Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (40 page)

Intellectually I knew that he was
the better match for me. He could give me the things I wanted, the
things that Vanni couldn’t.

But we don’t love with our minds. We
love with our hearts. And mine still very much belonged to the man
sitting across from me… a man, incidentally, who lived with another
woman and as such really had no right to question any of my other
relationships.

“Graham is very good to me,” I said.
“Understanding, patient, thoughtful. I don’t have to stay hidden
and I don’t have to share.”

He grew silent for a moment as he swirled the
ice around in his drink. “And he’s willing to commit, I
guess.”

I shrugged. “We haven’t gotten that far. He’s a
good man, Vanni. Even after what happened at his Christmas party he
was the one to apologize to me. We should have been the one
apologizing to him.”

Vanni looked chagrined. He knew it
was true.

“But,” I started, and chose my words carefully,
“I think what happened at the Christmas party proves I’m not ready
for the kind of relationship he’s offering me. Maybe I’m the one
who doesn’t want to commit, I don’t know.”

“Do you still love me?” he wanted to
know, and I could only look in his eyes for a moment before I
turned away.

“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered.

He took my hand in his. “It does to
me.”

“Why?” I challenged. “You made your choices.
You have an official girlfriend, remember?”

“You know it’s not all as it seems.”

“It never has been,” I told him. “Not with Kat.
Not with Lourdes. Not even with me. The difference is they got to
live with you and call themselves your girlfriend, when I was
nothing more than a bed partner you met on the sly.”

That made him angry. “You know that’s not what
you were to me.”

“Do I?”

“I may be an asshole, but everything I did and
said was real. If nothing else, believe that.”

“Do you know how hard it is to believe anything
you say? You have this image you project to the world and then
there’s this guy you show to me, which isn’t the guy you are to
Kat.” I hated to bring it up but it was necessary. “There’s also
the way you are with your groupies.”

The topic was still very sore with him.
“Andy…”

“I bumped into Talia. She seems to have a
different perception of your relationship than what you’ve told
me.”

“I told you, I have not been with
her.”

I sighed. “Yes. You did say that.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Do you believe me when I tell you I never
slept with Graham?”

“That’s not a fair comparison,” he deflected.
“You actually have a relationship with Graham. You stayed at his
house. He bought you lingerie. Talia is just some fan I’ve seen at
public events. We went out for a bite after a Meet and Greet, but
that’s the extent of it.”

“You don’t email her?”

“I don’t even know her email address. If I’ve
talked to her it’s been in public or on public forums. That’s it.
Why? What did she say?”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t even want to repeat
it. “That you want her here. And that you think my chasing you
around is desperate and pathetic.”

His mouth dropped open. “What?”

I shrugged. “That’s what she said.”

“Please tell me you didn’t believe
her.”

I shrugged again. “She acts like you have a
relationship that no one else knows about.”

He grasped my hands in his and looked me right
in the eye. “I swear to you on my Aunt Susan’s grave I have never
been with her. I don’t talk to her.”

Then it was worse than I thought. “That means
she is dangerously delusional, because she believes that you
do.”

He locked his hands together and placed his
head on top of his fingers. “This is bad,” he stated, rather
unnecessarily. “This is really bad. We gotta fix this.”

“How?”

He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. But if
she’s that delusional we should do something quickly.”

“You know the thing about delusional people is
they don’t usually know they’re delusional. It’s not like she’s
going to admit to anything.”

“Maybe she would,” he countered. “If she
thought she was getting what she wanted.”

I had to laugh. Nothing in his world could be
straightforward. “What do you mean?”

“Invite her to my cabin.” He ignored
my raised eyebrows. “You’d be there, but maybe in the bathroom or
something. We need her to open up about what she’s feeling, or else
we could risk another Tawnie on our hands. If she thinks I’m
talking to her, she could be really sick.”

“And what do we do if we find out she’s
unbalanced?”

“Have her escorted off the ship tomorrow when
we dock in Cozumel. Refund her money and send her home to her
husband.” I balked still. It sounded so shady and dishonest. “We’d
have to do it tonight; otherwise we’re stuck on the ship together
for the rest of the cruise. I’d hate for her to go walking off the
deck.”

He had a point. Maybe if she really was sick we
had to do something to intervene before she hurt herself or others.
“What if things turn ugly? Maybe we shouldn’t do it in your
room.”

“If she’s unbalanced she may be
paranoid. She might not open up if she thought other people were
around. We just tell the cruise security personnel what’s going on
and advise them along the way. That way things can’t get too out of
control.”

I finally agreed when he offered to
get security involved. Within about an hour, with Sebastian’s help,
we had briefed the security personnel on the potential problem. To
our surprise they weren’t that unfamiliar with the groupie
phenomenon, considering this cruise line did several concert series
a year. Even though they opted to put surveillance cameras in the
room with nearby backup ready to come in and intervene, Vanni still
insisted that I be in the room as well. He wanted me to know the
truth once and for all, because as he said we couldn’t go forward
in our relationship if there were lingering doubts.

“I made some mistakes,” he told me quietly.
“But I’ve owned up to them. I never want you to doubt me ever again
when I give you my word.”

As much as I wanted to guard my heart, it
sounded so earnest and promising I decided to trust him just one
more time.

So by almost midnight I was crouched in the
bathroom of Vanni’s cabin, waiting to hear the knock on his door. I
peeked out of the crack in the door of the darkened room, and Vanni
and I shared a wordless glance when it finally came.

I watched him stand and walk over to
the door, and she entered in an unseasonable overcoat.

“Hi Talia,” he greeted as he let her
in.

She floated into the cabin with a smile on her
face. I could tell immediately this was everything she had dreamed
about, and now she was with him just like she thought he wanted.
Immediately my stomach sank and I knew this was a bad idea. We were
so playing with fire.

Once he shut the door and turned back to her
she went right into his arms. “Oh Giovanni, I’ve been dreaming of
this moment for so long.”

He held her back by the arms. “I invited you
here because I think we need to talk.”

She shook her head. “We’ve been
talking. It’s time for us to do what we know destiny has intended
for us to do.”

She slipped off her coat to reveal she was
completely naked underneath.

“Talia, no,” he started but she was in his arms
in a flash.

“I can’t wait to have your baby,” she cried as
she almost literally tried to climb his body to kiss
him.

“Talia! No!” he repeated and held
her off by her arms.

Her brow knit in confusion. “What do
you mean, no? We’ve been talking about this for months. I’m free
now, we can make this happen. Just like your song for
me.”

I could see that Vanni was clearly unprepared
for this encounter. He looked troubled, embarrassed for her and
very confused. “Talia, we haven’t spoken in months. And we’ve never
talked about a baby.”

She just laughed. “Of course we did, silly. You
talk to me through your songs. I know I’m the one you’ve been
waiting for.”

“Those songs were not written for
you,” he tried to reason. “I’m in love with someone else. Those
were for her.”

She just shook her head. “If you mean Kat, you
don’t have to keep up that charade with me. I know you don’t love
her. You’re just trying to keep all your groupies from thinking
they can be with you. I don’t blame you. Not after
Tawnie.”

That hit him where it hurt, and I almost
immediately wanted to rush out of my hiding spot to help him.
“Talia,” he started again, “I don’t date fans.”

“Of course not,” she agreed. “But I’m not a
fan. We’ve been together almost every night for months. We meet on
a spiritual plane.” She tried to get closer. “You love
me.”

“No, Talia, I don’t.”

She just laughed at the serious expression.
“You don’t have to pretend anymore,” she said as she tried to
disentangle herself from his iron grip. “We can be together. We can
make love. We can make a baby. We don’t ever have to be apart
again.”

“Talia, you’re married,” he tried to
reason.

“I told you. I’m free now. Free to be yours. In
every way. Just like you wanted.”

She broke loose from his grip and then latched
onto his body with such force they toppled onto his bed. I knew the
more he struggled to get away there was more opportunity for her to
turn it into a situation where she could claim he victimized her,
so I had no choice.

I emerged from the bathroom. “Talia! Let him
go!”

She broke apart when she heard my
voice, but clutched him tighter possessively when she realized who
I was. “What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“She’s here because I wanted her
here,” Vanni said softly.

This broke through her foggy, delusional brain.
“What? Her? Why?”

“Because I love her,” he said.

Great, I thought. I’ve been waiting
for him to declare this love for me and who does he choose to
confide in? A naked psychopath.

“Her?” she screeched. She gave me that
disdainful up-and-down look. “How could you love a fat cow like
that? You told me you loved me.”

He shook his head as he used her shock to pull
away from her. He came to stand near me, almost using his body as a
shield between us. “I never told you that, Talia. You’re a sick
woman. You’ve been imagining this relationship. It doesn’t
exist.”

She softened as she scooted out of the bed and
tried to approach him. “Of course it does. I’m the one you dreamed
about, remember?”

He shook his head and he held out a hand to
stop her. “I’ve never talked to you except at fan events. We went
out to dinner once and you talked about your husband. Remember? We
are not now, nor have we ever, been intimate or
romantic.”

“You kissed me,” she persisted.

“On the cheek. For a photo. Remember? It was in
Salt Lake City. Try to remember, Talia.”

“But I love you!” she cried out
desperately.

“I’m sorry, Talia. But I don’t love you. I
never did. And I never will.”

The storm of emotion clouded her
face, twisting her face into a snarl. “You lying, cheating, son of
a bitch!” she screamed as she started to wail on him with tiny
clenched fists.

I moved around him to get in the middle of
them, which turned her wrath on me. Her punches landed on my head,
in my face and in my chest, and Vanni tried his best to pull us
apart. The door of the cabin opened and security guards descended
on us, pulling Talia back and locking her hands behind her
back.

“You stupid cunt!” she screamed at me. “You
don’t deserve him. You’ll never have him! I’ll never let you have
him!”

Vanni took me into his arms and led me from the
room and away from the scene. Just outside the room we spoke with
the director of security, who explained how she would be detained
until we made port the next morning. I shivered in the crook of
Vanni’s arm, and dabbed away the blood from my nose and lip. I
couldn’t even hear any words in particular; it was all a low,
buzzing sound in my ears.

“Are you all right, miss?” the
director asked and I think I nodded, but if I didn’t have Vanni to
hold onto I would have likely crumbled right to the
floor.

Vanni took control of the situation,
told him that we were going to my cabin and could be reached there
with any further information.

We didn’t talk at all until we
closed the door to my cabin, in which I nearly swooned right to the
floor.

I’d never been involved in such a
confrontation, faced with so much hatred. I didn’t know how to
process it all. This was so far from normal I felt like I’d been
deposited on another planet entirely.