The Complete Groupie Trilogy Page 20

  He may have believed that San Francisco was staged to capture him, but finding out about the pregnancy scare would have been a lot more convenient for our relationship had he not been there.

  Worse, I can’t be entirely sure I didn’t say as much to Galen as we stumbled toward the elevator.

  I leaned heavily on him as we staggered in, and I think I may have given him my room number because he was instantly in charge of half-carrying me to my room from the moment the doors shut.

  I was on the bed as soon as the door closed behind Galen for no other reason than it was the only way to stop the room from spinning.

  Galen emerged from the bathroom with a cool towel. I wondered how he could be so sober. Oh that’s right, I thought to myself. I stole all his drinks.

  He perched on the side of the bed and gently wiped my brow with the compress. “Tell me about Lourdes,” he said softly.

  I shook my head. “It’s a secret,” I think I may have said out loud.

  “It’ll do you good,” he reasoned. “Did you know about the baby when you started dating Vanni?”

  I shook my head. Then I nodded. It was hard to say, considering Vanni and I never truly “dated.”

  “Let’s go back to the beginning,” he said. “When did you find out about the baby?”

  “Vegas,” I murmured.

  “When was that?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Who could remember? It felt like a lifetime ago. “My head hurts,” I tried to explain, but Galen pressed on.

  “Did Vanni send her back to South America? Or did she go on her own?”

  I shook my head again. Why was he asking me all these questions I couldn’t answer? I closed my eyes to shut out the light that was suddenly too bright for me. “I need you to go,” I murmured as I turned my back to him.

  He bent closer. “Not yet, Andy. Let’s talk some more.” He rubbed my shoulders slightly. “What does Vanni plan to do about the baby?”

  “Nothing,” I slurred. Then, finally, “It’s not his baby.”

  The next thing I knew it was morning, at least according to the clock sitting on the nightstand in my hotel room. I was still fully dressed, with a blanket tucked around me. I sat up suddenly, only to be rewarded with a pounding, monstrous headache. There was no sign of Galen, for which I was mostly relieved. I never invited strange men up to my hotel room, especially in the kind of state I was in. That I wasn’t naked and robbed (or missing a kidney or two) was a miracle.

  I realized that my cell phone was ringing persistently, and that must have been what finally roused me. My eyes focused on the number on the caller ID. It was Jacob.

  “Hello?”

  “Andy!” he exclaimed in what sounded like partial relief. “Where have you been?”

  “My room,” I stated. “At the hotel.”

  “What happened? Did you and Vanni have a fight?”

  I rolled on my back and stared at the ceiling. Was that all it had been? “You could say that.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t talk to anyone,” he pleaded in an ominous voice that immediately punched through my hangover fog.

  “What do you mean? Talk to anyone about what?”

  “About you. About Vanni. About anything.” Jacob hesitated only momentarily. “It’s out, Andy.”

  I gulped hard as I scooted out of bed and headed over to my laptop computer, which was already open on the desk. I got a sick feeling when I realized I had left the computer on my email server.

  My gut sank the minute I went online to search for DIB.

  “A source very close to the band, and romantic interest of the lead singer, admitted to one of our reporters that Lourdes Roemer is pregnant but that Giovanni was not the father. Further investigation suggests that Jasper Carrington is the father of Roemer’s baby, and has orchestrated her trip to South America to have their lovechild in private so that his marriage to his megastar wife Athena will not falter before contract negotiations.”

  For a full minute afterwards I couldn’t speak. I don’t even think I breathed.

  “Andy, what did you do?” Jacob asked softly.

  My throat closed shut with both guilt and regret. I had done it. Really done it. But I hadn’t done it on purpose. Had I?

  “I met this guy yesterday,” I forced out, but knew that there was no real way to justify spilling my guts to someone I had never met. “He invited me to see the band. I thought being up front with someone else would show Vanni that he wasn’t the only one who could get someone else.”

  Jacob sighed. I knew what he was thinking. He didn’t have to say a word.

  “The concert was a pissing contest between Vanni and me, and I got so mad I got screaming drunk after the show. I guess… I guess I must have said something…”

  “Not just something, Andy. Everything.”

  My stomach suddenly felt as though it was made of lead. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s not good,” he answered. “You might want to get an earlier flight.”

  But I couldn’t. Not before I faced the people I had wronged the most. I confessed my sins first to Iris, who listened to my tearful story and heartfelt apology quietly. Finally she said, “You weren’t hiding anything, Andy. I knew what was going on. I just hoped it would end peacefully and quietly, for all our sakes.”

  She went on in painful detail about how Vanni had this reputation of romancing certain women for the chase, then dumping them flat before things could get serious. She stated he was very rarely ever monogamous; he just played the game carefully so no one girl ever really knew about the other. She also explained that generally he always chose a girl with whom he had an instant “escape clause,” or reason he could disengage when things got too serious. “Often these are the very same reasons he fell for these girls in the first place,” she said. “But no matter what kinds of romantic promises he makes, Vanni is not a happily ever after kind of guy, Andy.”

  I nodded. I didn’t bother to tell her he hadn’t really made any promises. Those were just my own skewed expectations behind the loving words he had whispered.

  It was all part of the illusion.

  My phone call to Alana was much tougher. Because I couldn’t remember exactly what was said the night before, I had no idea if I had spilled the beans about her baby. It wasn’t mentioned in the article on the gossip site, but compared to the Lourdes/Jasper shocker it really wasn’t even really news.

  She, too, listened quietly as I bore my soul and begged for her forgiveness. Unlike Jacob and Iris, whose disappointment in me was much harder to hide, Alana surprised me by being openly understanding immediately. She confided that Iain was actually glad I had spilled the beans on everything because it could mean they would be out from under Jasper’s controlling thumb – and that was more important to both Alana and Iain than some misplaced loyalties.

  Alana did, however, reiterate what Iris told me about Vanni. She too said she had hoped it would run its course quietly and then I could move on.

  When I finally asked Alana what the story was behind Kat, she admitted that their relationship was intimate, and that Vanni had been flirting with her since he and Jasper auditioned her in December.

  They were together New Year’s Eve, when the band played with dancers for the first time. It was right after he pledged his love for me, and he was already looking for a way out.

  “Why?” I cried into the phone, and I didn’t even care how pathetic it sounded.

  “That’s just who he is,” she reasoned softly. “He needs more love than one person can give him. That’s what makes him a star. Bright enough to shine for everyone, but far enough away that he can never really be caught.”

  Alana came by the hotel within an hour, and sat with me while I sobbed on her shoulder. She sat with me at the computer and told me the best way to ward off the scandal was to get ahead of it. She gave me the green light to announce about the baby on the website, but included another juicy nugget of information. She held up her left hand so I could
see the ring now sitting on her third finger.

  “You’re engaged?!”

  She nodded, too full of happiness to be mad at anything else. “He popped the question last night.”

  I put my arms around my friend, both completely happy for her and completely envious that the man she loved was mature enough to commit himself to her, to their child and to their life.

  We crafted the announcement and posted it on the band’s website before noon, when I would have to start packing for my lonely trip back to Nashville. It was my last labor of love to the band, whose future I had unwittingly decimated.

  Just as Alana walked out the door, Vanni walked in. They didn’t say much as they passed, but I could tell when Vanni closed the door behind her he was not pleased she had been there. He knew that our secret dalliance was a secret no longer.

  “I hope you’re happy,” he said quietly after he sat on the bed next to my luggage.

  He had a lot to be mad at me about, but I wasn’t about to let him play victim. Not knowing what I knew. “As a matter of fact, I’m not happy,” I said as I continued to pack.

  “Why did you do it, Andy?”

  “Do what, exactly?” I asked him. “Follow you around the country like an obedient little lovesick groupie? Fall in love with you? Catch you screwing around months after you declared your love for me? Or blow a secret wide open that only helps you look better?”

  He stood and faced me, but I went on, undaunted. “Because I should really know what I did wrong in this scenario. That way I know exactly what gives you the exit strategy you need so you don’t have to answer for all the stuff you did.”

  “I never promised I’d be exclusive,” he said quietly.

  “You never promised you wouldn’t be, either,” I retorted. “Which is really the only right thing to do, especially if you’re asking people to have sex with you without the added protection of a condom.”

  That hit him square in the jaw, just like I had hoped. So he deflected. “I just never thought that you’d be the one to betray the band,” he said softly.

  “I never promised I wouldn’t,” I reminded. “I mean, isn’t that how it works in your world? No one makes any promises so they can do whatever feels good in the moment with zero accountability.”

  “Did it feel good?” he wanted to know. “Did you sleep with this asshole too?”

  So he put two and two together. Was that what he was really mad about? I turned and slammed my suitcase shut. “I don’t think that’s your business anymore,” I said as I zipped it closed.

  He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to him. Everything he wanted to say was held back behind a snarl.

  I didn’t struggle. I didn’t even flinch. “Want to compare notes?” I asked softly. “Want to share with me how you slept with Kat not even a month after you told me you loved me? Did you have a good New Year’s, Vanni? I really want to know who gave you your midnight kiss.”

  He clutched me tighter, clearly seething in anger, but he said nothing. We stood there for a long moment before I finally said, “Well, at least I know now what you meant by taking it slow. You know, if you had told me about Kat then I’d have been happy to remove myself from the equation. You didn’t have to keep leading me on with all your empty words of love when I was nothing more than a convenient lay.”

  With that he thrust me away from him with a snarl of disgust and unspent rage. “Think what you want,” he finally muttered between clenched teeth. He spun on his heel and headed for the door.

  With every step he took away from me I wanted to chase after him and plead for him to stay. I wanted him to take me in his arms and swear he still loved me, that we could somehow make it work, that it wasn’t truly over.

  But with a slam he closed the door on me and on everything we had, leaving me to gather the pieces of my broken heart and figure out how to live without him.

  New York City, April 2009

  Talia

  I was so excited about New York I could barely sit still on the plane. I couldn’t wait to see Giovanni again, and the closer we got to the date the more I dreamed about him. I dreamed about those eyes and that hair… those lips. I could still remember how they touched me in Salt Lake City.

  I could tell then he wanted more but I had to hold him off just a little longer. I wasn’t free yet, and I wanted all that behind me when we finally got together. Instead I sent him stories through his email. He couldn’t answer them yet, of course. But he didn’t need to. We were connected on a spiritual level to where I could read his thoughts. I closed my eyes and I could travel through time and space to wherever he was, and I knew exactly what he was doing when he opened up his email and read what I was going to do to him.

  My bigger problem was Tawnie, who claimed she had already slept with him in San Francisco. I didn’t know if I believed her yet, she still seemed a bit of a climber who was using other members of the band to get close to Vanni. Sleeping her way to the top, as it were. I got the impression that she wanted to sleep with anyone famous, she wasn’t just after my Giovanni. Personally I’d rather she stick to other members of the band. I wanted Giovanni all to myself.

  I knew all that other stuff he did, especially with the skanky dancers onstage, was all for show. It was me he wanted. I could read it in his mind.

  We had a connection from the second time we met in Las Vegas, when he saw how upset I was during the meet and greet. He took me aside and let me cry on his shoulder about my husband’s indiscretions, and then invited me for dinner after the M&G was over, just us. I told him how I found out Ben was now traveling with his assistant, and how he had decided we needed to hold off until we had any babies – which was what I wanted most in the world.

  He gently covered my hand and said that a father should want its child, and if my husband couldn’t provide that for me then I was better off waiting for someone who could.

  He didn’t need to say any more. I knew then he had decided I should be the mother of his children. I went home and bought tickets to almost every show after that with a credit card Ben didn’t even know I had acquired. He didn’t believe in buying on credit, and as such we had an immaculate credit rating. It gave me a platinum card the minute I applied.

  Sure I had to pick up odd jobs here and there, but it gave me the freedom not just to pay for my DIB trips but excuses to take them. There were training courses, I told Ben, to learn how to sell makeup and jewelry both in person and online.

  So far I had gone undetected, and I got the distinct impression Ben was glad to be rid of me. He probably had that whore of an assistant in bed with him the minute I left.

  Fine by me. I was ready to replace him once and for all. As long as he didn’t stand in my way I would continue to play nice.

  Tawnie was thrilled when I invited her to New York. I really didn’t want to spend any time at all in her company but I thought it would be a good way to put her in her place. To teach her that Vanni wanted me and not her. If I had to break her heart, so be it. I was tired of her lies that they had a quickie backstage after his concert.

  My Giovanni didn’t do quickies. And he didn’t sleep around. He was saving himself for me; I just had to find a way to get rid of my husband so we could be together.

  From the time she got off her plane she was chattering incessantly about how she wanted to get him alone this trip and spend some real quality time together. I knew I could not let that happen, especially after I found him flirting with her on one of his social networking sites. I knew it was all part of his image but it really wasn’t fair to her to allow her delusions to continue.

  We would have to talk about that sometime during this trip.

  But there were other things to consider – like that strange woman who hung out with the bassist’s girlfriend at the first M&G in NYC. Such a weird little fat cow that looked at my Giovanni like she could eat him whole.

  And she probably wanted to.

  But there was nothing even remotely attractive about her,
and my Giovanni would never want to sleep with the likes of her. Especially when he could have me.

  She must have felt threatened because she showed up the next night with weird purple colored hair. She looked like a fat hooker vampire. It was really quite pathetic. I almost went over to rescue Giovanni from her but he had enough sense to leave fairly quickly after he acknowledged her.

  She never came back after that.

  The next night Tawnie tried to get him alone after she heard him tell that ugly little dancer girl there was an unused room upstairs when they thought no one was listening. At least that was what she told me happened. I think she was just trying to find any reason at all he’d refuse going up to her room. I couldn’t see my Giovanni sleeping with that white trash that was so painted up she looked wall of human graffiti.

  She looked like a tiny witch, she probably bewitched him. That was the only way I could explain the quick but passionate kiss I caught them sharing when I waited for him to leave the building that night. That kiss should have been mine but that tramp stole it.

  I guessed I’ll have to take care of her too.

  I staked my claim that following night when he had us girls get up on the stage and dance with him. She wasn’t the only one who had moves. The only difference is the pole I wanted to work was Giovanni’s, not some stripper pole I bet she had tons of experience riding.

  Afterwards, at the M&G, when I could have him mostly to myself, I let him know that I was going to take care of it. I didn’t say it in so many words, but he didn’t need to hear them spoken out loud anyway. He patted me on the back and kissed my cheek. I accidentally-on-purpose brushed my hand against his crotch as I pulled away and let him know – not in so many words – that it would be worth the wait.

  He couldn’t respond then, but I didn’t expect him to.