Page 97 of The Beast's Heart

“Close. I’m going to rinse.”

He obeys, but I hold a hand over his eyes just in case, to keep any water from spilling in as I rinse out the shampoo. I reach for the conditioner and pour some into my palm.

“I didn’t care what they thought,” he says eventually. “But I care what you think.”

I work the conditioner through his hair. I love touching it. It’s so long and thick, and in the water it’s a mixture of chocolate brown and red.

“That note behind the picture,” I force myself to say. “I didn’t mean to read it, but I caught a few words.”

“His suicide note,” Adam confirms.

My stomach plummets. It’s a good thing that Adam’s head isn’t against my chest or he’d hear the way my heart is thundering. I wouldn’t blame him if he was still angry about that, but there’s no hint of it in his tone. The statement was matter of fact. I bite my lip and say carefully, “He said something about an illness.”

Adam looks up at me, eyes searching my face. Maybe he thinks I already suspect the truth. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it since. Assisted dying isn’t an option in Scotland.

He pulls away a little and dunks his head between his legs, rinsing out the conditioner himself. When he comes up, he’s got his back to me and I can’t see his expression as he rings out his hair and scrubs his hands over his face.

“First you should know that I was not a good husband,” he says. “I was selfish. I was wrapped up in my career and my growing fame. You should know that we fought. All the time. It was that passion that fueled us, he’d say. But to an outsider, I don’t know if you’d call what we had a happy marriage. We were both young, hot-tempered, driven… so it was nothing out of the ordinary when he called and demanded that I fly out here the day before a big fight. We argued and eventually we agreed I’d fly outafterthe fight. And I did.”

He’s addressing the wall. Perhaps he needs the distance to be able to get this out.

“Soon as I arrived here on Monday, I knew something was off. He didn’t nag, didn’t start on about my priorities, didn’t even make a comment about my black eye or my ‘blood sports’. He took me into the drawing room, poured us each a drink and said, ‘I have Parkinson’s’. Just like that. That’s how he broke the news.”

I suck in a breath. The hot bathwater isn’t enough to counter the ice that floods through me. I recall the scribbled notes in the shaky hand on the music stand. “But he was only 27.”

Adam doesn’t ask how I know that. It was in the first line of the note. “They call it ‘early-onset’. It’s more likely to show early when you inherit it. His father had it.” Adam swallows hard. “That Friday he asked me to fly in? He had an appointment with a neurologist. He wanted me to be there for it. That’s when he got confirmation. But in truth he’d suspected for years, sincebefore we even met, and he’d hid the symptoms. By the time he actually saw someone, it was pretty far along.”

“I’m so sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.

Adam sighs again and ducks his head. “I… god, I was devastated. I wanted to quit, come here and care for him. He played the whole thing off like it was no big deal. People with Parkinson’s can live long, fulfilling lives, moving from treatment to treatment as symptoms progress, he assured me. He’d still be able to compose using dictation or whatever.”

“Like Beethoven.” Beethoven, who retreated to the country to compose when he started to lose his hearing.

A shaky breath shifts Adam’s shoulders. “Yeah. Like Beethoven. But it was all bullshit. He’d already made up his mind. So he spun the narrative for my benefit. The truth was, he couldn’t compose, he couldn’t complete the house, he couldn’t do a damned thing by the time he got checked out, by the time he told me. He was twenty fucking seven. He wanted to “join the twenty-seven club” and be remembered as a young, handsome, brilliant musician. He’d summoned me here to saygoodbye.”

Adam’s voice breaks and he sits, hiding his face in his hands. “I didn’t evennoticeanything was wrong. I should have noticed. If I had spent more time here with him. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my own shit, enjoying my success, while he was here, all alone…”

“Adam—” I reach out and touch his shoulder.

“He thought I’d be able to go on with my life, my rise to stardom. He knew my number one priority was The Beast. He believed I’d rather keep The Beast and lose him. He thought he was getting out of my way.”

A dark well opens in my chest. There is nothing I can do to make this better. No comfort I can give to change the past. All I can do is hold him, even though my arms barely wrap around his broad shoulders.

I tuck my head against his neck, the wet hair cool against my cheek, the herbal scent of his conditioner filling my nostrils. In the ensuing silence, I think about Lloyd, about what I know of him from the home he built, the dreams he had, the music he composed and the books we both treasured.

“Maybe… maybe that’s not it.”

Adam turns his head a little to meet my gaze over his shoulder.

I trace the curve of his jaw. “Maybe he knew that youwouldgive up everything and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want you to lose what you’d fought so hard to build.”

“Ishouldhave given it all up. I should have given him at least a little of the life he wanted.Thislife.”

My heart feels like it’s being cleaved open. This life, the house and the children. This life that I am getting just a little taste of. It’s a good life. The best life.

37

ADAM

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