Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (36 page)

“What?” I exclaimed as I stared at
him wide-eyed.

He nodded sadly. “Apparently her roommate at
the hotel found her slumped over her computer, overdosed on pain
pills, with a goodbye letter written to Vanni on his fan
page.

I hopped up from the table and ran into the
other room to retrieve my laptop. I opened it up to the fan email
server and there at the top I read the message titled,
“Goodbye.”

I opened it immediately.

“Dear Giovanni,

I had hoped that we could reconnect in Los
Angeles for your birthday, but it is clear that I never meant
anything to you. You’ve got a new girlfriend now, and other fans
who mean much more to you than I ever could. I thought our night
together would have made me special, but I guess I just wasn’t good
enough for you. In the future I hope you know better than to play
with our hearts. It’s not fair to make us love you if you don’t
ever want to return the favor.”

It was signed, “Tawnie.”

My brow creased. This made no sense. Tawnie was
one of the girls he had opened up to during his last luncheon. I
thought I finally saw her mood change for the better over the three
days with this renewed attention.

I said as much to Graham, who had
followed me into my room.

“Maybe that’s what pushed her over the edge,”
he offered. “She was further confused by how receptive he was when
that was the last encounter she could have with him. It took her a
whole day to resort to suicide, so maybe the higher she was when
you last saw her meant the further she fell.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Oh my God… Vanni…”
I reached for my phone impulsively, but then remembered my
disastrous night with Graham. This was just salt on that wound, and
I couldn’t do that to him. I retracted my hand. “I’m… I’m sure that
Kat will be able to handle it.”

He didn’t say much as he turned and walked out
of the room, and I immediately wanted to chase after him. Instead,
I called Alana who was beside herself with the news. I asked her
how the rest of the band was taking it, which was my code for
asking about Vanni, and she said she hadn’t heard from Kat or Vanni
since the news broke that morning.

So I told her to call me back if she heard
anything, and then went to find Graham. He considered momentarily
about canceling the party, but it was a fundraising benefit for
homeless families so he felt that would be counterproductive. I
agreed with him and we spent the rest of the day preparing for that
night’s celebration even though no one really felt in a celebratory
mood.

By 5:00 p.m. I still hadn’t heard from Alana,
and was beside myself with worry over Vanni. I wanted to call him
but didn’t feel it was my place, and I couldn’t talk to Graham
about it. Instead I busied myself with the party prep, which, even
though I wasn’t part of the staff, seemed to require my utmost
attention.

By 7:30 p.m. people started to arrive. The mood
was somber, but as each guest filed past the paparazzi outside they
noted the one way to honor a lost life was to take care of those
who still lived. The donations went through the roof as each
A-lister pledged more than their dinner ticket to the homeless
shelter. By 8:00 p.m. Vanni and Kat showed up, both in black, and
the paparazzi snapped photo after photo of the devastated rock star
who mustered up a tear or two for the lost soul who had chosen to
end her life. He announced he would be starting a fundraiser in her
name for a suicide hotline so this kind of tragedy didn’t have to
happen again.

Somewhere Iris would have been proud
of her protégé, who said exactly the right thing with exactly the
right emotion to spin a negative news story into positive
PR.

But one look into his eyes and I knew it hadn’t
been a line. Vanni was truly devastated, and he reached out for me
with his eyes in a way I knew he never could with his
words.

More than an hour later, after he had
maintained his composure long enough to meet with several
executives and other stars, I saw him disappear into another part
of the house. I was quick to follow. He needed me, and I was going
to be there for him.

I searched high and low throughout
the huge mansion until I finally found him sitting on my bed, his
shoulders hunched over, his body racked with sobs.

I immediately went toward him and sat next to
him on the bed. He couldn’t even look me in the eye he was so
distraught. I took both his hands in mine. “Vanni… I’m so
sorry.”

He shook his head. “It’s my fault. You all
warned me but I didn’t listen. It’s all my fault.”

“No, it isn’t,” I told him as I smoothed his
long hair. “She was obviously disturbed.”

“And I played with her emotions like a fool.
What was I thinking?”

“You were thinking she was healthy,” I said.
“You had no idea she’d take it to this extreme. Who could know
that?”

“I slept with her in New York,” he
confessed without looking me in the eye. I could tell that was the
part eating him up inside. “The night I was so angry with you for
being with that other guy. You were gone. And she was there. So I
used her. Like tissue. Then just threw her away. God, I’m such a
worthless piece of shit.”

“Vanni, listen to me,” I tried to reason, but
he was too far gone. “She was an adult. She made her choices too.
And that included the one where she ended her life over someone she
barely knew. This isn’t your fault. You’re an asshole, but you’re
not a worthless piece of shit.”

He laughed in spite of himself. His red eyes
met mine. “Good ol’ Andy. I can always count on you to tell me the
truth.”

I smiled. “What are friends for?”

His eyes searched my face. “You were more than
a friend,” he said. “And I hurt you too.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Vanni…”

He turned his attention back to the box on the
dresser across from the bed. It had the peignoir hanging out of the
edge. “And now it’s too late. I’ve lost you to someone who can give
you what I couldn’t.”

I had to chuckle. If only he knew. “I bet he
says the same thing about you,” I said softly.

Vanni turned back toward me. “Remember last
Christmas?” he asked as he touched my cheek with the back of his
hand. “Before it was so crazy and so complicated?”

I took his hand in mine. “Honey,
it’s always been crazy and complicated,” I pointed out.

“And yet it doesn’t feel that way when I’m with
you,” he said softly. “It never did. It’s always felt right. Like
I’ve come home.” Then, “Thank you for the gift.”

I toppled headlong into those bottomless brown
eyes. Little could he know that he was giving me a gift right at
that moment, with that look on his face that could melt my will
like lava. It was all I dreamed about this whole, horrible year.
“Vanni…”

With that he bent toward me and the
warmth of his mouth covered mine. My whole body came alive under
his kiss, and I almost literally swooned against him. This wasn’t
angry, desperate or punishing, like our last few encounters. This
was tender and beseeching. Without words he begged for me to open
myself up to him, and without words that was exactly what I did. My
arms wound around his neck as I clutched him tightly to me, kissing
him with all the desire I had pent up for months.

He eased me down on the bed under
him, and I felt his hands liberally explore my full curves as
though he desperately needed to once again imprint them on his
memory. I whispered his name against his lips, which made him more
brazen. His hungry touch poured over my body, bringing each peak
and valley to life under his fingers.

“Tell me you’re still mine,” he pleaded as he
pressed his body against mine. Even fully clothed we fit together
like two perfect pieces of the same puzzle. “Tell me it’s not too
late.” He covered my neck with hot kisses and then whispered into
my ear, “I love you, Andy. I love you.”

My fingers dug in his back as I
repeated the words back to him in an urgent whisper. It didn’t even
occur to me we were on a bed in Graham’s house, with Graham’s party
raging on just outside the doors.

It had all faded unto a low hum just outside of
the world that Vanni had created for me. A make believe world –
that I knew all too well had real world consequences.

I gasped as I bolted upright when I
remembered the door to my room was open. And there, just like I
knew he had to be, was Graham looking on, transfixed and
broken-hearted.

We stared at each other for a
wordless minute that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Even
Vanni pulled himself up and tried to compose himself, as if he
himself realized too late he was canoodling with the boss’s
romantic interest right in his own house.

When Graham turned away I couldn’t help but run
after him. “Graham! Graham, wait!”

I chased him through the throng of people,
unaware that my hair was mussed and my makeup smeared. No one
seemed to care except the man who wouldn’t turn around no matter
how much I called out for him.

He didn’t stop until he was out of the house
and onto the darkened beach just beyond his patio. “Graham!” I
called as I stumbled off into the sand. “Please, wait.”

He spun around. “Wait for what,
Andy? All I’ve done since I met you is wait. I thought if I just
gave you enough time you’d come to your senses. You’d see how good
we could be together, how it would feel to be with a man who truly
respected you and valued you. But now I get it. That’s not what you
want, is it? You want to be temporary. To be disposable.” He looked
disgusted as he flung the accusation.

Tears poured down my face. I never meant to
hurt him, but it was clear I had. “Graham…”

“I could wait forever and you’ll never look at
me the way you look at him.” He approached me, growing angrier, and
sadder, by the second. “You’ll never kiss me the way you kissed
him. You’ll never touch me the way you touched him. And you’ll
never love me. Not the way you love him.”

There were no excuses to give. He
was absolutely right and we both knew it. “I’m sorry,” I offered
helplessly.

“You should be,” he said, fighting back tears
of his own. “Because he’ll never love you the way I love
you.”

His declaration of love hit me like a gunshot.
In that instant I realized I was his Vanni. The one he would want
that could never love him in return the way he wanted. “Graham,” I
cried out but he stalked away from me and back into the
house.

This time I didn’t bother to follow. I sank to
my knees in the sand and tried to figure out where it all had gone
so completely wrong.

Los Angeles, December 2009

Talia

I didn’t think I would be able to last until I
could see Giovanni again. I missed him so badly my soul ached every
single day I couldn’t have contact with him.

He must have sensed it because he began to send
healing thoughts to me, through the air, through my dreams, and
sometimes even my waking moments.

I could feel his touch on my back when I walked
from one room to the other, particularly if I was undressed. He was
such a naughty boy and I knew he didn’t want to wait much longer,
but I still had to find some way to get rid of Ben. Since he
started getting sick in April it had been nearly impossible to
leave him, but with his disability payments finally approved we
could afford a nurse, as well as a couple of well-timed vacations
for me to take with my new man.

And besides…he was barely conscious by the time
I left him I knew he’d never even know I was gone. Kind of like our
marriage.

So I raced to L.A. to be with the man of my
dreams, my soul mate, even though I knew we would have to play it
cool. He’d already warned me in my dreams that he had to keep Kat
around to keep the other groupies away. Groupies like Tawnie, whom
he already apologized to me for sleeping with in New York
City.

He was so desperate to be with me he had to be
with someone, and she was there.

And of course she’d be in Los
Angeles too, but I wasn’t worried. He already let me know he’d
never be with her again.

And if he couldn’t make that happen,
I sure as hell could.

I wasn’t playing anymore with these
skanky whores who wanted my man. He belonged to me in spirit if not
yet in body. We’d made love through mutual meditation, in a way
that bonded our spirits forever. And I knew that he was as eager as
I was to make our love a reality.

I was willing to wait it out until we could be
together. First I had to be single, and then he could give up his
charade with that trashy little slut who slithered around stage
like a viper just waiting to strike.

I made him promise in our spiritual encounters
that he would not sleep with her anymore. I didn’t put her above
getting pregnant to keep him. And I didn’t trust condoms as much as
he seemed to. Tawnie let it slip that had she not come prepared for
their union he might not have slept with her at all.

So he promised me he wouldn’t sleep
with anyone else until we could be together, because he had seen
the future and knew we were going to have a baby within the next
year.