challenges, his head tilting. “You gonna leave me? You gonna stop loving me?”
I shake my head at him, so lost and scared, I can hardly think straight through the panic as it ripples across my skin. Tears well up in my eyes, and I press my hand into his face a little more. Needing him to see what this is doing to me. To us.
He barely acknowledges it.
He reaches out, brushing a stray tear away, and part of me breaks. Shatters before him. He’s been my constant for the last four years. Through everything. And I’ve been his. I’ve given him everything I have, living a life that hasn’t been mine just so I can be with him.
“I love you. God, Flor, I love you so much. That’s why I need you to stop. That’s why I can’t let you do this to yourself.”
“Christ, you’re being unreasonable.” He pushes me away, harder this time, and I know I’ve lost him. Florian Heart has never pushed me away. Ever. He’s always pulled me toward him.
He stands up, tossing the needle on the bed and pacing an angry path toward the window that overlooks Paris and then back again. He sits on the bed and levels me with a look I’ve never seen on him before.
“I don’t want to hear any more about this. I’m not your father. I’m not an addict. I can stop, I just don’t want to. I want to do this. End of fucking story, Naomi. I mean it.”