The Complete Groupie Trilogy (44 page)

My mouth settled in a firm line as I determined this wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning. And I would do anything necessary to reclaim my happy ending that Talia had done her best to steal.

BOOK 2

ROCK STAR

“Told her all I’ll ever want and all I’ll ever need is just enough to make me leave…”

“She Waits” – Zero 1 featuring Hal Sparks

http://halsparks.com

Chapter One

July 1, 2010. Los Angeles

Vanni

Giovanni Carnevale dragged the suitcase behind him as he let himself into the sunny oceanfront house in Redondo Beach, California. The wall facing the Pacific was almost entirely glass from the ceiling to the floor. An amazing southern California sunset filtered in, casting a vibrant orange glow across the hardwood floors and
eggshell colored walls. A black fireplace sat in one corner, a spiral staircase up to the loft bedroom above wound against another, but one’s eye immediately drew to that spectacular view as the focal point of the room. His interior decorator had positioned a cozy leather sectional couch facing the windows at Vanni’s request. From the instant he saw it Vanni fantasized about all the sunsets that he would share with Andy there.

His throat closed up just to think of her. Ever since he left her in that Philadelphia hotel room he felt like a half of his heart was missing. He had gone to Philadelphia to piece together this next chapter of his life. He’d waited a long time for it, even longer than the music, and he was finally ready to jump off the cliff certain someone would finally be there to catch him. It took him a long time to figure out that someone was Andy, and so once he decided to give over his heart he never dreamed that she wouldn’t be standing right there beside him u
pon this auspicious homecoming.

He left the suitcase at the door and walked over to the open kitchen just off to the right of his entryway. The fridge was pretty bare given that he had been out of town for the last few weeks. There were some non-perishable staples around the cabinets but it was clear he’d have to make a trip to the market at some point.

He barely even wanted to leave the house.

What did sit in the fridge were a few bottles of expensive champagne. These were to celebrate the beginning of his and Andy’s new life together. It never occurred to him that she’d ever say no. Sure they had had their problems but he knew she loved him. He knew that he was stitched just as deeply under her skin as she was under his.

This was why they had spent the last few years alternately running towards and running away from each other. He was stupid, he knew, to have used other women just to ensure she could never hurt him… even when she’d never given him any indication that she would. But no one knew more than Vanni himself that he’d ultimately let her down.

He knew he couldn’t bear it if he gave his heart away once more only to watch the person he entrusted with it squeeze it dry in a bloody grip. He couldn’t stand the idea someone else he depended on to love and protect him would figure out he didn’t deserve it and would ultimately move on down the road to something, or someone, else.

  And yet as he popped the cork on that first bottle of champagne, he knew he couldn’t deny that was exactly what had happened. All this time he thought he could fool her into thinking he could be her knight in shining armor, her rock and roll fantasy come true. But when push came to shove, it was another man who rode to her rescue.

And that was the man she ultimately chose.

He snarled as he thought of Graham. Lucky bastard. He had money. He had power. He’d already had two other wives. And now he had Andy too. She was too kind and too good hearted to leave him after he had become disabled from taking her bullet. That bitch Talia had done more harm by shooting Graham than had she actually shot Andy.

Even as he had the thought he shook it right out of his head. Andy was gone but she wasn’t dead. He’d lost too many people he loved; he didn’t think he could bear it if she wasn’t still on this earth with him in some way. That was the only thing that kept him from walking right out the door and right into the ocean. He couldn’t imagine a world where he’d never be able to look into her sparkling hazel eyes, smell the perfume from her skin, or take those luscious curves into his arms once again whether or not they were his to claim.

Only the sad truth remained she was as far away as the moon. Everything he loved about her was completely out of reach now. Graham’s needs would trump Vanni’s desires for the immediate future. Who knew how long it would take Graham to heal, if he ever would?

Worse, in all the time it would take for him to recuperate Andy was sure to figure out which of the two of them was the best choice for her: Graham, who jumped in front of the bullet, r
ather than Vanni, who ran away.

Fresh tears sprung in his eyes when he remembered that fateful day. Everything happened so quickly, but it ran in a recurring loop in slow motion in his brain. He saw every missed opportunity to protect Andy from the psychopath Vanni himself had inadvertently aimed her direction. He saw the gun and he did what any kid from the streets of Philadelphia and New York would do… he dove for cover. It was a reflex, he didn’t even think about it.

But Graham did. Graham saw where that gun was aimed and was ready to throw his body in the path of that bullet just to save the woman Vanni understood they both loved. Apparently, in that moment, the only one that counted, Graham loved her more.

Vanni ignored his tears as he threw back the bottle and chugged the expensive, effervescent liquid just like water. He wanted to forget. He needed to forget. But how could he? Everything in this new place was designed to share specifically with Andy. There was a brand new cat tower for Simon, and the metronome she had purchased for him sat atop the piano which sprawled under the stairs. He had made his life her life, this woman who had done what no other woman before her had been given a chance to do – sh
e had rejected him.

He walked over to the piano and plopped down onto the bench. He placed the bottle of champagne next to the metronome, which he wound to start. His fingers touched the cool keys of the piano, which slowly and unconsciously found their way through the very first song he ever wrote for her. He remembered how feverishly he wrote that song after he returned from Philadelphia, unable to get those piercing eyes and luscious lips out of his head. All he had want
ed was a kiss and she was gone.

Like now.

“Does she know how I feel?” he sang softly with a catch in his voice. “How much I want this to be real. An angel from a dream I can’t claim…”

His voice trailed off as tea
r splashed against his fingers.

With a growl he launched into an angry song of betrayal. Why was he crying for someone who left him for another man? She was the one who killed their dream. She was no angel. She was heartless, cruel. Worst of all she had figured out his dark secret, that he didn’t deserve her, and she went to the
man who clearly did.

He slammed the wooden fallboard down with a loud bang. Out of frustration he slammed it again and again, gratified by the harsh sound bouncing off of the tall walls of his new place.

Their
new place, he reminded himself. And she’d never even see it. It would be Graham’s house she’d return to when she finally came to Los Angeles. A sloping mansion atop a Malibu cliff it would have taken at least ten of Vanni’s new dwellings to completely fill.

Each thought swept through his head with loud rhythmic ticking of the metronome. He grabbed the bottle of champagne for another glug while he glared at the antique atop his piano. Anger welled up inside of him until it exploded through his lips in an impassioned roar. He kicked back the bench as he rose and took a swing at the metronome with the champagne bottle. Glass shattered along with any liquid that was left
in the bottle across the keys.

He stooped to pick up the heavy bench and swing it almost as effortlessly as a baseball bat against the piano until it cracked right down the middle with a resounding bang which was loud and off key. He didn’t stop, even though the bench broke apart in his hands. He tossed aside the solid wooden legs and resorted instead to the iron fireplace poker to bash the hell out of his expensive piano, his grunts and shouts as loud as the musical
instrument he was dismantling.

It crumbled into kindling as he raged on blindly. Finally his hands surrounded the metronome – the gift that had meant so much to him, the one thing that had turned his heart in a way nothing before it had. It had been so thoughtful, like giving him a piece of his own heart. He knew in that moment she understoo
d him in a way no one else had.

He took the most precious gift he had ever received and hurled it against the opposite wall until it exploded and crashed to the floor in irreparable disarray just
like the piano. Just like him.

There was n
o one there to fix him anymore.

It’d be Graham’s life she’d grace and his broken pieces she’d put back together. And if he walked again it would be her strength that would have healed him. Of that, Vanni was absolutely certain.

He stumbled across the debris to his alcohol cabinet, stocked full. He grabbed the first couple of bottles he came to before he walked out onto the balcony facing the ocean. He couldn’t face the destruction he had wrought upon his new home. He needed air. He needed strength – a strength she stole the minute she turned him down flat. What he would do now that he was no longer graced with that strength? How many times had she saved his ass, even inadvertently? In an almost ironic twist of fate his massive success through Graham’s record company was due almost entirely to her. Hell, even this beach house was due to her in some way. Without her he’d probably be without a career, without his friends, living in his Brooklyn brownstone, working at an Italian restaurant and singing for tips. Jasper Carrington would have made damn certain of that.

But here he was, in an expensive house on the beach he owned outright. He was making money faster than he could spend it thanks to millions of screaming fans all over the world, most of whom couldn’t wait to see Dreaming in Blue, and Giovanni Carnevale, just one more time. He had two hit songs on the radio, a chart-topping CD and offers pouring in from everywhere to use his voice and his image to sell anything from fast food to movie tickets.

It was everything he had always wanted but nothing seemed to matter anymore. Not the music. Not the band. Not even facing another fucking sunset from this spectacular fucking patio.

He slumped on the double sized hammock on his deck, cradling the bottles to his chest. It was a hammock built for two. From the moment he first tried it out he imagined how many hours they’d spend together kissing and cuddling with the Pacific Ocean as their backdrop. He could almost feel her in his arms. He loved the way she filled his embrace. She was so real. So sol
id. And she fit him completely.

She’d been in his head ever since that first dance three years before. He got lost in those eyes and felt those curves mold to every single inch of him like a missing piece of a puzzle. Each touch demanded more. Once he held her he had to kiss her. Once he kissed her he had to make love to her. Once he made love to her he wanted to possess her, body and soul. With her in his arms he made sense. He wasn’t just some wannabe singer taking up space in a bar. In her eyes he was a superstar owning the stage
for a faithful audience of one.

He thought back to the whole debacle with Lourdes, or what he now knew was Mistake Number One. Initially he had been convinced it would be a great publicity stunt to be seen with a beautiful model in all the tabloids. It was purely a marketing move that hurt no one and helped catapult DIB out of obscurity and onto a national stage. Though it was convenient at first, it quickly became an excuse. Lourdes never appreciated being the “other” woman and with her fiery Latin attitude she made Jasper pay for it on regular occasion. When she decided to make a fake relationship a little more real just to make the entitled magnate jealous there seemed little harm in indulging her. Vanni was still a red-blooded – and single – American man and she was a gorgeous, sensual woman. Their relationship of convenience became a fun little dalliance, and it also had the added benefit of ensuring his inaccessibility. He couldn’t get serious with anyone else even if he wanted to. Though he flirted with Andy and wanted to be with Andy, he certainly wasn’t ready to commit to anyone, not for real.

Lourdes was his first get-out-of-commitment-free card.

His lies caught up with him that December. He had fantasized what it would be like to seduce the voluptuous vixen he couldn’t get out of his head, to rise like a god from her embrace. On his birthday, no less – like a brand new awakening. It was planned to be perfect. But after that untimely call from Lourdes Andy no longer looked at him with wonder and fascination. She didn’t open up to him like a sexual flower at his touch, she recoiled away from the disgusting cheater and
liar and user and poser he was.

He didn’t want to stop until that look went away, which it finally did in Las Vegas when they made love for the first time. It took his confessing the truth and of course his readiness to risk it all for the sake of his reputation. He was no deadbeat dad and wouldn’t play one on TV no matter how much Jasper threatened his newfound successes. His reward? Andy opened up and took him into her soul. It went beyond sexual release. When they were locked together in a passionate embrace he felt safe… protected… home.