Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (72 page)

As he drifted to sleep he dreamed of a baby
with his dark hair and her hazel colored eyes.

Chapter Twenty

November 26, 2010. New York City.

Vanni

Vanni felt like a jackhammer had been let loose
inside his skull as his eyelids peeled apart that following
morning. He fought cotton mouth as well as nausea as he tried to
pull himself in an upright position. He struggled to remember what
had happened to him the night before. He remembered parts of the
party, but not much else.

It took the movement of a warm body snuggled up
against him to remind him how he ended his evening. Holly cuddled
up against him, her hand possessively cupping his morning hard-on.
“You’re insatiable,” she giggled as she slid up his body for
another kiss. “Four times wasn’t enough for you?”

He ran a hand over his eyes. Four? He didn’t
even remember one. He knew in an instant his sobriety had been
blown all to hell, and now he had an unexpected bed mate to show
for it.

He was just grateful it wasn’t another
hooker.

“I thought you didn’t date musicians,” he said
as he glanced over at the clock by the bed. He’d overslept, big
surprise.

“What can I say,” she mused. “Love makes you do
silly things.”

His eyes shot open as he glanced at her. What
was she talking about? She didn’t give him much time to wonder as
she reached for another scorching kiss that almost demanded his
response.

For a little thing she definitely knew how to
get her way.

He tried to disengage. “Holly…” he started but
her hands were all over his body encouraging him to follow more
primal urges. It’d been long enough his traitorous body was ready
to give in almost immediately to her magical touch.

Even in the throes of a monster hangover he
knew that this was a complication in their relationship they didn’t
need. He wasn’t over Andy by far and it just wasn’t right to use
this sweet innocent girl as a replacement. “Don’t tell me you don’t
want me,” she purred. “I have evidence to support that you
do.”

He tried to move her hand away. “Obviously I
find you attractive. You’re a beautiful girl.”

Her face fell in an instant pout.
“But?”

He felt like a shit but he had to say it. “But
last night was a mistake. I’d been drinking and I obviously wasn’t
thinking anything through.”

She pulled back and covered herself up with the
sheet. “What are you saying?”

He reached out to touch her but she brushed him
off. “Holly, you know I like you…”

“Like?” she repeated. “You told me you loved
me, Vanni,” she said tearfully. “Otherwise I would have
never…”

She slipped out of bed and ran toward the
bathroom, leaving Vanni to chase after her in an almost comically
awkward state. He pounded on the door she had slammed between them.
“Holly, come on. Open the door. Let’s talk about this.”

Instead she sobbed louder. He sighed as he slid
down the door to sit naked on the floor. What a mess, he thought to
himself. He had obviously drunk himself into mess of things – again
– especially if he told someone he loved her when he
didn’t.

Could he really have said that to get into her
pants? Wasn’t that phase of his life behind him?

It was hard to tell for sure given he didn’t
remember any of the events after his third bottle of booze. He
tried but he simply couldn’t. And now he had alienated one of his
few remaining friends as a result.

Though they had let the gossip mill create a
whirlwind romance, neither of them had ever made any move beyond
harmless flirting to take their relationship to any other level.
There had been hugs, of course, but nothing that would have been
inappropriate. No kisses beyond a casual peck here and
there.

Granted she took care of him much like a
girlfriend or even wife would do, but she took care of everyone.
There was nothing even remotely that made him stand out from anyone
else… except of course that she basically lived in his house. But
they didn’t share a bed; they didn’t even share a
bathroom.

She took care of him much like she took care of
her brother.

Had he really misread her intentions all this
time?

And now that he’d done something as
reprehensible as drop the “L” word during casual sex, how could
they ever get back to anything normal, especially when she cared
for him more than he cared for her?

He kept knocking but she didn’t open the door
until a good twenty minutes after she stomped in. He tried to stop
her as she grabbed her clothes, which were strewn all the way from
the bedroom to the kitchen. She was spitting fire at him the whole
way. “You selfish, lying asshole. You told me you loved me,” she
spat. “You told me you wanted me to be the mother of your
children.”

Vanni felt like he’d just been hit by cannon
fire. He couldn’t imagine saying that to anyone, much less someone
he barely knew. He didn’t mess around with things like pregnancy
and birth control. The only times he’d been careless were with
Andy, but that was because he had been truly in love with her. He
never wanted to create a child where he knew he couldn’t be a
hands-on parent, and he knew Andy was the only woman he’d ever
considered for that kind of lifelong commitment.

She never knew that, but it was the God’s
honest truth.

“Holly, I would never say that,” he told her.
Even at his drunkest he couldn’t imagine it.

She stopped dead
in her tracks and looked at him wide-eyed. “Are you calling me a
liar?” she wanted to know. He didn’t know what to say. “You
begged
me to make love to
you even after I told you it was unsafe.”

He staggered backward. “What are you
saying?”

“I told you before I wasn’t a one-night-stand
kind of girl. I can’t use hormones and I’m allergic to latex, so
every man I ever sleep with has to be willing to be a father,
especially during the middle of my cycle. I told you this before
our first time, but you begged me to let you make love to me
anyway, that you loved me…that we could handle anything because of
all the things we’ve been through.”

He searched his brain to remember. Maybe in a
drunken stupor he would have said those things to Andy. Had he
confused the two of them? Had he been that wasted?

“As the night wore on you started daydreaming
of having a baby with me. Remember? You said you thought it made
sense to have a baby with someone like me because of how well I
take care of everyone, especially you. You touched my stomach,
remember? You told me how much you wanted a baby daughter with my
blue eyes. You said you just wanted to make me happy. It was the
most romantic night of my life,” she said as she dissolved into
tears. “Now we had sex four times and I know for a fact I was
ovulating. Oh my God… you’re going to leave me just like all the
rest, only this time I’ll be pregnant.”

She collapsed to her knees in the middle of his
kitchen. He ran over to her and lifted her up. He couldn’t imagine
that he’d have done something so horribly against his nature, even
as drunk as he was, but he’d never leave any woman to raise his
child alone. “Holly, no. I would never do that.” He swallowed the
huge lump in his throat. “If you got pregnant, I’d take care of
you. And the baby. I promise.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t burden you like
that, Vanni. You clearly don’t love me like you said. Obviously you
were substituting me for someone else.”

Each accusation hit him like a gunshot. There
was a kernel of truth inside each one. “Holly, I’m sorry. I don’t
remember. I had been drinking…”

“I’ve heard that excuse before,” she hissed,
referring to her alcoholic father and making Vanni feel even more
like a shit. She struggled to her feet as she attempted to dress,
hiding her body now from him out of obvious humiliation. “I’ll go,”
she said. “You’ll never have to see me again. I won’t even tell you
if there’s a baby. You’re off the hook.
Congratulations.”

He grabbed her by the arm and turned her
around. “Holly, listen to me. I will not let you do this on your
own. If there’s a baby I want to know about it. I want to be there
for you and for the baby. I’m a selfish son of a bitch but I will
not let you down. I will not,” he paused as he rolled the weighty
words around on his tongue, “let our baby down. I
promise.”

She stared at him for a long moment, obviously
weighing the truth in his promise. Finally she nodded and allowed
him to take her into his arms. When she apologized he felt even
more like a heel. “I’ll move back into my apartment,” she
said.

“There’s no need to do that,” he said. “Unless
you can’t stand the sight of me,” he offered, because he couldn’t
blame her a bit if she felt that way.

“I love you, Vanni,” she said in a small voice
that touched his heart. Such a young girl, so innocent to the life
he lived. As always he felt the need to protect her. He put his
arms around her and hugged her close and let her cry on his
shoulder.

That afternoon she went back to her apartment
and Vanni thought about calling Andy for the first time in weeks.
But then he remembered how things went south in San Francisco when
they had their own pregnancy scare. He had asked her to go without
condoms because he wanted to be as close to her as he could
physically be. In the back of his mind had he wanted to have a baby
with her? Had he wanted life to intervene and make him grow the
hell up once and for all, to commit to the one woman who scared him
the most?

But when the possibility stared him in the face
he wanted to bolt like a skittish rabbit. He was enormously
relieved they hadn’t gotten pregnant… at first. Then afterwards all
he could think about was a baby who was half him and half Andy.
Suddenly the idea wasn’t so scary. It felt right.

If they had a baby maybe she wouldn’t be with
Graham right now.

He shook his head of such treacherous thoughts.
Life happened the way it happened. Maybe Talia would have shot his
child rather than aim her gun at the woman he loved. There was no
way to predict anything.

Although Holly seemed fairly certain they had
conceived a child, given her level of fear at the idea. If her
cycle was right and they had embarked on a sex marathon, which if
history was any indication was highly likely, the chances were
probably very high he could be a father whether he was ready or
not.

Biology was a funny thing. All it took was one
careless, unthinking moment to change entire lives. He’d gotten
lucky all the years before, so maybe this was just karma doing what
it does best.

After the year he’d had, he should have been
used to that.

Holly looked much better when she got back to
the apartment that afternoon. He knew he’d be watching her like a
time bomb for the next few weeks. He asked her when they’d know for
sure and she said that some tests could be taken within a couple of
weeks. She told him she’d keep her distance until then but at his
insistence they spent the evening sharing a meal and then playing
cards until midnight.

It was as though they were putting off going to
bed for as long as possible to avoid that awkward moment where he’d
go to his room and not invite her to join him.

She gave him every possible opportunity to
change his mind, right up to the point he bid her goodnight and
escaped into his bedroom.

As he lay in bed he tried desperately to
remember the events from the night before. His hangover had
lingered most of the day, which clouded his memory and gave him a
headache unlike anything he’d remembered having.

When he reached over to set his alarm clock he
saw a vial of pills he instantly recognized as the sleeping pills
Leo used to supply. He wasn’t sure how they ended up on his
nightstand, but he figured Leo’s presence at the party the night
before was no small coincidence. He never bought into the whole
addict thing and had been pretty vocal about it, trying every once
and a while to get Vanni to come back over to the dark side, mostly
when Holly wasn’t around. This new bottle held a variety of pills,
some he recognized and some he didn’t.

He assumed that was at least partly responsible
for his blackout.

When he went off the wagon, he really went off
the wagon apparently.

He was so ashamed he couldn’t even answer his
dad’s phone call the following day. Instead he did what he always
did. He threw himself into his work and tried not to think about
babies or fatherhood for the next fourteen days. They kept their
secret famously, though his subtle shift of taking care of her
didn’t escape Leo’s watchful eye.

“You’re doing the right thing,” he told him
during one of their breaks. Leo sucked down a beer while Vanni
nursed a mineral water. “Holly’s a good woman. One of the few left
who knows her place is to take care of a man.”

Vanni scowled his direction. He wasn’t used to
that kind of misogynist thinking. He was a womanizer because he
loved women, not because he hated them. He wanted to romance every
last one of them because he needed to fill his world with their
love and affection… not their servitude. That was why they all fell
in love with him. He was a hopeless romantic in every sense of the
word, who sought to make their dreams come true.