Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (49 page)

It was destined to be a viral video on the
Internet by the time they sang their encore song.

He didn’t even finish the encore. He tossed the
microphone on the ground and stalked past the other members of the
band before wading through the throng of groupies congregating
backstage. He couldn’t get to his private dressing room fast
enough. He needed to be alone, but apparently that wasn’t in the
cards. Leo waited there with another congratulatory bottle of
champagne.

“I’d say the official close of your second tour
was a success,” he toasted. “Now we can get back to L.A. and prep
for number three.”

Vanni’s throat closed up just thinking about
it. Back in L.A., back near Graham, back near Andy – and everything
he had been running from for six weeks. He didn’t know how he was
going to pull it off.

Leo just smiled as he motioned toward the
second room attached to Vanni’s dressing area. It was a suite built
for a star. “And to give you a little inspiration, I got you a
gift.”

Vanni was instantly suspicious. “What kind of
gift?”

“The other cure for what ails you. I’ll, uh,
let myself out.”

Vanni stumbled toward the bedroom part of the
suite and found a voluptuous woman in lingerie sitting on the bed.
From her hazel eyes to her generous hourglass figure, she was a
carbon copy of Andy. So striking was the resemblance he thought for
a moment it was her. “Andy?” he whispered as he drew closer for a
better look.

She shrugged. With an English accent she said,
“I can be whoever you want me to be, love.”

She stood and walked to him with sexy
undulating hips his own Andy probably never knew she had mastered.
His body sprang to life in spite of itself. It’d been so long since
he held her, since he had held anybody. All the raw frustration
bubbled up to the surface as his hands circled her waist and slid
up her sides to her breasts. “That’s it baby,” she purred but the
accent was all wrong… it just tore him out of the fantasy in which
he now wanted – needed – to immerse himself.

He shook his head as he led her toward the bed.
“Don’t speak,” he commanded before he lifted her up and decisively
planted her down on rumpled silk sheets.

Obediently she kept silent but responded with
professional ardor as he lost himself in her. Whether he was loving
and passionate, or raw and angry and punishing, she kept up with
him all night. There were no complaints that he called her by
another name or thought of anyone else while he sank himself into
her.

By the time she left the following morning
Vanni was strangely sated in a way the alcohol could never
substitute. Sex was the ultimate high. Maybe Leo was right, he
decided. He just needed to choose the right partners. His Andy
doppelganger offered all the release with none of the entanglement.
It was as smooth a transaction as he had ever conducted. There was
no guilt, there were no lies. Sex was the drug but love was the
trap. And Vanni was determined to forever more avoid it at any
cost.

Chapter Four

August 13, 2010. Los Angeles.

Andy

For the first time in nearly two months Andy
finally, and begrudgingly, left Graham’s side. At long last the
doctor gave Graham the green light to go home to Los Angeles and
she had to fly ahead in order to prepare the house. Maggie had had
several weeks by then to settle into a routine with Graham, which
on most days was contentious at best. She pushed him and he
resisted, which made him fire her on a weekly basis. Andy wasn’t
sure they could handle the couple of weeks it would take to get
everything ready but Maggie just gave her that patient smile that
reassured her he was in the hands of a consummate professional. He
could scream and bellow and pout and moan, but Maggie wasn’t going
anywhere until he was physically able to stand up, get out of his
chair, walk over to where she stood and throw her out.

Andy had been there the day she issued that
particular ultimatum. She stared open-mouthed at the flame haired
nurse with nerves of steel. Maggie had glared at Graham, hands on
hips, defying him to literally stand out of nothing more than
anger. Graham pursed his lips, grasped the handles of the chair and
lifted himself up for the first time.

It was a pivotal
moment, one that established Maggie’s authority. Graham still
fought her but not as hard as before. Instead he focused his energy
inward toward his recuperation. Andy tried very hard to get him to
stop being so mean to her but Maggie didn’t care. As long as he
felt
something
she
had something she could work with, and he certainly had a right to
be angry at the cards he’d been dealt. It did him good to have
someone to scream at, and he’d never dream of doing that to
Andy.

Frankly Maggie was ready for Andy to give them
a little breathing room. The girl meant well but it was clear she
felt enormous guilt for Graham’s condition. Maggie spotted his
covert ways of manipulating her because of it. It was dangerously
co-dependent and counterproductive, but she wasn’t sure yet how to
make either of them see that. This two-week break was a blessing as
far as she was concerned.

However when Andy
stepped off that plane on Friday the 13
^th
she felt a dark foreboding,
like she was about to be thrown into the lion’s den. To know that
she was back in Vanni’s world had her strung so tight she felt like
she could shatter into a thousand pieces just from a faint breeze.
Whether she wanted to or not she heeded an internal countdown of
when they would see each other again. She knew he was in England
for their last European concert, and within days he’d be back home
again.

Against her better judgment she had kept close
tabs on the entire debacle under the guise of taking care of DIB
business for Graham. But it wasn’t Graham’s best interest she was
thinking of when she’d pull up video after video from the tour, or
pore over endless articles that detailed in upsetting detail
Vanni’s new affinity for alcohol.

She felt sick when Alana finally called to
break it to her friend Iain had had enough and was going to break
away from the band.

She wouldn’t even get to see her friend again
before she started her new life in England.

Everything was changing so fast.

None of her friends were in Los Angeles to
greet her, which made the homecoming all the more lonesome. If
there had been any fairness in the world she would be coming home
to Vanni, to start a new life finally as the woman by his side. But
fate had once again intervened.

She held her head up high as she scanned the
airport for her hired car from the label. He drove her straight to
Graham’s Malibu beach house, which seemed even lonelier and more
barren after being empty for two months. She took her suitcases
into the guest room and began to unpack for her lengthy stay.
Several boxes had already been delivered from Tennessee, just her
basic needs and some of her favorite things to help her feel at
home. Her cat Simon was staying with her grandmother, and all the
rest of her belongings had been packed away into storage. It gave
her the opportunity to rent out her house while she stayed with
Graham. It wasn’t as if she needed the income entirely, she had
done fairly well with her finances up to that point. And there was
no doubt she’d get paid a wage for what she would be doing for
Graham’s business.

She was still on the payroll for overseeing the
P.R. for the band, after all.

But she figured an empty house should be put to
use so she allowed her grandmother to rent it to a young family
from her church.

With any luck at all she would never have to go
back to that life again. Graham would soon walk and she could pick
up with Vanni where they left off.

Her stomach lurched when she thought of him. It
was hard to stand in that guest room and not think of the last time
they were there, when Graham caught them in a passionate embrace.
That could never happen again, she thought to herself with a
decisive shake of her head. Especially in the emotional shape
Graham was in.

She wasn’t sure how she’d make it work but she
knew she had to do something. Vanni was definitely going off the
rails. He needed her as much as Graham did. Andy loved both men
enough she knew she couldn’t let either of them down. She’d figure
out a way.

The contractor met her at the house promptly at
four o’clock that afternoon. They talked about the ramps they’d
have to put in and the railings around the toilet and the tub. They
ordered the new bed for his room and some of the medical supplies
he’d need for his new challenges. It was going to feel like a
hospital at first, which she knew would piss him off. So she
ordered new fancy new bedclothes and books and blankets so he could
feel more at home and pampered.

She also spent a little money on making
Maggie’s room more welcoming. She added pillows and artwork for a
pop of color, as well as a throw rug on the hard wood floor. When
it came closer to their arriving from Philly she’d make sure cut
flowers were in her room to help brighten it and make it more
cheerful.

As for her own room she set out pictures of
Simon, her grandmother Lydia, her parents. She had books and a
jewelry box and the contents of her home office. Pictures or tokens
of Vanni she kept packed away. That was not part of her life that
she’d share while staying with Graham. It just wasn’t fair to
him.

By nightfall she had heard about the London
show. She found the video for “Let Her Go If You Can’t Treat Her
Right,” which became a huge Internet hit since the band had never
performed it before. She could see the guys have their power play
with Vanni and the rage with which he responded. It was an ugly
scene for the last time Iain would play with the band, and Vanni
didn’t even bother to send him off with any kind of recognition at
all.

That Monday Andy drove to Graham’s office where
she had scheduled to meet with the new public relations
representative from the west coast office of Schuster and Beckweth.
Alana was no longer with the company, or with any company, so they
had to replace her with a woman named Gwen Perry.

Replacing the likes of Iris and Alana meant she
had pretty big shoes to fill. Andy hoped it would be a smooth
transition.

After about an hour chatting with her, Andy
felt reassured that she once again had another ally when it came to
business with the band.

Gwen was a larger woman, even heavier than
Andy, but stylish and confident. She was full of positivity and
vigor, and had a happy smile that was contagious the moment she
bestowed it. She was older than Vanni by about five years, so she
had a maturity Andy instantly knew the band – and Vanni himself –
needed. Best of all, even though she had been a fan of the music,
she was a happily married mother of four. There was no risk for
being star struck by someone like Vanni, especially with the
caliber of celebrities she already had on her roster.

She and Andy went to lunch after their
successful interview and within an afternoon became instant
friends. Like Andy, Gwen was a writer by trade and basically did
the PR work to pay the bills. She had a robust family to support;
she needed something more than the feast and famine of freelance
work.

“So what do we do about Iain’s departure?” Gwen
asked as she dipped into the cheesecake they had decided to
share.

“I don’t know,” Andy answered honestly. “I
think I’ll have to talk to the band to see how they want to spin
it.”

Even as she said the words, “the band,” her
stomach rolled at the idea of having to discuss anything with Vanni
after their last encounter. Gwen picked up on the mood change right
away.

Delicately she broached the subject she had
been reluctant to discuss. “What happened in
Philadelphia?”

Andy sighed as she sat back in her chair. “I
wish I knew. One minute it was shaping up to be the happiest day of
my life and the next everything got literally shot to hell.
Honestly I don’t even know how receptive Vanni will be to me now.
He’s so resentful I stayed with Graham.”

Gwen nodded. She had heard all the stories.
Their firm had to spin everything to the positive but there was no
getting away from critical facts: Andy Foster and Vanni Carnevale
had been involved. Andy ultimately chose to stay with Graham, whom
it was also rumored that she had been involved. Since then Vanni
had gone completely off the rails with self-destructive
behavior.

It wasn’t hard to connect the dots, as most of
the tabloids – and fan sites – had already done.

Now the band was fracturing and they had to
scramble to keep Dreaming in Blue from taking a nosedive in the
process.

“Good thing that there’s no such thing as bad
press,” Gwen said with a reassuring smile, leaving it unsaid that
Andy being painted as the bad guy in the scenario made Vanni even
more sympathetic to his fans. “Just keep me updated when you’d like
me to meet the band and possibly talk about what direction they’d
like us to go with the story.”

“I think right now the family angle is the way
to go,” Andy told her. “I know that’s the way Alana and Iain would
want it to read. Amicable split, despite what you see on the
videos.”