The Complete Groupie Trilogy Page 28

  It was as though she knew she had nothing to fear or lose, and the only way she could know that is through communication with him, and a relationship with him.

  I groaned and pulled the covers over my head. All the stress was making my head pound so hard I thought it would cave in.

  I would have slept all the way through until dinner if someone hadn’t come pounding on my door around 4:30 p.m. I trudged over to the door in my bare feet and peered through the crack to see Vanni standing there.

  I unlatched the door and let him in. “What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to find you,” he stated with a slight grin. “Where have you been?”

  “I haven’t felt well,” I muttered as I turned and went back to the bed.

  “Odds are you feel better than Kat,” he said as he followed me, and sat on the edge.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked as I pulled the covers up to my chin.

  “We went parasailing this morning. She broke her leg as she was coming in to land.”

  My eyes shot open in surprise. She wasn’t exactly my best friend but I never wanted her to get hurt. “That sucks. I’m sorry to hear it.”

  He propped himself up on his elbow. “Yeah, it’s definitely going to be tough for a while. She was pretty drugged up and I don’t think they’re going to let her fly back home right away.”

  “What do you mean? She’s not back on the ship?”

  He shook his head. “Wenonah offered to fly with her back to L.A. since the main concert was over. The rest of the stuff includes fan events she wouldn’t attend anyway.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t stay with her.”

  “The show must go on,” he said as he sprawled on his back. “Truthfully I think she was relieved to go home. She would have been cooped up in that tiny cabin going crazy with nothing to do. She’ll have to do some physical therapy to rejoin the tour eventually but I think she might use this as an excuse to find something else to do. Things were a lot different when she auditioned to join the band. I don’t think she had a clue what success and fame would do to her life.”

  “None of us do,” I muttered as I closed my eyes to block out what little light was in my cabin.

  He nodded then he looked over at me. “You’re really miserable?”

  “I’ll be better after some sleep,” I said without opening my eyes. I hoped he would take it as a hint.

  I felt the bed shift under his weight as he propped himself up closer to me. When he started to rub my shoulders it felt so good I could hardly complain. I lay on my stomach and let him work his magic along my tense neck, shoulders and back muscles.

  Within minutes I had drifted off in dreamland, thanks to my motion sickness pills.

  When I opened my eyes again there were images flickering on the wall in my darkened cabin. I leaned up to see Vanni lying next to me on the bed, watching a movie quietly on the in-room TV.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked when he glanced down at me.

  “Waiting for you,” he said with a smile. “Feel better?”

  Surprisingly enough, I did. I nodded. “You have magic hands.”

  He gave me a wink. “You already knew that.” I couldn’t help but giggle. “We missed dinner but we could probably go find something to eat. If you’re up for it.”

  I rose up into a sitting position – the true test of how well I felt. “So far so good,” I said as I stood slowly and then made my way to the bathroom. I instantly regretted looking in the mirror. My eyes were puffy and bloodshot and my face was all splotchy. How could Vanni want to go anywhere with me?

  I took a deep breath and then splashed cold water on my face. After a quick shower I felt more revived, but suddenly realized I should have brought a change of clothes in with me. Now I had to go out into the cabin in only a robe, and I didn’t know how Vanni would react to the gesture.

  If past history was any indication, odds were not in my favor to hold onto my tenuous vow of celibacy. If he touched me, if he even looked at me, I might be done for.

  He was still sprawled on the bed when I scurried out quickly to grab some clothes, and though I didn’t trust myself to look his direction I could feel his raised eyebrow and smirk from across the tiny cabin.

  Suddenly it felt even tinier.

  I grabbed my clothes and hurried back into the bathroom, and didn’t emerge again until I was dressed in jeans and a casual top.

  Predictably the smirk was plastered firmly in place, but he said nothing as he rose to his feet. Every inch the gentleman he opened the door for me and guided me with the light touch of his hand on my back as we made our way to the late-hour café.

  He didn’t say much until after we were about halfway through our meal. Finally he lowered the boom. “So Graham will be arriving tomorrow,” he mentioned casually as he plucked a fry from his plate.

  I murmured the affirmative but didn’t answer beyond that. Instead I stuffed my face with a large, gooey cheeseburger.

  Vanni, however, was reluctant to let the subject go. “Are you planning to spend any time with him?”

  I shrugged. “We hadn’t really discussed it,” I said, which was true. Beyond those events where we were working with the band, there hadn’t been any plans made to spend together socially. It seemed inevitable, of course. The ship was big but it was a contained environment. Unless we went out of our way to avoid each other, we’d likely cross paths. I knew that we’d both endeavor to make that as painless and as cordial as possible, even though we hadn’t seen each other since that night he left me on the beach.

  Maybe that was going through Vanni’s mind as well. Having the three of us together after that very awkward scenario was probably weighing on his mind too, especially after the fiasco with Jasper.

  I wiped my hands on a napkin. “It’s not what you think it is.”

  “And what do I think it is?” he challenged.

  “Graham and I are… just friends,” I clarified.

  “Were you always?” he wanted to know.

  “No,” I answered honestly as I looked him square in the eye. “But that’s irrelevant. We just want different things, that’s all.”

  “Different things? Or different people?”

  The pile of junk food sitting in my stomach started to rebel. I knew I wasn’t physically up to this conversation, or any conversation that put me on the spot about my clusterfuck of a love life. “Vanni…”

  “Come on, Andy. I’ve been up front with you. I just want to know the truth. Do you love him?”

  I sighed as I sat back against the chair. If only there was a simple answer to that question. Until Vanni came along I wouldn’t have used the word love for anyone because I expected it to be the kind of explosive, life-changing, mind-bending experience that first happened when I was locked into Vanni’s arms for the first time.

  But there was no question that I was attracted to Graham, and I cared about him so much I was willing to abandon Vanni and chase after him because the idea I may have hurt him wounded me to the core. He’d never done one thing to me to deserve my betraying our budding relationship, and in fact offered me a side to romance I hadn’t found in Vanni – at least not consistently. Whereas Vanni had been a steamy affair where we couldn’t get enough of one another, with Graham I felt wanted in every other way outside of the bedroom.

  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.”