Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (76 page)

“Stop it,” she said, but allowed him to pull
her down towards him. “You know we can’t do anything until after I
get pregnant.”

“Come on,” he whispered as he nuzzled her neck.
“Like that idiot would know to get a paternity test anyway. He
hasn’t bothered to find out you’ve been married before, and he
never even asked to see the pregnancy test like the last guy. This
douche is, in a word, clueless,” he added as he grabbed her breast
in one hand.

“Julian,” she said as she tried to scoot away.
“I said no.”

She left him on the bed and walked over to the
window. “I wish Leo would hurry up and call. I need to go back. The
more time we give him the more he could panic and find out
everything. About us. About our past.”

Julian covered with the towel. “Trust Leo. He
knows what he’s doing.”

“Then why isn’t he calling?” she
snapped.

The question was answered by a knock at the
door. Holly ran to check out the peephole, grateful to see the
other member of their little gang on the other side. When she swung
open the door she caught sight of the bruises and cuts on his face.
“What the hell happened?”

Leo brushed passed her. “What does it look
like? I got into it with Vanni. He’s out of his mind looking for
you,” he said.

She smiled as she sashayed over to one of the
chairs opposite the bed. “Good.”

“Don’t get too cocky,” he warned. “Graham
showed up and kicked me out of the studio.” He delivered the news
like it was the worst possible thing that could have happened. And
really, it kind of was. It was one thing to pull something over on
a recovering alcoholic with a shit self-esteem and penchant for
self-destruction. Graham wasn’t the president of a multi-billion
dollar company by some accident. If anyone could blow their
carefully plotted scam all to hell, it’d be him. “What the hell is
wrong with you? Why did you invite them?”

“Because she needed to see Vanni was out of
reach,” Holly responded. “And he needed to see her with Graham. It
was the only way to break the bond for good. When he’s torn up over
Andy I can get him to do anything I want him to.”

“Yeah,” Leo said as he cupped his aching head.
“That plan worked out perfectly. I’m out and they’re together. You
fucked up, Holly. You never knew when to quit while you’re
ahead.”

“Shut up, Leo,” she snapped. “If anyone fucked
up it was you. You were supposed to make sure he’d never go back to
that fat whore.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? Love isn’t just
blind, it’s stupid too.”

Julian reclined against the pillows of the bed.
It was much more relaxed than how he felt now that Leo had arrived
and delivered the bad news. “If Graham kicked you out then he must
be onto us.”

Leo shrugged again. “He was throwing around
some hefty criminal charges when I was being dragged from the
studio. Even though we did everything we could to ensure he’d be
glad to get rid of Vanni, maybe Graham really is looking out for
the best interest of one of his biggest acts.”

They quietly considered the very real
possibility they had all been uncovered.

They had carefully crafted this confidence
trick to take down the most successful rock star in America the
minute he showed a few cracks in the veneer.

Now they’d all be lucky they didn’t go to jail
for fraud, especially since Holly hadn’t been able to get pregnant
like they planned.

Plan B involved getting him to the altar anyway
and then faking a miscarriage if she couldn’t get pregnant from the
sexual marathon she’d made sure they had gone on since Vanni popped
the question.

“Hormones,” she had said as an excuse. “And at
least we know I can’t get pregnant!”

At the time he had certainly enjoyed
consequence-free sex, especially with the sexual enhancement pills
she had been slipping him since Thanksgiving. But who knew if
anything had “taken” yet. According to her calendar she was still
in the ovulation phase of her cycle, they wouldn’t know anything
until mid-January at the earliest.

Without a pregnancy there would be no Plan
C.

“So do I go back?” Holly wanted to
know.

“If Graham does know what’s going on you’re
likely going to have to produce a positive test in order to get him
down the aisle now.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” she hedged. She’d managed
to fool Vanni into thinking there was a baby without a positive
test. “He said he loved me,” she finally offered, in a small voice.
“Maybe I could use that.”

Leo just laughed. “Honey, did you see the photo
from the church? That man doesn’t love anyone but her – God only
knows why. Just wait it out. I’ll keep an ear open. If they don’t
figure things out, and Vanni wants to go forward with a wedding,
then you go back in a position of power, not weakness. Then you get
married like you planned, and we go from there. We get our record
company, Julian gets his band and you keep him happy fucking his
brains out until you have a household of kids. And if he gets out
of line,” Leo said as he took a flask from his jacket, “we always
know how to get him back under control.” He took a long
swig.

If Vanni hadn’t come at him swinging he could
have had this whole thing taken care of by now. He could have
gotten him drunk and Holly would have come to his rescue
again.

But that lovesick asshole threw a wrench in all
their plans. Again.

One thing was for sure. If they ever wanted to
take down Giovanni Carnevale, they had to get rid of
Andy.

Once and for all.

Chapter Twenty-Four

December 22, 2010. New York.

Andy

When Andy’s eyes opened she was starkly
reminded of waking up in another hospital room in Philadelphia mere
months before. Had it really been six months? She felt like she had
aged twenty years.

She glanced over at the IV where it dripped
down in a clear bag full of all the necessary nutrients she knew
she’d been missing since she got that nagging stomach flu a month
ago. She’d never been able to recover, but she knew that was mostly
because she hadn’t wanted to.

Now that Vanni was truly gone from her life
nothing would be the same. The sun wouldn’t burn the same yellow;
the sky wouldn’t shine the same blue. Music and colors were muted
as she forfeited joy for obligation.

After she destroyed Graham the way she did she
knew she didn’t deserve joy. She hadn’t gone to New York to hurt
him, but her intentions were for naught when she came back home and
saw him clinging to a life that, for him, was as dull and lifeless
to him as a Vanni-less existence was to her.

There was no way to salvage a happy ending.
Happily ever afters were for fairy tales, where the feelings of
very real, very complex humans weren’t involved. For one person to
be happy, another had to be miserable. That meant there would be no
spike of the ball or triumphant gallop into the sunset. It was real
life. One where you settled and you compromised and you paid dearly
for your mistakes.

In the end normal folks just stayed on their
treadmills and simply pretended they were
merry-go-rounds.

She had convinced herself that she could be
happy knowing that Vanni managed to find his happy ending out of
all of it, with the promise of a baby. Only she had somehow managed
to screw that up too because she needed to see him just one more
time before he stepped out of her reach forever.

Her eyes squeezed shut. She had cursed every
man who had ever dared love her. Her father died in a fire, Graham
essentially lost his legs and now Vanni may have lost his child.
With a sigh she knew that as soon as she was well enough to leave
this hospital bed she’d go back to Tennessee and resume the
spinster life she was somehow destined to live.

How dare she think she could find her on
happily ever after? How dare she believe she could live out some
rock and roll fantasy?

There was nothing left to believe, no cause
left to fight.

The female doctor gave her a comforting smile
as she entered the tiny cubicle. “How are we feeling, Miss
Foster?”

“Fabulous,” she muttered before promptly
leaning over and heaving all over the pristine tile
floor.

An orderly was quick to clean up the mess as
the doctor wet a washcloth and gently bathed Andy’s face. “Haven’t
felt well for a while, huh?” she asked as she pressed down on
Andy’s tender stomach.

Andy shook her head. Was it that bad that it
showed?

“Since, oh, about mid-November?”

Andy nodded again. This doctor was
good.

“It’s typical,” she said in the same cheery
tone. “For many women the first trimester is the
hardest.”

Andy’s eyes flew open wide. “What?”

“Last period was what, early October?” she
asked. Andy had to think about it. Ever since she moved in with
Graham and stopped taking regular birth control her cycles had been
sporadic if she had one at all. She never could keep the dates
straight, and since she was no longer having regular sex it hardly
seemed worth the effort.

“I don’t remember,” she stammered. “I haven’t
been regular since I stopped taking birth control in
June.”

The doctor nodded. “I’ll order an ultrasound,”
she said. Within about a half hour the ultrasound tech rolled the
machine into her cubicle. Within minutes of that a steady, quick
heartbeat filled the room. Tears sprung from her eyes as she
listened to the magical sound of her baby’s heartbeat.

Her
baby
, she thought. She was
going to have a baby!

The doctor went over the results of the
ultrasound with her, letting her know that she was about ten weeks
pregnant. Her baby was due in mid-July. She congratulated her,
after a stern warning that she’d have to take better care of her
health now that she was a mommy-to-be. She then patted her leg and
left her alone with her thoughts.

Ten weeks, she thought. October. Her
birthday.

She was carrying Vanni’s child. As was a
running theme in her life the revelation was both a dream come true
but also a huge complication. He already had a child on the way
with Holly. He had promised to marry her. How could he manage two
families?

He’d constantly be torn between the two of them
and never be able to be the father he wanted to be. And that was
the kicker: he never wanted to be a father. Both pregnancies had
been unplanned. To tell him there was another “oopsie” when his
life was chaotic enough just seemed to add insult to
injury.

Whenever Vanni had to choose between Andy and
other women, history had not been on her side. It was bad enough to
be shafted all by herself. She couldn’t imagine doing that to a
child too.

Graham, on the other hand, wanted a child of
his own but was unsure if he’d ever be able to father one. His life
was the more stable one. He wasn’t as much of a target for the
paparazzi. He had the money and means to make any child have a
somewhat normal upbringing, and Andy knew he’d be a patient and
understanding parent. He’d also be deliriously happy with the news,
and move heaven and earth to make everything perfect for her and
her baby.

The temptation was almost immediate to
orchestrate a few lies and right what the Universe clearly got
wrong. Again. She and Graham had been together, and not long after
she would have conceived. Just one little lie, just one little
miscalculation, and she could wrap everything up in a nice tidy bow
that really would have made life easier for everyone, including her
child.

Her
child
, she thought again as she put her
hand on her stomach. Vanni’s parting gift of their doomed love
affair.

But did she really have it in her to pass off
Vanni’s child as Graham’s?

More importantly, should she?

The minute that Vanni rushed into the room she
had her answer. She couldn’t have lied to him and taken his child
away from him even if she wanted to. Despite how complicated it
would be she had to at least give him the option of being a proper
father to their child. She was tired of playing god with all the
people in her life. Everything she had done was to make life easier
for everyone and it only served to make more of a mess.

It was time to trust them to make their own
decisions.

Vanni took her hand in his as he sat down
beside her. He looked like hell thanks to the cuts and bruises Leo
had delivered in their studio brawl. He had been so panicked about
Holly and now it was clear he was deeply concerned for Andy’s
health too.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he brushed her hair
from her face. She was still so pale. What if she had some horrible
disease? Could God really punish them that cruelly for wanting a
few stolen minutes of happiness?

She nodded, and bit her lip to contain her
smile. “I’m fine,” she said before she burst out laughing, taking
Vanni by complete surprise. He watched her giggle deliriously,
wondering if he should call the nurse. Exactly what kind of drugs
were they pumping through her IV?