Chapter 2
Chapter Two
LUCA
Luca Weston dumped in upscale London restaurant.
Rock star Luca Weston caught on camera arguing with on and off again boyfriend, Calvin Klein model Jorge Rivera.
As another scandal hits, BuzzFeed asks, has Luca Weston lost his way yet again?
“Have you seen the headlines?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen them,” I muttered into the phone. Jack, my bodyguard and driver, shot me a sympathetic look in the rearview mirror.
I’d done little else but scroll through social media since I’d peeled my eyes open and seen the slew of notifications.
It was the usual mix of gleeful vultures cawing over my very public humiliation, along with my actual fans expressing sorrow over my apparently broken heart.
The fact it was perfectly intact was neither here nor there.
My ego was bruised, but nothing more. But I hadn’t been able to tear myself away from the vitriol until Jack bribed me into the car with a latte. “It’s not great.”
“Not great?” I could practically hear our manager, Kevin, boiling over. My eyes met Jack’s again. Judging by the tense lines around his eyes, even Jack could hear Kevin’s meltdown. “That’s the understatement of the fucking year, Luca.”
I sighed, my head dropping against the car window, the cool glass soothing the ache. “What did you want me to do, Kevin? I tried to insist we go somewhere more private, but you know what Jorge is like.”
No, the second he’d clocked the paparazzi, the quiet mutual discussion we’d been having about ending our arrangement had blown up into an all-out war.
He’d ignored my pleas to not act up for the press, instead flinging his drink in my face.
No idea what had been in that cocktail, but it had taken two showers to get all the sticky residue off my skin.
Jorge’s little display had worked exactly as he’d intended.
Within moments, we’d had multiple phone cameras aimed at us, chronicling each second of my humiliation.
Jorge revelled in the drama, his voice getting louder and louder as he accused me of everything under the sun.
If I hadn’t been internally dying of mortification, I might’ve been impressed.
Really, he’d missed his calling with modelling. He was born to be an actor.
Knowing anything I said would be twisted against me, I simply sat in silence until Jack managed to push his way through the crowd to extract me. We might not chat much, but I could count on my bodyguard to know the right moment to step in.
Now I was getting hauled over the coals by our manager. He was still yelling down the phone. As much as I tried to tune him out, phrases like you should’ve known better and fame-hungry whore seemed to slip through.
I closed my eyes. I hadn’t been in love with Jorge. What we’d had barely constituted a friends-with-benefits situation…for that, we’d have to actually be friends. Not just two guys who happened to fuck whenever they were in the same city because it was convenient.
Ultimately that had been the thing that’d made me pull the plug. I hadn’t been in love with Jorge, but I was ready to be. Not with him, obviously. He brought an unneeded level of drama to my already chaotic life.
Fucking around with groupies and other celebrities had been fun in my early twenties.
But at thirty-four, I was ready to settle down.
I was ready for more. I wanted the kind of love that led to Grammy award-winning songs.
The kind that left you feeling like you had a hole in your chest when you were apart from them.
Like you could finally breathe easy when they were near.
Most importantly, I wanted to be with someone who wanted me.
Luca. The guy who loved to cook Italian food and was obsessed with Air Crash Investigation.
The person who got up in the middle of the night to dash down song lyrics before running on a treadmill until he felt his lungs would burst. The man who could captivate an entire stadium but would choose an audience of one every time.
But that wasn’t the Luca other guys wanted. They wanted the frontman of Caffeine Daydreams. The guy who graced covers of magazines and had entire websites dedicated to his daily movements. The one who exuded confidence and sex appeal as easily as breathing.
He wasn’t real. That man they all lusted after didn’t exist. But that didn’t seem to matter to the men and women I took home with me. No one wanted to say they’d spent the evening snuggled in front of the TV when they could say they’d been fucked into the mattress by a rock star.
I wasn’t opposed to the fucking side of it. The opposite, in fact. But I was ready for more. Sixteen years in the business had taught me one thing.
It was lonely at the top without someone to share it with.
So fucking lonely.
“…and now I’m having to do damage control with the label. Again.”
I rolled my eyes. Kevin was known for being overdramatic. I couldn’t see the label getting involved over something as trivial as a lover’s spat. This was more Kevin caring about our image. How we were portrayed to the public.
Why he got so hung up on it was beyond me. We were rock stars, for fuck’s sake. One would assume some bad behaviour was par for the course. The four of us were practically angelic compared to other acts on the label’s books.
But we’d had piss-poor management before Kevin. He might be a nag about stuff like this, but there was no denying he was far better than the alternatives on the market. He’d been with us too long now for us to want to upset the ship.
“Two minutes,” Jack warned quietly from the front. I nodded to show I’d heard.
I knew from experience that the fastest way to get Kevin off my back and the phone was to agree with him. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”
Kevin’s sigh of relief was audible. “You need to lay low until the tour. If we can keep you out of the headlines and off social media, it might be enough to convince the label you aren’t a risk. Your contract is up for negotiation next year, don’t forget.”
I rolled my eyes. As if Kevin would ever let us forget it.
He mentioned it any time he even suspected one of us had fucked up.
Not that it was even a threat. If the label dropped us, there’d be more lining up to take their place.
That wasn’t arrogance. It was a fact. With our albums consistently dominating the top of the charts and our tours selling out stadiums, there was no way they’d drop us.
But I said what was needed to get Kevin off the phone so I could have some quiet time with my caffeine. “Done.”
“There’s more…”
My eyes narrowed. I knew that hesitant tone. It was the one Kevin liked to use when he was about to suggest something he knew I wouldn’t like. “What?”
“You need to accept the profile offer from Identity.”
I rolled my eyes. “I already said I would. I’m literally in the car on my way to the interview right now.”
There was a pregnant pause on the line. “Ah, good. This interview is important, but it’s actually just the first step in what I’d like to do with them.”
“Kevin…” I said warningly.
“Don’t panic,” he said smoothly. “It won’t be as onerous as you think. It’ll be a more in-depth profile, looking at the ins and outs of your life on the road.”
I gritted my teeth. “On the road? As in, a journalist will be coming on tour with us?”
“That’s the idea, yes.”
“No.”
“Now, Luca, don’t be hasty.”
“Fuck sake,” Jack grumbled from the front seat.
I turned to see what had caught his attention. My heart sank as all visions of sneaking in for a quiet interview went up in smoke.
Hordes of screaming teenagers surged towards my vehicle, the noise deafening even with metal and glass between us. There were elaborate handmade signs, rainbow and bisexual flags waved and thrust in my direction. They were practically salivating in their efforts to get to me.
And I wasn’t even out of the car yet.
I loved this side of my life. I did. Let’s be honest though.
It was anything but normal. And right now, I’d kill for a taste of normal.
Something I’d have no chance of if I agreed to Kevin’s hare-brained scheme.
I needed just five fucking minutes where I didn’t have to be on.
Yes, we had a tour coming up, but once I stepped off that stage, that was my time to relax and be me.
I couldn’t do that with a nosey journalist hanging around.
I wouldn’t be able to let my guard down for a second.
“The answer is no, Kevin,” I said firmly, sipping my coffee before pasting on my smile. “No journalists on the tour. That’s final.”
Before he could protest, I hung up, slipping my phone into the inner pocket of my jacket.
Raising the hand not holding my coffee, I waved to the crowd through the window.
I wasn’t sure how much of me they could actually see through the privacy glass, but I didn’t for a second want them to think I was ignoring them.
At the end of the day, my fans were my lifeblood.
Although it would make getting into the building a bit of a nightmare, I knew what this moment would mean to some of them.
That wasn’t my ego talking. It was based on the thousands of daily messages I received online.
Being an openly bisexual rock star meant I was a role model for queer youth, and it was a role I took very seriously.
Even though I no longer managed my social media, I still did my best to respond to every message from any fan who reached out to tell me I’d given them the confidence to be open about who they really were.
Although the Luca they wanted to see, touch, and speak to wasn’t really me, the facade was important.
I didn’t want to let them down.